How To See If Netflix Is Downgrading Your Picture Quality

It might involve connecting a keyboard to your TV, which is as fun as it sounds.

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If you're paying the ever-increasing price of a Netflix subscription, its in your best interest to get your money's worth from it. But while you can shell out for the 4K experience, you can't guarantee you'll get that pristine quality at all times. That's not to say Netflix is withholding promised subscription perks, but it does make choices on your behalf. Like every other streamer, Netflix uses a variable bit rate codec for its streams. That means it prioritizes a consistent stream, and will throttle your picture quality if it thinks doing so will prevent the stream from buffering. If you've ever squinted at your TV and wondered whether that episode of Love is Blind is actually in full quality, you weren't hallucinating.

Thankfully, as one of the best streaming services...

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