YouTube restores 1080p streaming on smartphones in India, but only over Wi-Fi

At the time of writing, we did not get the option to set the resolution to 4K.

Moneycontrol News

July 16, 2020 / 19:31 IST

As the coronavirus pandemic hit India, the country saw a surge in internet traffic. In order to ensure that the surge didn’t cause a strain on India’s internet infrastructure, YouTube restricted video streaming quality on its mobile app to 480p in March.

Now, videos on the streaming platform are back to the 1080p default option on both iOS and Android. Though videos still automatically start in 480p for the time being, you can increase the resolution to 1080p by default. At the time of writing, we did not get the option to set the resolution to 4K.

It is worth noting that you cannot watch 1080p videos on mobile data; the Full HD resolution was only available over Wi-Fi. If you have a stable Wi-Fi connection, you can watch videos on YouTube in 1080p at 60fps in India on your mobile device. You will not be able to watch content in 1080p using mobile hotspot as well.

You can still watch videos in 1080p and 4K resolution using web browsers on a desktop, although videos were limited to 480p resolution on Chrome for mobile. The development comes as offices in cities across the country are gearing up to reopen.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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