I wonder if there will be any refund for users who paid for HD or 4K.
2 Likes
Seeing as large parts of Europe and most of the UK are within reach of broadcast TV, getting a temporary broadcast channel would take a load off the data networks. If the broadcast channel was HD versus streaming being SD, that would give an incentive for those who could receive broadcast to make the shift to it. I’ve no idea how sign-in could be handled, but I think there have been members only broadcast channels before.
Satellite is an existing option that doesn’t cane the data networks too.
I’m making the assumption that working from home / self isolation is likely to be needed for longer than the politicians have discussed.
You cannot choose what to watch with broadcast. You would essentially need a channel for every piece of content that Netflix has.
As a customer in the UK who pays extra for 4k I’ll be pretty annoyed if they don’t charge me the standard package this month!
True, digital and satellite TV is indeed a way to preserve the bandwidth.
Most people can just do that already as most TVs are fitted with a decoder, and most houses in the UK for example also have satellite TV.
They have access to 100s channels of stuff, so on-demand is less issue if you can find something playing you like.
I think it would be wise for all the media streaming services to prepare to do similar things.
Twitch for example could temporarily give all basic accounts the multi-resolution option.
Live streaming uses twice the data because first you send it, and keep sending.
I have said it before, do we need to be watching TWiT (which is a low-motion panel show) in 60 fps at a massive resolution ?
Few will be watching on a huge TV and it is not sport or an action movie.
Regular 720 HD is more than enough, and for most shows SD is just fine.
True. It might work for one very popular item off one channel, but I get that it’s incompatible with the on demand nature of the service. Ah well.
The point is if someone has paid for a higher quality service and not getting it, should they be dropped to a lower tier.
1 Like
Pommster, you make an excellent point. I never gave it any thought of customers paying for the higher stream quality and not getting it. That piece will be interesting to watch in the upcoming weeks.
1 Like