Hi. I've got a playlist full of US channels but most of them are in HD so I can't watch them.
What are my options?
I do believe that it is very very unlikely that the pirates will start streaming in different qualities plus it seems like there's no way to contact them.
Thanks.
IPGuys is primarily SD quality and from all reviews is very solid and stable. I know a few services offer both HD and SD for most of their English channels. Flawless and WSSPremium come to mind.
By slow, whats speeds are we talking about?. Your internet speed might not be the problem as it could be the device, app, server or many other variables. 8mbps per second is the lowest recommended speed and to be honest, 8mbps on a stable connection with only one device streaming will keep up easily with 1080p streams.
I recall using 4mbps connection with little problems streaming SD and 720p streams
Dash MPEG streaming should fix this problem, but I don't know of a single provider using it. This is what services like netflix and youtube use where the quality adjusts on the fly depending on bandwidth. There are only even a handful of freely available streams that use it.
Cross your fingers for the new AV1 codec that will come out in January and lets hope it takes off. It may take some time to develop support though. If you only have 1mbps download it might be able to put up a low quality 720p. I get that already on x265.
There are providers who have most channels on SD quality, so you should try those, a little buffering on channel change should be expected, but once the stream starts should be ok on 2-3mbps connection