Always Play YouTube Videos in High Definition Mode, When Viewing In Full Screen

When viewing a YouTube video in full screen mode, sometimes the video may appear blurred and distorted. One of the reasons for the poor quality of a YouTube video may be playback problems or bad quality of the video itself.

You can use third-party sites like YouTube XL to watch better quality YouTube videos made especially for large screens and monitors. YouTube has however, one option which will let you automatically switch to the high-definition mode of the video (if available), when viewed in the full screen mode.

To enable the auto HD feature of YouTube videos, login to your YouTube account, go to the settings page and select “Always play HD when switching to full screen (when available)”

Hit “Save changes” and you are done. Make sure you are logged in to your YouTube account while trying to watch the HD version of the video in full screen mode. You can also click on the drop down menu of the YouTube player and adjust the resolution of the video.

Exiting the full screen mode will not return you to the previous state of the video. This is because when you quit the full screen mode, the computer works overtime to scale down the video to fit the size within the player. This may result in a bad playback experience.

Bad Buffering of YouTube Videos While In Full Screen?

Please note that using the auto HD feature might sometimes result in choppy playback, while you are watching it on full screen. Here is an example:

Let us assume you are watching a video in the low quality mode (360p or 480 p). While the video has completely buffered and the slider has turned red, you think that it is wise to watch the video again in high quality? Wrong!

As soon as you switch to the full screen mode, YouTube will start auto buffering the high quality version of the video on your computer. If you are unaware, let me tell you that YouTube stores multiple copies of the same high quality or high-definition video on their servers. Depending upon the source device and the connection speed, YouTube decides which version of the video will be ideally suited for the viewer.

Now since you have overridden YouTube’s default video streaming preferences with the “Always play HD videos” option, YouTube will try to fetch the HD version of the video whenever you turn on the full screen mode. Regardless of whether you have completely buffered the video in its lower quality state !

So it is best advised to manually turn on the HD mode for YouTube videos whenever required. However, if you have an extremely fast Internet connection like wired 3G or 4G, you can go ahead and use the “Always HD” version.

More Tips:

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