Photo: Not a Tesla App | Edited
In January, the YouTube app in Tesla cars started displaying videos in 360p resolution, forcing owners to find workarounds. After two months, Tesla finally fixed its YouTube app, and videos can show in 1080p resolution again.
"What a beautiful infotainment screen you have, sir, it would be a shame to watch 360p videos on it." We don't know whether Google or Tesla was to blame for the resolution downgrade on Tesla's YouTube app, but the users were the ones to suffer. You'd imagine the disappointment when they discovered at the end of January that they could only access 360p resolution videos in the native YouTube app. The drop-down menu that should've allowed to change the resolution was also non-functional.
Being such a popular option, users looked for workarounds, and soon they found two solutions, although none was straightforward. One involved opening YouTube in Tesla's browser and forcing the resolution to 1080 via a string command containing the 'vq' parameter. It wasn't long until some users figured out that you could change the resolution using the left scroll wheel. It wasn't easy, though, as you needed to hold the drop-down box on the touchscreen and, while doing so, rock the left steering wheel button to the left to select a resolution.
Both solutions were cumbersome, and we're sure many Tesla owners used the YouTube app even with the resolution limited to 360p. Thankfully, Tesla finally updated the app and re-enabled the menus that allow changing the resolution via the touchscreen. Make no mistake, the default resolution is still 360p, but the users can now easily change it from the settings. Not only that, but you can also adjust the playback speed and toggle captions, previously unavailable functions.
As revealed by Not a Tesla App, it's still not working as it should because there's no drop-down menu to pop up. Instead, the values change with every tap on the appropriate button on the screen. For instance, when you tap the resolution button, the value will change from 360p to 480p, 720p, and so on. This is still much better than trying cumbersome gimmicks to adjust the video.
The impressive screen real estate in Tesla cars allows for watching videos or playing games while charging, helping owners kill time. YouTube is also a popular streaming service, so being unable to watch high-quality videos was a bummer for many. After all, what use can a big screen be if you cannot enjoy full-HD videos on it? The video quality limit may have been Google's fault, confusing Tesla with other mobile devices with much smaller screens.
On the other hand, it could as well be Tesla's trying to limit data consumption. Streaming videos in full HD is data intensive, and Tesla would like to limit how much data users consume. Tesla reserves the right to limit the connectivity bandwidth when data usage is deemed excessive and exceeds a fair daily usage, as per a support article on Tesla's website. Still, Tesla owners could not change the video resolution even when connected to a WiFi network.
Being such a popular option, users looked for workarounds, and soon they found two solutions, although none was straightforward. One involved opening YouTube in Tesla's browser and forcing the resolution to 1080 via a string command containing the 'vq' parameter. It wasn't long until some users figured out that you could change the resolution using the left scroll wheel. It wasn't easy, though, as you needed to hold the drop-down box on the touchscreen and, while doing so, rock the left steering wheel button to the left to select a resolution.
Both solutions were cumbersome, and we're sure many Tesla owners used the YouTube app even with the resolution limited to 360p. Thankfully, Tesla finally updated the app and re-enabled the menus that allow changing the resolution via the touchscreen. Make no mistake, the default resolution is still 360p, but the users can now easily change it from the settings. Not only that, but you can also adjust the playback speed and toggle captions, previously unavailable functions.
As revealed by Not a Tesla App, it's still not working as it should because there's no drop-down menu to pop up. Instead, the values change with every tap on the appropriate button on the screen. For instance, when you tap the resolution button, the value will change from 360p to 480p, 720p, and so on. This is still much better than trying cumbersome gimmicks to adjust the video.
The impressive screen real estate in Tesla cars allows for watching videos or playing games while charging, helping owners kill time. YouTube is also a popular streaming service, so being unable to watch high-quality videos was a bummer for many. After all, what use can a big screen be if you cannot enjoy full-HD videos on it? The video quality limit may have been Google's fault, confusing Tesla with other mobile devices with much smaller screens.
On the other hand, it could as well be Tesla's trying to limit data consumption. Streaming videos in full HD is data intensive, and Tesla would like to limit how much data users consume. Tesla reserves the right to limit the connectivity bandwidth when data usage is deemed excessive and exceeds a fair daily usage, as per a support article on Tesla's website. Still, Tesla owners could not change the video resolution even when connected to a WiFi network.
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