LOS ANGELES: Almost two months ago, Netflix said it would reduce video bit rates for 30 days in Europe, aiming to reduce bandwidth consumed by customers by 25% during the Covid-19 crisis.
It has now been 55 days since that announcement – and Netflix customers in Europe and the UK say the streamer is still delivering throttled HD and Ultra HD video, in some cases with bit rates at less than 50% usual. They say that has caused noticeable degradation of image quality, including blurring and pixelation, especially on bigger TV screen sizes.