Is your Netflix really running in the best resolution? So you really get what you pay for

Netflix may not be running in the best resolution available on your PC. We’ll show you how to check and get the most out of it.

Watch Test Patterns | Netflix
If you want to watch a film or series on Netflix, you naturally want to stream it in the highest resolution. After all, Netflix even advertises that it offers its premium customers selected content in high-resolution 4K.

The big but: Even if you have a premium subscription, you don’t automatically watch all films and series in 4K. On the one hand, not all content is available in high resolution, and on the other hand, Netflix throttles the quality in the two major browsers Chrome and Firefox to a measly 720p.

If you watch Netflix frequently on your PC, you should therefore check how high the picture quality actually is. Here are two tricks to help you find out, and tools you can use to improve Netflix quality on PC.

If you want to know how good the Netflix playback quality is, you can start the browser application and enter “test patterns” in the search field. As a result, you will be shown a series, the episodes of which play different test images. If you start any episode, you can see the current playback quality at the top right of the screen.

If you want to know how good the playback quality is for certain films or series, start them and then hold down the [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Alt] + [D] keys – Netflix will then show you along with many more Information the current video resolution

How to improve the playback quality in Netflix
If you watch Netflix in Chrome or Firefox, films and series are displayed in 720p quality at most, the lowest HD resolution.
The picture only gets better with the free browser extensions Netflix 1080p for Google Chrome and Firefox , which at least displays Netflix in Full HD quality, which is also the optimum for most monitors. Cool: Because the add-on works across platforms, it is not limited to Windows. So you can also enjoy Netflix in 1080p on Linux.

How it works? The add-on modifies the browser ID of the browser in such a way that Netflix assumes that your browser can play videos with a 1080p resolution. Once installed, you only have to clear your browser cache, reopen Netflix and restart a series episode or movie once. The video will now play in 1080p in the browser window, which you can check using the keyboard shortcut presented above.