The VideoLAN Forums

When i try to see a youtube video in vlc, i think that vlc automatically uses the best abviable quality and plays it, but this uses more cpu and i want to reduce the quality, is possible?
I tried to use various options of 'Video', but this dont change the video quality, only changes the video resolution

Menu Tools -> Preferences (Show Settings = ALL) -> Input/Codecs
The option is on the right panel: Preferred Video Resolution.
Set it to what you want then save, exit and restart VLC.