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OnePlus fixes HD streaming on 5 and 5T, but you’ll have to mail your phone in

OnePlus fixes HD streaming on 5 and 5T, but you’ll have to mail your phone in

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The company needs to install the update from a trusted source

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

In December, we learned that the OnePlus’s 5 and 5T phones couldn’t stream video in high-definition. The company has now fixed the problem, but there’s a catch if you want to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime: you must mail your phone back to the company to get the update installed.

The phone’s inability to stream HD footage from services like Netflix and Amazon Prime stems from the device’s lack of support for Google’s Widevine Level 1 DRM, which a number of services require to stream HD video. The phone does support Widevine Level 3, which allows for standard streaming. As Dan Seifert noted back in December, the phone’s hardware is certainly capable of supporting HD footage, and that it was an odd omission.

In a post to the company’s forums (via 9to5Google), community manager David Y explained that the devices must be mailed in because the phone must be physically hooked up to an authenticated PC at the company. He also says that the company will cover the shipping costs (but only in North America, Europe, India, and China), and that users should expect their phone back within “five working days when we receive it.” Those who want to get their phone updated should contact OnePlus’s customer support team.

While it’s good to see that the phone can be updated to live up to its potential, the steps for updating the phone are certainly inconvenient, given that consumers will be without their phone for more than a week. But, AndroidPolice points out that the update must be provided from a “trusted environment.”