Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

YouTube reduces default video quality for all users for one month

By Simon Cohen March 24, 2020

Following similar measures already taken by YouTube in Europe, the Alphabet-owned video giant has decided to switch the default quality of its videos to standard definition for all of its users, according to Bloomberg.

The move is a global one, though it’s not a restriction per se. Users still have the ability to switch to a higher resolution if one is available, but this will have to be done on a video by video basis.

In Europe, officials had asked companies such as Netflix and YouTube to throttle the quality of their video content as a way of proactively helping to reduce the load on the region’s internet infrastructure. Currently, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ have all voluntarily complied with this request.

However, no such request has been issued so far by U.S. officials, which makes YouTube’s decision a curious one. “We continue to work closely with governments and network operators around the globe to do our part to minimize stress on the system during this unprecedented situation,” Google said in a statement, according to Bloomberg, and the publication claims that YouTube’s decision is “a preemptive measure given growing concerns at the government level.”

As recently as March 19, Digital Trends reported that network capacity in the U.S. was not under threat due to an increase in the amount of usage arising from coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19. Nonetheless, we’ve reached out to data analysis company BroadbandNow to see if this has changed with the growing number of Americans being advised to stay home if possible. We’ve also reached out to Amazon to see if the company’s Prime Video platform has any plans to change its streaming quality here. We’ll update this article as soon as we hear back from them.

If you’re among the millions of people staying put right now and you’re looking for some tips on how to make the best of the situation, we have a comprehensive guide to staying home, including:

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Contributing Editor, A/V

Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…

Audio / Video

This long-awaited YouTube TV feature is a channel-flipper’s dream

The previous channel feature on YouTube TV on a TV.

The move from cable to streaming for live TV changed a lot of things. Choice, for one. (We have more.) Price, for another. (You're likely paying less.) But not all changes were great. If you're of the channel-surfing variety — or love to flip back and forth between two channels — you've likely been missing that feature.

YouTube TV — the most popular streaming service in the U.S. with more than 8 million subscribers — has addressed the latter. After having been teased in some A/B testing for a while now (that is, some folks saw it, and most didn't), it looks like the ability to hop back and forth between two channels is now rolling out more broadly.

Audio / Video

If you don’t see CBS in 4K on YouTube TV, try this

Super Bowl in 4K on CBS on YouTube TV.

A quick heads up if you have the 4K add-on for YouTube TV but aren't seeing the option to watch Super Bowl 2024 in 4K on CBS: It's likely because you're using a custom sort on your live channel listings. (Which is something you might have done if you want to hide YouTube TV channels that you never watch.) That'a bad enough for the game itself, and it also means you won't be able to enjoy the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 4K.

This is a known problem — and has been for years — anytime YouTube TV adds a new channel to the listing. If you're not using the default sort on the live channel listings, a new channel will appear at the bottom of the listings, which is bad enough. But worse is that it's hidden by default until you actively go in and unhide it.

Audio / Video

YouTube TV: plans, pricing, channels, how to cancel, and more

The YouTube TV on a Roku TV.

When you think of streaming video, you think YouTube. And so YouTube TV — Google's live TV streaming service — very much just makes sense for a lot of people. Designed for those who want to cut the cord and ditch their cable or satellite subscriptions (and known in the industry as a multichannel video programming distributor, or MPVD), YouTube TV competes in the same arena as other streaming television services like DirecTV Stream (formerly known as AT&T TV Now and DirecTV Now), Sling TV, FuboTV, and Hulu With Live TV.

And YouTube TV offers a unique mix of features that make it very appealing, so much so that it's now the No. 1 service in the U.S. in terms of the number of paid subscribers, with more than 8 million subscribers as of February 2024 — up more than 3 million since Google last gave an update in mid-2022. The popularity is due to several factors. YouTube TV is easy to use. It's got a selection of channels that's competitive with all its rivals. And the YouTube TV price is competitive, too. You're able to watch YouTube TV on pretty much any modern device. And the fact that parent company Alphabet (aka Google) has been marketing the heck out of it the past few years certainly hasn't hurt, either.