When you’ve fully settled into your favorite drink, heaping snacks, and the show you’ve been waiting for for months, nothing kills the atmosphere faster than the moment your bandwidth drops and your screen turns into a pixelated mess.
The occasional buffering can be dealt with, but the loss of quality (with no clear way to force it back) really ruins the experience. With Netflix, this is an issue I run into more often than I expected (even when my connection is stable). It turns out there’s actually a hidden setting in Netflix that gives you more control over the quality of your streaming (I wish I’d discovered it sooner).
Netflix can’t lock video quality
Whether you like it or not, Netflix decides for you
On YouTube, if the playback quality of the video you’re watching suddenly drops, it’s usually very easy to fix. If you have a stable internet connection, simply setting Click on the icon and select your preferred quality.
This means that if your internet is slow, YouTube will pause the video to buffer higher quality chunks, but the video quality will remain constant (adjust quality to match your internet speed to prevent buffering).[自動](unless you select an option).
Netflix uses the same technology as YouTube on its backend, called Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR). However, the difference between the two is that Netflix does not allow you to manually override it within the player. Instead, its algorithm prioritizes uninterrupted playback above all else.
When your internet speed drops, Netflix immediately lowers the quality to keep the video moving, rather than pausing to buffer. They are said to believe that a pixelated video that keeps moving is better than a crisp quality that pauses to load (which they are paying for).
Netflix hides settings that control video quality
But it’s not something you can ignore
Luckily, Netflix doesn’t let you choose quality directly in the player, but there is a hidden setting in your account that lets you control how much data each screen uses. In turn, this allows you to control the quality of the video you actually get.
Netflix sets data usage per screen as follows automatic By default, it automatically adjusts video quality based on your internet speed to prevent buffering. This will keep playback smooth, but it also means your video may drop below 720p, even if your connection can handle higher quality.
However, to change this, go to Netflix, select your profile picture in the top right corner of the screen, and then[アカウント]Click. Then select Edit settingsClick Playback settings On the next page. From there, you’ll see options for data usage per screen. automatic, low, mediumand expensive. Just choose the settings that match your desired quality.
The “Low” option limits your Netflix data usage to 0.3 GB per hour. This is great for saving data and is definitely an option you should enable when using cellular data, but it does result in grainy image quality. The “Medium” option increases the limit to 0.7 GB per hour, giving you decent quality without consuming too much data.
I had no idea that these small adjustments could make Netflix so much better.
A few small changes can greatly improve your Netflix viewing experience.
However, if you want the highest possible video quality,[高]option must be enabled. Up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD. This effectively tells Netflix to prioritize video quality over data savings, ensuring you get the best quality your plan and device can support.
When you set your data usage to High, shows and movies stream consistently at the highest possible quality without sudden drops. If your connection can’t maintain the bandwidth, Netflix will pause buffering until enough data is loaded, rather than automatically reducing quality. This is very different from Netflix’s default automatic settings. Automatic settings reduce quality at the expense of pausing to keep playback smooth.
Please note that the maximum quality you can receive is strictly limited by your Netflix subscription plan. Both the Standard and Ad-supported plans have a video quality cap of 1080p, while the Premium plan lets you stream in Ultra HD (4K) on supported devices. So, the steps above will ensure that you get 1080p instead of 720p if you’re watching on the Standard plan, or 4K resolution if you’re on the Premium plan, ensuring you’ll always be able to stream at the highest quality your plan allows.
However, if you’re using one of the Standard tiers and want to take advantage of Ultra HD, you’re out of luck. No matter how high you set your data usage per screen, the highest resolution available is 1080p.
Get the quality you pay for
This setting isn’t strictly hidden, but most users don’t realize it’s there, and even fewer know how much control they have over video quality and data usage. So if poor streaming quality is one of the reasons you avoid subscribing to Netflix, adjusting this one setting can change your entire experience.
