Amazon Prime Video not playing 1080p
For month and several versions of Firefox (now running on 84.0.2 64bits), videos on Amazon Prime Video cannot play in 1080p even when video quality in settings clearly indicates the required internet speed is available for 1080p quality (sorry for the french language in the screen-capture but the number of 6.84Go is visible and it is the required speed for 1080p).
I run on Windows 10, I have a download speed of 767Mbps (checked with https://www.speedtest.net) with a maximum of 1000Mbps download connection, I tried on two different laptops, tried with Firefox Nightly (currently 86.0a1 64bits version) and nothing works.
There used to be a trick that worked until about last August : you had to search the title of the movie you wanted to watch in the Amazon Prime Video search-bar, press enter and click on the play icon of the movie. Any other time you clicked on the play icon, only HD was available but with the trick you could still get 1080p. Annoying but working. Now the trick doesn't work, internet is not helpful, although I'm glad (so to speak) to see that I'm not the only one with this issue.
Any help is appreciated, thank you in advance.
All Replies (5)
Just as a test, can you go to youtube and pick any video and set it to 1080P. Then right click on the video and show stats for nerds. see screenshot
I have never used Prime on my computer and IMHO the controls on Amazon are weak.
Modified by jonzn4SUSE
How can you tell what quality the video is playing? I see nothing that shows you and the drop down for video quality is only showing the amount of data per hour.
Thank you for your interest jonzn4SUSE.
When I play a youtube video, it says Current res : 1920x1080 (see screenshot).
As for Amazon, you can see the quality at the bottom left corner of the video player. On the screenshot, it says "HD", if the video resolution was 1920x1080 it would say "1080p".
I see the HD on Firefox like Chrome. see screenshot Can you try the browser in safe mode?
Safe mode didn't fix it unfortunately. I see that the Amazon video player is the same on Chrome, my guess is the video you watched was on 1080p, you would have the "HD 1080p" where the "HD" is, same as on Firefox.
Someone asked the question on the amazon forums but didn't see it through : https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D54P00007VAT2K/not-getting-1080p-in-mozilla-firefox I had a text chat with a Amazon support a few months ago, she told to contact my ISP directly because it wasn't normal that I don't get 1080p.
No answers for this one either : http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3061896
This one however got an answer from another user about DRM issues except, when I was in text chat with Amazon Support, I asked directly the lady about the quality and she said that Firefox was able to play videos in 1080p when in the parameters (the cog icon in the video player) said "Optimal 6,84 Go per hour". https://broadbandforum.co/t/206175/ Also I don't find it logical that Amazon support itself assures the video player can run in 1080p on Firefox when the DRM only allows for HD. The only explanation for that would be false advertising and bad faith.
I always thought that there was maybe a compatibility problem between Firefox and Amazon's video player (even though I have zero abilities to confirm that). However, that would be the only explanation to why my trick with the title search allowed for 1080p. This one has another explanation : https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Prime-Video-not-playing-1080p-content-on-any-browser-despite-my-internet-connection-being-300-Mbps
Thoughts ?