Did Amazon remove the "HD" icon from the Prime Video web player?

Silly Goose On The Loose

Silly Goose On The Loose

Silly Goose On The Loose

Mobster
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9 Apr 2012
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There used to be an HD icon that would show up in the bottom left when playing a video through Chrome. But now it's not there anymore, did Amazon remove the icon?

Can anyone try and play a video on Amazon Prime on your PC/Mac and see if you still see it?
 
I've not noticed the resolution indicator on the desktop site player in awhile :( which is kind of annoying, still there when using the Fire Stick, etc.
 
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HD playback on web has been removed everywhere for years now... Unless you possibly firestick or the google equivalent. They still sell you "HD" but it's not there really, it's 480p at best.
The DRM was cracked a while back and they silently decided to remove the HD option to prevent people downloading the films in HD.

Just try youtube, if you bought a movie, start playing it, then play the HD trailer for that movie in a second window you will immediately see the difference!
 
BusError said:
HD playback on web has been removed everywhere for years now... Unless you possibly firestick or the google equivalent. They still sell you "HD" but it's not there really, it's 480p at best.
The DRM was cracked a while back and they silently decided to remove the HD option to prevent people downloading the films in HD.

Just try youtube, if you bought a movie, start playing it, then play the HD trailer for that movie in a second window you will immediately see the difference!
Click to expand...

I dunno about everything, as some content has different rights management policies, but a lot of content on Amazon looks the same at "best" quality on PC and HD on the Fire Stick Max on my setup. Often neither are as good as the YT trailer sometimes even "UHD" isn't as good as the trailer either. Other sites like Disney Plus, etc. are a mixed bag with a fair few having very poor quality "HD" on desktop.

I only noticed the playback quality label disappeared on Amazon about a year ago or so - if using some newer versions of browsers the default DRM settings won't support anything higher than 480p unless you do advanced tweaking i.e. changing media.eme.hdcp-policy-check.enabled to false in about:config on Firefox.

They are kind of wasting their time though - there are cheap generic HDMI capture devices which are fully HDCP compatible which have barely any quality loss - kind of ironic when the expensive stuff like Elgato and higher intentionally won't work with protected video. So they aren't preventing anyone serious about copying content while everyone else suffers.
 
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The quality isnt great through PC, so I use an old firestick in the monitor if I am ever watching Prime at the PC, just switch HDMI input
 
BusError said:
BTW I tried again and sure enough, it is a daylight robbery at least on youtube. Buy HD, get 480p -- no explanation or any reference about it.
Click to expand...

What browser are you using? as I touched on above especially recent versions of Firefox you have to use advanced tweaks to get better quality (still limited compared to the stream sticks, etc. :( ) on desktop now and/or some of them the quality is reduced on desktop compared to their Windows app :(
 
koolpc said:
I tried to use a fire stick to watch a movie once but it got out of control and melted the tv!
Click to expand...

I suspect a lot of people have done it, but a girl I know once melted half the bottom off her TV due to placing candles underneath (and leaving them unattended).
 
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