How do video streaming services like Netflix automatically adjust or switch video quality/bitrate without pausing or interrupting the video playback?
Edit: for example, when connection speeds drop (like during network congestion) and Netflix automatically switches to a lower quality stream.
In: 4
Almost all streaming services will buffer, even if just a fraction of a second. If there’s any issues with your or the streaming service’s connection, they can detect it and drop your quality before you get a complete interruption.
The technology to stream video actually streams video faster than necessary. The client knows that it needs 1 minute of video every 1 minute.
What it really does is download more video than it needs, so let’s for simplicity sake (these aren’t the real numbers) say it first downloads 2 minutes of video and then lets you start watching, it is downloading the video that is a few minutes further into the video than you are watching, if it starts to detect that it took 1.1 minutes to download 1 minute of video it will start to ask for the next chunk of video at a lower resolution until it is getting at least 1.1 minute of video every minute, keeping the buffer full and staying ahead of what you are actively watching.
Since it figured out it wasn’t getting enough video in a section you haven’t gotten to you yet it is able to make adjustments before you get to that part.
If it starts to be able to download 1.5 minutes of video in 1 minute it will start to ask for higher resolution blocks and it is constantly doing that in the background in the buffer that is ahead of where you are watching.
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