No More HD! Netflix, Prime, Hotstar Streaming Gets A Bandwidth Cut To SD. Only 480p Now, Folks!

To the point: Watchers of OTT platforms, we got news for you. Now your fave TV shows and movies would stream faster on your mobile devices. But there is a teenie-tiny catch, it won’t be in HD or Ultra-HD anymore. It would be in SD, that means 480p. (Aagaye woh din wapas).

Amongst all the things happening during this quarantine period at home, one thing that had taken a hit was cellular data which was slow as a snail. Of course, the whole country is working from home or is home, hence the extra pressure on the internet service. 

Now that we are in a total lockdown, Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) had written to the government seeking an issuance of directive to video-streaming platforms should ease the network. And they have. 

In a virtual meeting held on Tuesday streaming services have decided to temporarily suspend HD and Ultra-HD services in India during lockdown, till April 14. “It was unanimously agreed that as an exceptional measure, all companies will immediately adopt measures, including temporarily defaulting HD and ultra-HD streaming to SD content or offering only SD content, at bitrates no higher than 480p on cellular networks. These voluntary measures will be in effect until April 14. All participants are immediately taking measures,” a press release said.

The meet was called in by Uday Shankar, Chairman, Star & Disney India and attended by NP Singh (Sony), Sanjay Gupta (Google), Ajit Mohan (Facebook), Sudhanshu Vats (Viacom18), Gaurav Gandhi (Amazon Prime Video), Punit Goenka (Zee), Nikhil Gandhi (Tiktok), Ambika Khurana (Netflix), Karan Bedi (MX Player) and Varun Narang (Hotstar).

So no more HD and Ultra-HD on phone at least!