You invested a good sum of money in the television that you have in the living room of your house. You fought with your operator to let you have the broadband fiber optic line at a relatively affordable price. You use a state-of-the-art device to play your content and religiously pay every month for the most advanced membership offered by your trusted streaming service. And now comes the question: Are you watching your movies and series at the highest possible quality? If you are not absolutely sure of the answer, stay with this article in which we will explain point by point what can reduce the image quality of the television series and movies that we watch in streaming.
Are you taking advantage of the maximum quality of your subscription?
Marketers who work for various technology companies love acronyms and standards . We buy a 4K TV because they tell us it is the best of the best, but not just any one will do. The model that we are going to put at home must be compatible with HDR. We soak up names and always try to find what suits us best. But… do we really get all the technology and features we paid for?
Streaming services have revolutionized the way we consume content. Many of us prefer to pay for a few platforms each month and leave behind the previous model of cable television, which ties you to a decoder and in which you are also subject to schedules and schedules. Each content platform is unique, and they all have their membership that allows you to enjoy 4K content. We normally think that accessing this is as easy as putting in the card and going through the checkout. But there are factors that may be causing you to not fully enjoy the experience you are paying for .
Let’s start with the TV
Let’s start with the most basic. Each television or screen that we use to watch movies and series has a certain resolution. This is given from the factory and what it tells us is the total number of pixels that the panel has. When we talk about a Full HD display , we’re talking about the standard 1,920 by 1,080 pixels. And when we talk about 4K , we really refer to a screen that has approximately 4 million pixels, because 4K is not really a standard as such, oddly enough.
If your television is Full HD (also known as 1080p), it is not that you are seeing your streaming badly, quite the opposite. You are paying for a resolution that you cannot use . For the same reason, if you don’t share your account, you don’t have more devices and you’re paying extra to reach that resolution, you’re wasting part of your budget.
On the other hand, we also usually talk about HDR . This does not refer to pixels, but rather to the dynamic range of tones that the panel can offer. This parameter is standardized, and only a few streaming services offer content for this type of screen.
Each streaming service has its plan
We come to one of the most important points. There are currently two types of subscription services :
single plan
They offer a single membership that is homogeneous for all users . This is the case of Disney + and Apple TV +. Whether or not you have a 4K TV, the only plan you can hire gives you the right to access content in this resolution.
tranche plan
Most platforms have opted for this type of subscription. The basic plans offer more restrained resolutions at cheaper prices. As we want more simultaneous screens or better image quality , we will have to pay a little more.
In this section, each service is a world. Even the same company can offer different plans depending on the country in which you are located. Netflix is the most controversial case of all. Their most basic membership doesn’t even offer HD resolution. The dual-screen plan allows only Full HD resolution, and only the premium plan supports 4K content.
The playback device is important
It is not the same to see the content on your Smart TV than on the mobile phone. There are many streaming services that limit the quality of the content depending on the device we are using:
Limitations by device type and operating system
For example, if you have a mobile phone with QHD resolution, some streaming services like HBO Max (which have a single plan in Spain) will not give you the maximum. The same will happen if you have a mobile with 4K resolution, although they are not quite common. Others have device limitations. Amazon Prime Video offers 4K resolution on Android phones, but not iPhone or iPad. If you have the option, it’s better to watch Prime Video content on Android than on iOS.
Browser limitations
On the rare occasions when a streaming service offers 4K support in the browser, like Netflix , it often doesn’t apply to all browsers. To continue the example, Netflix offers 4K for Microsoft Edge, Safari, and the Netflix app on Windows. The compatibility list may change, but it gives us an idea of where the shots are going. If you’re watching Netflix in Chrome, Firefox, or Brave, you’re not taking advantage of 4K resolution.
Internet connection can play an important role
In many of the video services that we use on the Internet, such as YouTube, we can select the resolution by hand. If at any time we have poor coverage, we can lower the resolution to prevent playback from cutting out. However, in recent years, this technology has been improved, and quality reduction is applied automatically . The exact same thing happens with streaming services, only silently .
If your Internet speed is good and stable —you have your television near the router or directly connected by Ethernet cable—, you will rarely notice a sudden drop in quality. However, if the environment is saturated, you have a bad connection or your router is one of those that has downturns, the video you consume will be affected.
Each service recommends some parameters based on the encoding they give to their content and the chosen resolution. For 4K, Netflix recommends a connection of at least 15 megabits per second . HBO Max requires a better connection, since at least they will ask you for a connection of 25 mbps (although they recommend 50 megabits per second to avoid problems).
Regardless of the Internet plan you have contracted at home, it will depend on the coverage whether or not that bandwidth reaches your television or playback device. If your router is too far away or there are thick walls between the router and your TV, the quality will go down and no one will tell you about it.
