Dynamically adjusting video to improve synchronization with audio

A method for synchronizing playback of audio and video, wherein the audio is transmitted to wireless speakers over a wireless medium, the method comprising:

• receiving content for playback from a source, wherein the content comprises audio and the video;
• determining that synchronization of playback of the audio and video will not be within an acceptable range, by analyzing a wireless medium to determine a probable transmission time it will take for the audio to be transmitted to wireless speakers over the wireless medium;
• determining a variance that indicates that a video buffer is not large enough to buffer the video long enough to compensate for the probable transmission time, based on at least a size of the video buffer and a resolution of the video;
• determining a first resolution of video is required to reduce the variance into the acceptable range based on a first measure of a quality of the audio;
• determining a second resolution of video that is required to reduce the variance into the acceptable range based on a second measure of the quality of the audio;
• selecting the second resolution of the video and the second measure of the quality of the audio based on a determination that the second resolution is greater than the first resolution;
• requesting a lower quality audio that reduces the variance in accordance with the second measure;
• and
• requesting a lower resolution encoding of the video in accordance with the second resolution, in addition to the requested lower quality audio, that further reduces the variance to fall within the acceptable range, wherein the requested video is of a resolution that can be buffered in the video buffer sufficiently long to compensate for the probable transmission time of the audio to the wireless speakers.

A non-transitory computer-readable device having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, cause the at least one computing device to perform operations comprising:

• receiving content for playback from a source, wherein the content comprises audio and the video;
• determining that synchronization of playback of the audio and video will not be within an acceptable range, by analyzing a wireless medium to determine a probable transmission time it will take for the audio to be transmitted to wireless speakers over the wireless medium;
• determining a variance that indicates that a video buffer is not large enough to buffer the video long enough to compensate for the probable transmission time, based on at least a size of the video buffer and a resolution of the video;
• determining a first resolution of video is required to reduce the variance into the acceptable range based on a first measure of a quality of the audio;
• determining a second resolution of video that is required to reduce the variance into the acceptable range based on a second measure of the quality of the audio;
• selecting the second resolution of the video and the second measure of the quality of the audio based on a determination that the second resolution is greater than the first resolution;
• requesting a lower quality audio that reduces the variance in accordance with the second measure;
• and
• requesting a lower resolution encoding of the video in accordance with the second resolution, in addition to the requested lower quality audio, that further reduces the variance to fall within the acceptable range, wherein the requested video is of a resolution that can be buffered in the video buffer sufficiently long to compensate for the probable transmission time of the audio to the wireless speakers.