Netflix is a phenom of the streaming age with millions of users watch streaming entertainment through the platform daily. If you’re a commuter, you may watch several times a day but that will potentially depend on your mobile data allowance. While the feature is still rolling out, a recent update to the Netflix app now offers you to “save data” while streaming from your mobile network.
A little digging has shown that the change won’t reduced video quality, but is rather through a codec change. The new AV1 video codec is progressively rolling out to Android streaming. Beware though, there is no way to know if you’re actually saving data at the moment. Ghacks refers to the rollout by Netflix and says:
The company notes that “selected titles” make use of AV1 currently but does not mention which titles are available in the new codec and which are not. It is likely that availability will increase over time.
So don’t bank on the data saving at the moment if you’re cutting it fine on your monthly allowance. Keep in mind if you need to save some data, you can download your binge while on Wi-Fi and reap the data savings later.
Have you got a data-saving hack to share? Let us know in the comments
