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EU The Internet Entertainment

Netflix To Reduce EU Bandwidth by 25% (protocol.com) 60

Netflix is cutting back on the bandwidth it takes to stream videos to members in the European Union after a European Commission member voiced concerns over network strain. From a report: "Following the discussions between Commissioner Thierry Breton and Reed Hastings -- and given the extraordinary challenges raised by the coronavirus -- Netflix has decided to begin reducing bit rates across all our streams in Europe for 30 days," a Netflix spokesperson told Protocol. "We estimate that this will reduce Netflix traffic on European networks by around 25 percent while also ensuring a good quality service for our members."
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Netflix To Reduce EU Bandwidth by 25%

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  • I wonder if PornHub would do the same
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *

        The thing is that much of the content already only is 720p and not 1080 or 4K

        Italy gets free premium now though :)

        • Sounds like that's just a fancy title if the bit rate is cut. Bye bye 4k. I wonder how many people have a 4k TV even. I'm sure it's a decent amount but I would be interested in seeing what percentage each bit rate is being used. Is it mostly 4k, 1080p or 720p?

          • I have a good 4K screen in my primary home, with a gigabit connection. I have a usable 4K screen in my second home with a connection topping out at like 14 Mbit/s... That said, that will go to 400 Mbit/s FTTH this year, hopefully.
  • Seems ironic to me that Netflix is throttling. In other news, my ISP is telling me that they've removed bandwidth limits. Surely these are end times.

  • by totallyarb ( 889799 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @02:06PM (#59850036)
    It wouldn't surprise me if at any given time, for every three users actually watching something, there is at least one who's just browsing through the catalog, wading through 100 auto-playing previews for things they have no interest in before finding something they like. Simply turning off auto-preview would save that 25% bandwidth at a stroke.
    • Wish Netflix would kill auto play too.

      I hate it when I come across something that might seem interesting and when I select it to read the description, it starts automatically playing without me selecting play. Or is this just a Roku thing?

    • by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @02:59PM (#59850270)

      For anyone who wasn't aware of it already from your comment, yes, it is now possible to disable Netflix's auto-previews.

      - Go to your Account page [netflix.com]
      - Click on Playback settings
      - Uncheck "Autoplay previews while browsing on all devices"

      Please note that this applies on a profile-by-profile basis, so if you have multiple profiles in your account, you'll need to apply it across each one individually.

    • While I hate auto-playing previews too, 25% of the bandwidth in previews would imply that for every hour you spend watching stuff on Netflix, you spend 20 minutes searching for something to watch (a 3:1 ratio). I don't think it's quite that bad.
  • Panic Torrenting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bluescrn ( 2120492 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @02:26PM (#59850128)
    So now people start to fear an internet outage, and start panic-downloading TV, movies, porn, games, Linux ISOs... causing the whole net to go down?
  • Because staying at home doesn't suck enough.

    Maybe they should save the bandwidth by disabling useless video in team viewer, webex and zoom.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @04:05PM (#59850588)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • If you're not watching it on MS Edge (IIRC), then you're only getting 720p max. There are browser extensions for Chrome/Firefox/etc. to enable 1080p streams in those "unsupported" browsers.

      You can check the currently playing video stats by using the debug key-combo: CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-D

      • If you're not watching it on MS Edge (IIRC), then you're only getting 720p max. There are browser extensions for Chrome/Firefox/etc. to enable 1080p streams in those "unsupported" browsers.

        You can check the currently playing video stats by using the debug key-combo: CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-D

        Are you sure about this??

  • by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @04:55PM (#59850776) Homepage
    Article mixes the two. In the UK at least Netflix pricing higher for HD streams. If they're cutting it, then I'd like a lower bill please.
    • by nashv ( 1479253 )

      There is no difference at the moment. UK is subject to EU regulation until the end of the year.

  • Netflix offers 4K at rates between 12 and 25 Mbit/s, so cutting by 25% is not a huge deal there at least. Likewise, 1080p goes from 3 Mbit/s to 8 Mbit/s or so, so again, cutting by 25% means the quality gets slightly worse.
  • cut the price by 30% so no one gets the excuse to pirate it ? ... i mean its all pirates here after all ! (and socialists ... and leftie muslim dicksuckers and jews and stuff other words that probably will be filtered) actually not ... most piracy seems to be happening in the free world last time i hurrd ...

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