Please add an option to force use different bitrate/quality settings

[ebbi2017]

Hallo,

thx for this beautiful app.

It would be nice to have an option to force use different bitrate/quality settings for reasons:

• when a video from mediathek isn't available in the high bitrate, but in medium or low ones (it will not even play when trying to load in high bitrate)
• forcing low bitrate whenever possible when using metered internet to limit traffic no matter which global Android LAN settings are used. For when you can't tell Android it's a metered WLAN. Please make another slider regardless of used WLAN.
• force low bitrate when you have a slow WLAN

Please make an option to stream mediathek in low bitrate also, as there is in the download section.

There's also an app called Bradybound (com.oxplot.bradybound.8.apk), which can limit the dl speed (but will ignore the upload speed).
This could be helpful for live streaming, if it automatically switches to lower qualities, which otherwise isn't able to load in low bitrate/quality. I just tried Bradybound set to ca. 100-300 KB/s with streaming from mediathek. It doesn't lower the bitrate sadly like it would when streaming from the website or mediathekviewweb.de. It instead stops, then caches and plays the next chunks as possible.
With live TV streaming this Bradybound limiting method works (you can see the difference in the channel logos), but this method is limiting the whole Android bandwith until you change it again.
Is there another way to force live streaming to use lowest settings by default?

Thx in advance!

[cemrich]

Thank you very much for your suggestion!

As a temporary workaround for mediathek shows you can share indiviual qualities to your favourite video player.

it will not even play when trying to load in high bitrate

This should never happen. Can you provide an example video that does not play back correctly?

Live streaming has a completely diferrent technical setup than mediathek shows. It should already use adaptive streaming and use the correct bitrate, framerate and video size depending on network quality, screen size and device capabilities.

Mediathek shows consist of up to three separate mp4 files. There is currently no elegant way to seamlessly sand adaptively switch between them

I see a view improvements we can make to address your issues:

1. Provide a way to play back single mediathek show videos using an user selected quality (overriding the one selected in settings)
2. or expose a player menu for mediathek show videos where the user can temporarily select another quality (overriding the one selected in settings)
3. Expose a player menu for live streams where the user can temporarily select another quality (like the youtube player)