Change Multimedia Settings using PowerCFG

If you check on the Power Settings, there are three different multimedia settings—

When sharing media,Video playback quality bias, andWhen playing a video.

Each of these has settings for On battery and Plugged in. While on battery, it makes sure the computer doesn’t go idle, video performance is at its best, and you get the best video playback. Now before we go ahead, this is the format of the command. Power Plan GUID can be replaced with SCHEME_CURRENT to change the values for the current power settings. If you want to use GUID, you can use the powercfg /list command to find all the computer’s power plans.

When Sharing Media

The last number in the below-mentioned command is what sets the option, i.e.,

0=take no action,1=prevent computer from sleeping,2=enable away mode.

When Playing video:

Useful when you want to quickly change configuration while on battery power but do not want to compromise on the streaming video’s quality. Like the above command, the last one is the option to set what happens when in battery mode i.e.,

0=optimize video quality,1=video playback performance bias or Optimize for battery life

Video playback quality bias

Do note that we are using the SETDCVALUEINDEX option, which changes the option when on battery. When plugged in, everything is on maximum, and hence there is no need to change it. I hope the post was easy to follow, and you were able to change the multimedia settings using the powercfg command line in Windows 10. You can always make a bat file of these settings and run it on any computer or computer with admin permission.

Change Multimedia Settings using PowerCFG tool in Windows 11 10 - 80