Most phones come out with HD displays standard, so we may as well use them to watch HD content, right? A lot of the content being streamed is either in 1080p or 4K resolution, and they show up amazingly on our phone’s HDR AMOLED displays. This is why it’s frustrating not being able to stream HD content on Netflix and other services.
Some Pixels can’t stream HD content
This problem persisted since last year with several users reporting the problem. While trying to stream HD content on streaming services, they would only get standard definition. That’s still better than people whose phones wouldn’t even stream at all. According to Android Police, the problem was in how the services were streaming the content. When streaming, the phones were supposed to use a DRM (Digital Rights Management) solution known as Widevine L1. This ensures that you have a very secure stream coming from service to device. The “L1” is the highest level of security, and it allows for HD playback. The issue is that the devices randomly switched to the less-secure Widevine L3 certification. This certification, of course, doesn’t allow for HD content streaming.
The Android 12L feature drop fixed this HD bug
Fortunately, Google provided a solution in the form of an Android 12L feature drop. This feature drop came recently, as Android 12L is finally launching officially. The drop brought several user-facing changes like new features and tweaks. It also brought some changes under the hood. With this, Google confirmed that it addressed the streaming problem. At the time of writing this article, the feature drop landed for all Pixel phones between the Pixel 3a and the Pixel 5a. The Pixel 3 was excluded, and the Pixel 6 phones will get the update later this month. If you haven’t gotten the latest feature drop, check your settings to see if you have a system update pending. If not, it might not have made it to you just yet.
