Why Instagram Reel Shows Blurry or Bad Video Quality?

As the short video culture picked up steam, the Meta-owned company Instagram also jumped onto the bandwagon. In August 2020, Instagram announced its short video feature and named it “Instagram Reels.” The new feature on Instagram was initially limited to some countries, and now it is available everywhere. Anyone can create, share, or view Instagram Reels. Although the Reels feature works great on most devices, not all users are loving it, as many users are getting blurry or bad video quality while watching Instagram Reel.

Watching a video always brings us joy, only when it is not buffering, and the quality of the video is good. Watching Reels in bad or blurry video quality can frustrate some users. In this article, we’ll look at some effective solutions to fix the bad or blur video quality on Instagram Reel.

Instagram Reel Shows Blurry or Bad Video Quality, How to Fix?

Instagram or many such applications limits the video quality if your device is not getting a stable or high-speed internet connection. This is the primary reason Instagram Reels are appearing of bad quality. Hence, fixing the Internet connection speed is the primary thing we should do. Also, there are a couple of settings within the Instagram app that you can use to bump the video quality.

Fix 1: Check the Internet Connection

When you want to stream videos in high quality without facing any buffering issues, you need a high-speed internet connection. That’s not an option. It’s a pre-requisite. Plus, the device should be getting a stable internet connection. To check the current Internet speed, you can use tools like speedtest.net.

If you are not getting a good internet speed or stability, rebooting the router can fix the issue. To reboot the router, open the router settings page and tap on the Reboot option. A simple way to reboot the router is by removing the power cable from the wall socket for a minute and then plugging it again. Even after this, the the Internet problem is still there, contact your internet service provider (ISP).

Fix 2: Check Instagram Server Status

Before we try other solutions, we need to check if the problem is caused by some server issues. Instagram keeps facing outages. During the outages, the app may or may not work. Some of the app’s functionalities may also fail to load. If there’s some problem on Instagram’s servers, you can’t do anything to fix it. Just wait for a couple of hours until engineers at Instagram fix the issue.

Unfortunately, Instagram does not provide us a way to check the server status. But, there are third-party tools such as Down Detector, where we can check if other users are also facing issues on the social media application.

Fix 3: Turn off Data Saver Mode

Instagram has a feature called “Data Saver”. As the name implies, it helps saving the internet data. It stops loading the videos in advance. Hence, you’d experience a slight delay when playing the next video. This feature might also be reducing the video quality. If you want to have a rich experience on the Instagram app, you should turn off the Data Saver mode. It can fix the bad quality issue on Instagram Reels.

Follow these stops to disable Data Saver in Instagram:

Open the Instagram app on your phone.
Tap on the profile image in the bottom-right on the screen.
Click the three lines button in the upper-right corner and select Settings.
Tap on the Account option.
Select Cellular data use.
Now, turn off Data Saver.

Fix 4: Update Instagram App

There could be a temporary bug in the Instagram app that is limiting the video quality. If dozens of users have reported problem with Instagram Reel video quality, Instagram developers might be working on bringing a fix for this issue. Usually, the solutions comes in the form a software update. Hence, updating the Instagram app can do the trick.

To update the Instagram app, open Google Play Store on your Android phone and search “Instagram“. Tap on the Instagram app in the search result and click Update. iOS users can update the Instagram app through App Store. Once the app has been updated, reboot the phone and check if the problem is fixed.

Final Words

Watching the video in bad quality is something that no one likes. it is frustrating when the problem occurs on a good internet connection. In this article, we look at many ways to fix the Instagram Reel showing blurry or bad video quality problems. I hope you were able to fix the problem. If the problem persists, uninstall and then re-install the Instagram app.

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