Watch Netflix in 1080p on Linux and unsupported browsers
The Netflix video quality that streams are delivered in depends on a number of factors. There is the customer's Internet line which may affect it but also the device, operating system and program used to stream Netflix videos.
On Windows PCs, for instance, 4K playback is only available if you use Microsoft Edge or the Netflix Windows Store app. If you use Chrome, Firefox, or any other browser, all you get is 720p streams by default with seemingly no option to improve the quality of the stream.
In fact, the only browsers that support 1080p playback on Netflix officially are Safari on Mac OS X, Internet Explorer on Windows, and Google Chrome on Chrome OS. That's bad news if you don't use any of the operating systems or prefer to use a different browser.
Netflix 1080p
Netflix 1080p is a new browser extension for Google Chrome and Firefox (a fork). It should work in other browsers that support Chrome's extensions system.
The extension enables support for 1080p on Netflix in the browsers. Netflix customers can use Chrome or Firefox, on any supported operating system, to watch streams in 1080p using those browsers.
This overrides Netflix's -- seemingly artifical -- streaming quality limitation. The extension is especially useful for Linux users as it unlocks 1080p video streams on Netflix on Linux machines since that is not supported officially by Netflix.
As you can see on the screenshot above, the Test Patterns video reveals that the video plays in a resolution of 1920x1080 in Google Chrome. Just search for Test Patterns and play the video to test the stream quality after installing the add-on in your browser.
You can switch bitrates with the shortcut Ctrl-Shift-Alt-S on Netflix. Select 4300 Kbps or 5800 Kbps for 1920x1080 (the values may be different depending on the video, usually a bit lower).
The developer of the Netflix 1080p extension explains how the extension works on the project's GitHub page. Basically, what it does is add the 1080p playback profile to the browser while on Netflix so that it becomes available.
The developer compared Netflix playback in Chrome on Chrome OS with Chrome on PCs and noticed that Netflix tests the user agent to append the 1080p profile to the list of supported playback profiles.
Closing Words
Netflix 1080p worked fine during tests for the most part. Some videos don't support 1080p playback, however, and there is nothing that you can do about that unfortunately.
Now You: Which browser/device do you use to play Netflix or other Internet video streams?
Related articles:
- 4K Netflix in Browser? Only with Microsoft Edge
- Control Netflix's stream quality and block spoilers with Super Netflix
- Download shows with the Netflix app for Windows
- How to get Netflix 1080p or 4K on non-Windows 10 devices
- Netflix winning against unblocking services?
Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?
Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.
Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.
huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.
yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.
Error:
Buidling font Cache pop-up
Solution:
Open VLC player.
On Menu Bar:
Tools
Preferences
(at bottom – left side)
Show settings — ALL
Open: Video
Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”
Save
Exit
Re-open – done.
Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts
Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc
Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.
@Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.
Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?
I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…
/thanks
/j
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.
No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure
Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me
I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).
Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?