Getting Lower Quality While Trying To Watch YouTube Livestreams

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1

Description of the issue:
This issue has been occurring for quite some time. Whenever I try to watch YouTube livestreams, the quality automatically lowers to 480p. If I attempt to switch to a higher quality, the stream lags, and after 2-3 seconds, it starts buffering and experiences frame rate issues. I have tried toggling hardware acceleration on and off, but the issue persists in both cases. I also attempted switching my network, but the result remained the same.

How can this issue be reproduced?

  1. Open a YouTube livestream and attempt to switch to a higher quality.
  2. Observe whether the stream lags, buffers, or experiences frame rate issues.

Expected result:
The stream should play smoothly even at higher quality

Brave Version (check About Brave):
Version 1.75.180 Chromium: 133.0.6943.126 (Official Build) (64-bit)

2

Falls back to the video capture utility that is invoked when javascript is enabled on youtube. They literally are watching what you do and causes lag.

3

Nobody is watching you. And the component you’re referencing is not the source of lag. Please do not hijack other users threads – I will see if I can get a have a dev to respond to your thread later today.

@ZEMO,
Can you please tell me what version of Windows OS you’re using? Also, to rule out/check to see if things like extensions and your data needing to be cleared, can you please try opening a Guest window (Menu --> More tools --> Guest window), close your original browser window (so only the guest window is open) and try watching a YT live stream there and see if you get the same issue?

4
  1. The version of Windows OS, I am using is Windows 11 (Version 10.0.26120 Build 26120)
  2. I tried checking out the guest profile, and in there the livestreams are running very smoothly. Could you please suggest me a solution for my normal account as well?
5

@ZEMO thanks for testing.
So this points to there being something contained within your browser profile that is causing the issue. There are typically a few main causes for this that we can rule out:

  1. You have an extension installed in the browser that is conflicting with the browser and/or the livestream process. If you have any extensions installed, can you please try disabling them and test to see if this helps the quality of the stream?
  2. There may be some “bad/stale data” in your browser cache for Youtube (or just the browser in general). To start, you can try clearing cache/site data for Youtube specifically by visiting Youtube.com, clicking the “Tune” icon on the left side of the address bar, then Site settings and Delete data on the next page. Then, refresh the page (you’ll likely have to log back in) and test the live stream quality again and see if this helps.