Netflix has accepted EU’s request to reduce the streaming quality from High Definition to Standard Definition. This will prevent internet networks from collapsing due to the very high usage of the internet at a time when people are locked down to prevent the spread of the pandemic Coronavirus. Complete Coverage: Coronavirus
Crux of the Matter
Saving Internet Breakdown Amidst Coronavirus scare, governments have declared border closures and public holidays to stop the virus spread, forcing a large number of people to stay indoors. In the European Union (EU), people started working from home. The need for continuous internet connection became quite important. It is also very necessary for people to remain in touch with important information about the pandemic. If the internet network collapses due to high usage, then it will be quite difficult to pass on important information and can halt important work.
Netflix and Chill An increase in the number of people staying at home will result in an increase in the usage of the Internet. Streaming a Netflix video for 1 hour in HD consumes 3 GB whereas in SD consumes 1 GB. Therefore, an EU official made a request to Netflix to reduce the video quality so that less data is consumed and the internet does not collapse due to high bandwidth.
Netflix has agreed to reduce the quality from HD to SD. Further, it will continue to follow this quality for streaming for the upcoming 30 days. EU officials have informed that they would work with a regulator that oversees electronic communications in the bloc to set up a mechanism to keep a check on Internet usage.
YouTube has joined Netflix in reducing streaming quality across Europe to make sure the internet doesn't go down https://t.co/iGFqMFys4t — CNN International (@cnni) March 20, 2020
Curiopedia
Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion – Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion (VMAF) is an objective full-reference video quality metric developed by Netflix in cooperation with the University of Southern California and the Laboratory for Image and Video Engineering (LIVE) at The University of Texas at Austin. It predicts subjective video quality based on a reference and distorted video sequence. The metric can be used to evaluate the quality of different video codecs, encoders, encoding settings, or transmission variants.
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