DASH video bandwidth does not rise with resolution
A lower-resolution representation is given more bandwidth than a higher-resolution one, so ABR picks wrongly.
What it means
Two video representations are ordered inconsistently: the one with fewer pixels declares the higher @bandwidth.
Why it matters
Players select on bandwidth. An inverted ladder means a viewer with plenty of bandwidth can land on the low-resolution rung and stay there, watching a soft picture while paying for more bits than the sharp one would have cost.
How to fix it
- Re-encode so bandwidth rises monotonically with resolution.
- Check @bandwidth values reflect the actual encodes rather than planned targets that were never updated.
Check your own stream
The free DASH validator runs this check on every analysis and links each finding straight back here.
Open the DASH validator →Frequently asked questions
- What does "DASH video bandwidth does not rise with resolution" mean?
- Two video representations are ordered inconsistently: the one with fewer pixels declares the higher @bandwidth.
- Why does it matter?
- Players select on bandwidth. An inverted ladder means a viewer with plenty of bandwidth can land on the low-resolution rung and stay there, watching a soft picture while paying for more bits than the sharp one would have cost.
- How do I fix it?
- 1. Re-encode so bandwidth rises monotonically with resolution. 2. Check @bandwidth values reflect the actual encodes rather than planned targets that were never updated.
- Can a validator catch this before viewers do?
- Yes. The free DASH MPD validator checks this on every run, together with UTCTiming, clock drift and segment addressing — the live problems that only appear on other people's devices.
- What is the first thing to try?
- Re-encode so bandwidth rises monotonically with resolution.
Related DASH checks
- DASH manifest has no UTCTiming elementA live MPD without UTCTiming forces players to trust the device clock, so any skew on the viewer’s machine becomes stalls or missing segments.
- DASH availabilityStartTime is in the futureThe manifest claims the presentation starts later than the current time, so no segment is available yet and playback cannot begin.
- The DASH manifest is not well-formed XMLThe document could not be parsed as XML, so nothing else could be checked.
- The document has no MPD root elementThe XML parsed, but its root is not <MPD>, so it is not a DASH manifest.
- MPD declares no profileWithout @profiles a player cannot tell which DASH feature set the manifest expects.
- MPD declares no minBufferTimePlayers use this required attribute to size the initial buffer before starting playback.