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Friday, July 9, 2010

What's bigger than 1080p? 4K video comes to YouTube

Today at the VidCon 2010 conference, we announced support for videos shot in 4K, meaning that now we support original video resolution from 360p all the way up to 4K. To give some perspective on the size of 4K, the ideal screen size for a 4K video is 25 feet; IMAX movies are projected through two 2k resolution projectors.

We always want videos on YouTube to be available in the highest quality possible, as creators intend. In December of last year, we announced support for 1080p, or full HD. At 4096 x 2304 pixels, 4K is over four times the size of 1080p. To view any video in a source resolution greater than 1080p, select "Original" in the video quality pulldown menu:


To illustrate the power of 4K, please check out the videos in this playlist; each one was created by a filmmaker with access to a 4K camera. (Be warned: watching videos in 4K, even on YouTube, will require ultra-fast high-speed broadband connections).

Because 4K represents the highest quality of video available, there are a few limitations that you should be aware of. First off, video cameras that shoot in 4K aren’t cheap, and projectors that show videos in 4K are typically the size of a small refrigerator. And, as we mentioned, watching these videos on YouTube will require super-fast broadband.

We're excited about this latest step in the evolution of online video. We've been impressed by the 1080p videos you've uploaded over the last seven months and can't wait to see (in 4K!) what you do next.

Ramesh Sarukkai, YouTube Engineer, recently watched "New Dad State of Mind."

UPDATE (7/10/2010): Thanks to those of you who pointed out a few errors in the technical specifications in this post. We've corrected them and look forward to more of your feedback!



181 comments:

Nikola M. said...

Now remove the 11 minute limit

joao said...

Amazing.

Philip Arnason said...

Well this is really impressive, but I wonder where this could possibly be applicable. My newer computer isn't capable of displaying 4k smoothly, and most screens aren't even capable of displaying this level of detail. The only place this could work out is with a 4k projector in a movie theater. Does Google have plans to stream movies to movie theaters? I'm all for it!

Anshel said...

Woot!

Chico Brisbane said...

cool

Josh Deveau said...

ohhhh. Like for the 25 foot projectors everyone has? great idea!

NMD said...

For the record, you don't need a ultra expensive video camera to shoot at ultra high resolutions. You can shoot in 35mm film, convert it and have ~4k video without compression.

Sam said...

This is awesome, but runs slow on my PC. Need a new CPU, core i7 here I come!

Ciha said...

High Definition Disorder. R.I.P. 480p

DeadlyTeaParty said...

That must take forever to upload a video that big at 4K 0_o

Suppose there is the "Advanced Video Upload" tool thats for 2GB; then that would not be so bad then.

Martyn Drake said...

Any chance of Google/YouTube buying us all super fast fibre-optic broadband gigabit network connections to make the most of this new feature, please? My 900 baud modem is struggling..

Coderjoe said...

Not all IMAX presenters use the crappy Digital IMAX. Plus, those "two 2k resolution projectors" are projecting directly on top of each other, not side-by-side. They could have used 4k, but at the time, the cost of 4k projectors was too high.

Joe said...

Pointless. When no one can actually watch it at its native res.

pixelbath said...

Awesome, and we're still limited to 10 minute submissions, even on 360x240 content. Thanks, guys!

MKBHD said...

And you thought 1080p killed your netbook's GPU....

09lbrennan said...

Fuck this, Youtube, fix the Subscription box before this crap.

Jdude77 said...

wow, shame my connection isn't powerful engough

Dragonfly said...

1st! Wow awesome will this be the new quality standard in a few centuries? :)

Halvard said...

Sweet! :D Can't wait! ;)

cojocaru said...

First!!! WoW that will be awesome!

Hedaru said...

Really, my eyes couldn't hold that screen. Better to not watch it directly.

UDPvideo said...

wow! that is crazy :)
tks Youtube for keeping innovating!

Bogdan Cîrstea said...

Wow, i think this will be great! Cinema quality right on youtube!

Matt said...

I really like the amount of effort being put into quality. Can we get 60 FPS videos next please? :\

neelchauhan said...

It's good for gamers who record their games at 2560x1600 or filmmakers but would it suck YouTube's bandwidth so even people who watch in 360p would see the video not play smooth?

MKBHD said...

And you thought 1080p was rough on your netbook's GPU...

Silverfish said...

Oh my lord, you'll need a kickass computer to display that size as well!

JuryBen said...

Holy Balls

Brian said...

Dear YouTube,

Please increase the horribly limiting runtime limit on uploads and concentrate later on offering formats that no one will be able to view.

Sincerely,

The director of a 12:30min film that he'd really like to put on YouTube.

Gavin said...

Um............. No thanks.

LittleAtari said...

Higher resolution does not mean higher quality. Honestly, the 4k videos have a lot of compression artifacts that makes watching the other lower res versions, a lot more pleasing to the eye. Considering most people barely have 1080p monitors, wouldn't it be more useful in investing in better compression or higher bit rates for the current HD and SD material on YT? Right now, you're just going to get a bunch of people going "OMG, I'M WATCHING 4k BECAUSE PEOPLE SAY IT'S BETTER. IT'S BETTER THAN 1080p" and a lot of those people may not even have 1080p monitors to support any type of high resolution. It's just a waste of money.

As a YouTube user, I would much rather like to see the HD and SD videos with better quality through more optimized compression. With allowing people to upload 4k, maybe you can spare a few extra megabytes on the HD and SD encoded videos for better quality. Honestly, I would rather have a crisp and perfect quality SD video than a blocky 4k video

Yuval said...

woooooooowww the things google will do when there's an extra 1.5 billion $ to spare.
god u guys are seriously bored.
do u really think just because you answered for a need that haven't even born yet we suppose to be impressed?

Brandon said...

4K video streams over Google fiber: is Google in an arms race with itself?

tobylynn said...

why are you all complaining??!! This is the first step towards something great! I cant believe how ungratefull some of you are....if you dont like it dont use it!

Rehan said...

Wow, my grandkids will be excited...when I have them in 30 years...............

George said...

higher bitrate would be more appreciated than higher resolution..something like 720p LITE(which is the actual 720p) and simple 720p which would be at a higher bitrate. a setting for default video quality(i hate that i have to change the videos every time from 360p). 480p as default would be much better
except for these youtube is amazing.

Mike G said...

The number before "p" denotes number of horizontal scan lines in a landscape orientation. It is most correctly called 3072p by convention.

Also, 4096x3072 is nearly six times the size of 1920x1080, not four.

I hope you did not divide 4096 by 1080 to get your number.

Jelthi said...

Because Youtube can already buffer 1080p! /sarcasm


....*sigh*

explodingcan said...

Wow, although it was a little laggy, it looked very nice on my monitor.

Rich said...

"At 4096 x 3072 pixels, 4K is nearly four times the size of 1080p."

1920*1080=2,073,600
4096*3072=12,582,912
12,582,912/2,073,600=6.07 times the size.

"we support original video resolution from 360p all the way up to 4096p"

4096p is 7282×4096.

Matthew Barich said...

This is RIDICULOUS.

You've added support for 4K resolution -- which currently no commercially available monitors or televisions are capable of -- and yet you haven't even bothered to add full and proper support for row interleaving (which is supported by both LCD shutter glasses 3D systems and polarized 3D monitors) with YouTube 3D.

There are 2 things wrong with YouTube 3D's support for row interleaving:

1) It does not work in full-screen mode.

2) The interleaving is not done properly. All it does is alternate the respective lines of the left and right eye images. That creates visual artifacts.

The proper way to do interleaving is display the video at half horizontal and half vertical resolutions -- having each 2x2 screen pixel quad represent a stereoscopic pixel, and using the screen pixels that form that quad as stereoscopic subpixels (meaning just two colors per pixel quad). For the best quality in row-interleaved mode, that's what YouTube 3D should do.

And no, adding such support would NOT be difficult. I am a computer programmer, and have written programs that do such things myself.

Luc Renambot said...

Hum, Ramesh Sarukkai, better proof-read the post, plenty of wrong numbers there (check DCI specification)

Arley said...

This is BS I can't even play videos on 720p smoothly they should make all videos html5 instead of this useless crap

notfitforsociety said...

I don't anyone who uses 25 foot monitors to watch youtube videos.

riemannsum said...

Le snore. I hear we can also go to the Moon, but the odds of me getting to go are nil. I concur with the other users, remove the 11-minute limit, especially if we're going to start downloading YBs of information.

moizilla said...

Can't wait to see this with HTML5

imperialx said...

This is stupid. If you had the bandwidth to do this you should remove that 10 minute limit.

flonelus said...

I think it's a great thing.

Justin Leider said...

I just want to be able to play 1080p on my linux box... Google can you just switch to HTML5 already?

Alex G. said...

4K videos seemingly only use 6Mbs - I don't see a problem on most broadband connections aside from a little buffering maybe. The bigger issue: who on earth can watch these videos in 4K when most computers are too slow and the vast majority of monitors are too small for 4K?

Eric C said...

Interesting feature, although I have to point out that 4096x3072 is NOT 4096P. It is 3072P, "P" stands for Progressive scanned VERTICAL lines. So... there's my geek rant.

PJ said...

Wouldn't this be 3072p, not 4096p?

James said...

For those that have 4k monitors and enough bandwidth, this is great.
For those that don't have 4k monitors or the bandwidth, this is also great.

The higher the quality of the original video uploaded to YT, the better overall quality we get to see once its compressed, regardless of whether we watch in 4k, 1080p, 720p etc.

The reason a lot of "made for TV" shows nowadays use 4k cameras like the "Red One" camera, is because of better exposure latitude, more color information etc they get to work with.
When editing is finished, then compressed down to broadcast standards, the results are a lot better than what they would have got if they had filmed it at the lower resolution broadcast standard to begin with.

I suspect Google have done this so that if in the near future, someone wanted to release premium content on YT, they wouldn't have to compress the original down to 1080p, only to have YouTube compress it again with their own Codecs.
Only having to compress it once will minimize compression artifacts

Cheers
James

HĂĄvard said...

Seriously Youtube... it's 3072p, not 4096p. In cinema-terms it's called 4k because of the horizontal resolution, and in TV-terms it's called 3072p because of the number of vertical 'lines', in other words vertical resolution. Try not to mix these up in the future :)

davem99 said...

"We always want videos on YouTube to be available in the highest quality possible,"
IF that's a true statement then why doesn't goggle/Youtube use a Current x264 with all its highest quality settings activated as standard Today ?...........

indeed why doesn't goggle/Youtube even publicly acknowledge that they use older ffmpeg or even contribute back their patchs to the main codebase as is expected as a basic courtesy from goggle/Youtube using it and profiting from it's use ?

also the generic super HD 4K as defined and tested in September 2003 is 3840×2048 for 2K, and 7680×4320 for 4K so your a little low and late at 4096x3072 that's 3K NOT 4K as you state above BTW ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Hi-Vision
"Because this format is highly experimental, NHK researchers had to build their own prototype from scratch. In the system demonstrated in September 2003, they used an array of 16 HDTV recorders to capture the 30-minute-long test footage.
The camera itself was built with four 2.5 inch (64 mm) CCDs each with a resolution of only 3840 × 2048. Using two CCDs for green and one each for red and blue, they then used a spatial pixel offset method[2] to bring it to 7680 × 4320.[3]
Recently, Aptina Imaging announced the introduction of a new CMOS Image sensor specifically designed for the NHK Super Hi-Vision project.[4]
The system was demonstrated at Expo 2006, Aichi, Japan, the NAB 2006 and NAB 2007 conferences, Las Vegas, and at IBC 2006 and IBC 2008 ,[5] Amsterdam, Netherlands and also showing in Consumer Electronics Show 2009. A review of the NAB 2006 demo was published in a Broadcast Engineering e-newsletter."

Protocol. said...

they made this because it was pointless. You can't complain over it because its optional. It's just something funny to laugh at, since almost no computer can smoothly play a video at this resolution uncompressed. I laughed at it when I read it personally lol.

Erik said...

I'll second what LittleAtari said.
At this point Vimeo's 1080p encoding looks to be vastly superior in terms of quality to YouTube's "4k"
YouTube can't even get 1080p right as their encoders are decimating every other line, creating a half res "1080p" rather than displaying full 1080p.
It's disappointing.

Nicholas said...

I uploaded a video at 4,000 pixels by 3,000 pixels and it was downscaled to 1080p. Does the source video have to be exactly 4096 x 3072 pixels to be displayed in 4K, or is this exciting new opportunity not available to all users yet?

The video I uploaded, which will hopefully be visible in 4K soon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKoG6RrLEAA

OJ said...

lol..these guys are crazy

Sarveshwar said...

Do something sensible guys... Ur Orkut pages require a serious redesign... Improve it please... This 4k is useless as no one has that big screen at home...

pcman2000 said...

Maby Eyefinity... with 1080p Home Projectors?

BOHMED said...

The 4K 4096 x 3072 pixels not HD , its 4:3

it should be 4096 x 2304 pixels,its HD 16:9

i think this is because of the Google TV

Am I Right.

Meow said...

Really 4096 x 3072? I could only find videos with 4096 x 2304 pixels.

smileyborg said...

Can YouTube please work on increasing the bandwidth and streaming quality available for standard 360p and regular HD videos first??? YouTube videos ALWAYS run out of buffered video!!!

djayjp said...

Google, I can't believe you guys actually made a huge mistake in the text there. It is written that "at 4096 x 3072 pixels, 4K is nearly four times the size of 1080p", in fact it is MORE THAN 6 TIMES more pixels!

See: 1920x1080= 2,073,600 ; 4096x3072= 12,582,912 ; that's 12 MEGA PIXELS!

Wasper said...

Pointless, who owns such big TFT, etc. to actually watch this in full size? Instead, better increase the video and audio quality and not just make everything bigger and bigger.

Toni said...

Would rather have 30 min video limit and 60fps support instead of this. 1080p is already way more than enough.

Daniel said...

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Who can view these files, and on what monitor could they view them? This is just really, really stupid.

That being said, Why on Earth are you calling it 4096p?!?

4096 is the first number sequence in 4096 x 3072.

So it should be called 3072p just like 1920 x 1080 is called 1080p, or 1280 x 720 is called 720p, and so on...

You don't get to reorder the naming format just to make it sound bigger than it is!

Plus, 4096 x 3072 is a 4:3 (1.33) aspect ratio, not 16:9. So why do these videos come up in widescreen then?

The 4096 x 3072 must be an incorrect accounting of these videos, as they are clearly not stretched to fit the screen.

4096 x 2,304 would be a more standard 16:9 (1.77) aspect ratio.

So, which is it; 4096 x 3072 or 4096 x 2,304? (or something else altogether)

Regardless, I'm simply picking nits with these points.

It's ultimately still a really stupid idea, no matter what you call it or it's true resolution.

Thomas said...

I have to agree, this it totally pointless!
Youtube should focus on giving us higher bit rate on 720p/1080p and raise the 10 min. limit first!
I am pretty sure, that a high bit rate 720p clip, looks better than a 4K with much compression artifacts, even on a 4K screen!

I have seen some Barco 56 inchs 4K LCD screens, and it looks impressive, but the bit rate has to be very high also.

Thomas H. - http://www.thhe.dk

Kiki said...

IT lagged my pc , it almoust crashed it . :(

Niket said...

Technically this isn't 4096p, it's 3072p.

naim said...

#
wtflawlnoob
3 minutes ago
this is absolutly pointless. Why would u make a 4K quality video and upload it on youtube. either u live at the youtube servers or you're the boss of Intel and Nvdia
Dude even hardcore gamers with Uber1337 gaming PC will get laggy pictures.
WHY?????
1080P is good enough.......
And think about the upload time you will have to need to wait for. 24 hours? hahaha
Not needed, dump it

ukhidden said...

4K is 4 times bigger to view then 1080p, but is 8 times larger in size

Michael said...

Bring on the 4k computer monitors.

MiaToretto said...

Damn... Movies at home??? R.I.P THEATRES...

Andreas -horn- Hornig said...

Hi,

PLEASE use this chance to integrate an (2*1920)x1080 option, so that 3d videos could be stored as a megaframe video (or even better support dual stream storage support ;)).

so in this way 3d blu-rays are not the only way to get real stereoscopic 3d video images in 1080p.

:)

Andreas
www.hdtvtotal.com

Craig said...

Forgive me if this is a noob question: Why is 4k only 4:3 ratio? No widescreen?

Evan Krell said...

Wow you guys are negative. I, too, would like to see longer vidoes but I do not see this as pointless. What may be nearly pointless now is a step towards advancement. I am glad to see this being experimented with.

Michael said...
This post has been removed by the author.
noobslayer said...

I already got the original button on my 1440p and 2 megapixel videos

noobslayer said...

you dont need to have like an sixty thousand dollar camera to have 4k, all you need is an hd camera and xilisoft hd video converter, change the video size to 4k, 40000 bit rate, thats all!

Eos said...

This is so stupid...

Like other people have said, they should implement support for 60fps (though I believe that's a flash limitation?) and videos above 10 minutes instead of such a high resolution that's only useful for 0.01% of the site's visitors if even.

76561198025819257 said...

TBH, I would preferred higher FPS instead…

Matthias said...

Please up the bitrate.

Coderjoe said...

Upon closer inspection, your samples are encoded poorly. Life in the Garden is nothing but an over-quantized mess of solid-color macroblocks and partitions. You can't easily see it when viewing the whole frame, because it has to be scaled down to fit on your screen. If you zoom in to a level closer to 1:1, you start to see what a mess it is.

Here is one randomly-chosen frame: http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/5882/gardenstill.png

Make sure you zoom in to 100% level.

just4laugh2009 said...

I don't like two things about Youtube, Video duration and copyright.

Bunklung said...

More resolution? Seems like overkill. It seems like Google is trying to beat the competition in a resolution arms race. I think what is really lacking and what would make the largest impact in online video is if Google allowed 60p or 60fps videos:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=498ec09cc9c9fea0&hl=en

Examples here when 60p WAS (past tense) allowed (via direct untouched flv uploads is my best guess):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRH-xagnvBw&fmt=5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xN6eL_pAPw&fmt=5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ9ZZbEttyU&fmt=5

atasuke19 said...

Youtube should be minding Dmca abuse rather than this

HappyCabbie said...

Uploading videos for 25 foot screens. Partners such as myself can upload 20 gb videos.

Remove the 10 minute time limit that the little guy has. It does not prevent copyright infringement. People just upload videos in multiple parts.

You are punishing the innocent while the copyright pirates still get away with it.

[Admin] said...

720p was good enough, but you just had to keep pushing it, didn't you?

kumbaso said...

I don't even watch 720p videos

Zevensoft said...

How about higher framerates? There are loads of videos currently available (and currently viewable on average display technologies) in 50-60fps

Trent V said...

Support for 10/12 bit?

kisai said...

Such short-sighted people.

What we have is a chicken and egg problem. Nobody is releasing 4K monitors, because "oh well there's no 4K content", so Youtube offers the ability to display 4K content, and now the ISP's go running for the hills because "OMG our slow networks will actually be slow, argh, killitnow!"

Really, there are a lot of native source (eg swf vector flash, Pixar 3D, stuff made with toonboom studio, etc) that can be vector upscaled to 4K losslessly if they want to, but most won't at this time.

What youtube needs is to do is deliver a "youtube encoder" and "upload tool" in one. It's quite a painful experience to upload a 2GB video only to get a "unable to convert" message once it's done. Even if all the tool does is slice it into 10MB chunks and Youtube reassembles it on the other side, just don't waste our time uploading these Super HD videos and then say it doesn't convert.

Jaime Rivera said...

My internet connection is good enough to download the video, but my computer processor is not. What amazes me is that I am not using an old computer. I attempted to see the video with a 24-inch iMac with Core 2 duo (released in mid 2009) and 8Gb of RAM. I thought it would be enough, but it isn't.

Hedaru said...

> That feature should be able to embedded in the website also.
> Please, this is the Youtube's Blog. Can you people stop saying 1st / first / whatever it is? Stop being ridiculous as you're not the first commenter.

hitman 13 said...

At this point Vimeo's 1080p encoding looks to be vastly superior in terms of quality to YouTube's "4k"
YouTube can't even get 1080p right as their encoders are decimating every other line, creating a half res "1080p" rather than displaying full 1080p.
It's disappointing.

Filmes 1080p | Buzz - FilmesHD

Eemeli said...

Just give us a working "always play HD when possible" -setting, please. It's frustrating to use YouTube with a 100M connection when you have to increase the video quality manually every bloody time playing a new video.

Hok said...

What codec this you use for 4K? H.264 / RAW / else?

What Computer spec to play this 4K?

If only LCD vendor using the same density (dpi) as same as my handphone it would be make this 4K as child play. IPhone 4G has 323 dpi and if it use in 19" LCD this monitor would have 6131 diagonal pixel.

That's it thx.

Matoking said...

You introduced a format that's not even usable for your ordinary Youtube user, instead of, like, increasing the runtime limit?

Charles said...

Having an 11 minute limit is really stupid and a pain for those of us uploading hour long videos. If you want to do something that will help your users then eliminate this stupid restricition. The upload size limit of 1 GB makes the 11 minute limit sheer stupidity anyhow as it's the video's file size that determines the bandwidth used and not it's length.

Scott Bloom said...

I agree with all the people saying how pointless 4K is for consumers. There are no video cards that can display it properly. You'd need four (4) monitors, set up 2x2 and linked together to get the effect. That's if you have two video cards supporting a MAX resolution of 2048x1536.

Even then, who would have the time to buffer a full video in 4K? At our current internet speeds, it would take all day to buffer it.

rpg711 said...

@naim
I, for one, had no lag with my 1200$ gaming pc and fios 25mbit internet.

joshua said...

remove the 11 time limit.
there is a option to shuffle and auto-play music or any video,put a option for auto-repeat!
make censured music uncensored,talk to vevo about this!!!
and stop it about music copy write!its really lame
and one more thing,can ignore this if you want!
make a section really strict!!! a normal age and a over 18 restriction!!!allow porns in the category of 18 and over.if you want.
oh one more thing make the user account allow gif back ground (moving back ground)i don't see why you guys remove this option?

anh said...

woa, this is soo exciting, although i cannot watch the vids on my hd computer, but i see how youtube has reached a new high.
(too many pixels...., .....eyes cannot process......, noooooooooo!) :)>

Sonic said...

Seriously, I completely don’t see a point of doing that. Why Google tries to do things that will benefit little to most of the end users?

luis said...

I just wonder the need for this, giving non partners something like 20 minutes and hd would be a lot more appreciated than this... crappy, unused, just for the news feature... thanks, it really means a lot for us...

Trickymaster said...

Pure hypocrisy. Our background image can't be bigger than 256kb but we can upload 3072p videos??

First of all, all videos are recorded at this resolution but the quality is ridiculous which is why they reduce it to 1080p.

Second, who has the time to download or upload such a video? DSL and Cable are barely catching up with the high bitrate for 1080p. Ultra Definition Television is far away.

Shane said...

that does not seem useful for the average computer user....who really has the processing power or grpahics to display "4k" video?

BFeely said...

The "Original" resolution should allow the user to upload any arbitrary size (such as PC monitor resolutions like 800x600, 1280x1024, etc) and allow the viewer to play it at its original resolution.

Abdel said...

You guys are high....

Giant Isopod said...

I'd appreciate it if you could resolve the age-old peering issues to the net of the German Telekom before introducing bigger and bigger resolutions. I have a DSL16k access - that should be more than enough for (at least normal 1080p) HD videos.

But for some reason of all the websites I use, Youtube is the only one which barely uses 10% of the available bandwidth while all the other sites are loading at full speed.

Can you *please* fix this problem? It's existed for years now and it annoys the hell out of not only me but all of your users which happen to have an access by Germany's biggest ISP.

InvisibleSandwichTM said...

Two things:
I know that you guys are enthusiastic about your ridiculous resolutions, but shouldn't you have started with 1440p or 1600p? The largest consumer MONITORS I know of top out at approximately such, and I'm not really feeling the idea of buying a projector for this stuff.

Secondly, the 10 minute limit on videos is most likely because Youtube doesn't want people uploading full television shows or movies, not that it'll stop people. At best, it inconveniences them.

niels said...

I,ve uploaded my 4k video's today
watch them at http://youtube.com/user/arttef

Quadunit404 said...

Stop trying to be a home theater, YouTube. If I wanted to watch a movie at 3072p (NOT 4096p) I'd go to a movie theater. If I wanted to watch TV on my PC I'd use a program dedicated to that. If I wanted to watch a movie at home I'd buy a DVD or Blu Ray of that movie.

Also, it's completely missing the point of the Internet, a web browser and YouTube itself. The Internet is meant to be something to share information and find out new things, not give you a home theater. A web browser is supposed to display that information and allow you to "surf" the Internet, not give you a home theater. YouTube, from what I understand, was meant to be a video sharing site where you can browse videos of anime, cartoons, games (especially upcoming releases for those of you who are anticipating a game or two), tutorials on how to do something, or whatever else I can't think of, but nope, Google just HAD to try to turn it into an online home theater.

Go on, continue wrecking your rep. It'll only lead to your downfall.

Nelson Cruz said...

According to wikipedia:
"The DCI specification for digital projectors calls for two levels of playback to be supported: 2K (2048×1080) or 2.2 MP at 24 or 48 frames per second, and 4K (4096×2160) or 8.85 MP at 24 frames per second."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinema

Nelson Cruz said...

Of course thats for digital cinema projection. Youtube is using 4096 x 2304 which is a 16:9 version of 4k.

shlamalama said...

I think those compmlaining about the quality are suffering from some kind of overlay/post processing failure. If its blocky in a strange way like nothings being filtered then its probably a rendering failure. I doubt most things are spec or tested for 4k compliance. If you look at the 1080p video you'll notice even macro artifacts in those videos are smoothed over by your video renderer, if thats missing thats probably the issue..or one of the issues.

Supah said...

If YouTube had hardware acceleration this wouldn't be a problem displaying on my monitor (1080p monitor). I can't even play 1080p without it lagging due to this.

Please make a Java player or something that will be able to take advantage of our GPUs.

The_Forastero said...

This is ridiculous. It's like you guys are doing and leaving things half way. For God's sake! Finish one thing right please.

dikidera said...

Maybe someone from youtube forgot to mention that these features are not exactly for the old CPUs.

Next time you either tell this to people or don't make these features!

Jian said...

Would you tell us at what bit rate you are encoding and streaming the 4k video?

Ashok Kumar said...

Dear all its so beautiful.But I want More Picture in 4K.

bfairbanks said...

Good lord, I can just imagine how enormous these files must be. Soon you folks at YouTube are going to need your own server PLANET to house all of these videos.

eversmando said...

well this is kind of useless, but still a very cool thing that youtube actually lets you watch streamed videos in these kind of resolutions.

unfortunately no one has a monitor that supports this kind of resolution, nor a quad screen setup.

also the bitrate is WAY WAY too low for it to actually look good. here is an imagedump of the actual resolution, in mpc-hc: http://data.fuskbugg.se/skalman01/Surf_NYC_4K_resolution_.mp4_snapshot_00.34_%5B2010.07.12_09.54.47%5D.jpg

Getch said...

I used to be sorry for youtube when Shay Carl uploaded long a$$ videos; but with this renovation i think youtube doesn't care about their servers!

Karoliina Salminen said...

I think Red One captures according to tech specs:
4520 (h) x 2540 (v)

aki said...

Hello,

I have an event of "4K Digital Cinema Festival" in Japan in these years.
http://dcexpo.jp/en/theater/4k.html
And I'm also some contents of 4K platform.
I believe this year's subject must include "Youtube4K" however I couldn't find how can I upload such a huge file into YouTube.

Could you tell me actual file format for this?

best regards,
Akihiko

i said...

Wow, the clip ' (( Secret World )) 4k Footage'
which is 3min19sec is 163.6MB

ranndino said...

Seems like Google is looking into streaming movies into theaters. That's all I can think of as a use for this now. If so cool.

Lots of haters on here, as usual. Most of those are just smart enough to pull their underpants on in the morning & haven't done anything of note ever.

My favorite comments are from tools that started with "first" even though they were 18th & 20th respectively.

Salvis said...

W0W. In Latvia we have 500Mbps optic-fiber internet connection available. Yey! At least one reason to live in Latvia :)

mrairplaneman777 (Terry) said...

Can we just stick with 1080p and have higher bitrate audio instead? Many people don't have the hardware to play 4k pixel resolution video, but they do have the hardware to play high bitrate audio.

Oooh said...

When are you supporting the very common native PAL 720x576?

Oooh said...

When are you supporting the very common 720x576 PAL?

Nicolás said...

Instead of 4K, why don't you focus on something worthwile? extending time limits, better bit-rate on SD and 720p/1080p videos, an option to search for favorites, a player that's not crap, etc. and that's just off the top of my head.

Veilen said...

Pointless.

CaCtUs2003 said...

This is actually pretty useless because most of us don't have computers with enough power to stream 4k comfortably, that and I doubt that most of YouTubers have access to a fucking 25-foot television that doubles as a monitor.

Bunklung said...

More resolution? Seems like overkill. It seems like Google is trying to beat the competition in a resolution arms race. I think what is really lacking and what would make the largest impact in online video is if Google allowed 60p or 60fps videos:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=498ec09cc9c9fea0&hl=en

Examples here when 60p WAS (past tense) allowed (via direct untouched flv uploads is my best guess):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRH-xagnvBw&fmt=5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xN6eL_pAPw&fmt=5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ9ZZbEttyU&fmt=5

Realty Tours Northwest said...

Just goes to show that the bandwidth required to stream this kind of resolution is just around the corner.

kakisback said...

whats the point? how many of us have such high resolution screens?

John said...

File size : 93.7 MiB
Duration : 2mn 9s
Overall bit rate : 6 083 Kbps


You call that 4k? you are having a laugh! This is pathetic. Increase Bitrate for 720 first, 1080 is still too terrible to watch.

John said...

Knowledgable discussion regarding the subject starting here: http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/323132-Youtube-now-streaming-4k-video

degenerolog said...

Another MegaPUXel$ for idiots :)

wwe_fan54 said...

you tube is playing up cant do anything on it right now

Chachico said...

Hey before moving on to higher resolution video fix your shitty servers. I have a fast connection, and youtube still loads super slow.

TheMatt said...

From what I've read... 6Mbps for 4k/2160p?!? Like, really? I'm serious, really?

I record and encode my *standard definition* videos in 9Mbps, whether I am using MPEG-4, XviD, or H.264. That's standard definition. And I'm using a higher bitrate than you're using for 4k? I'm speechless...

YT, unless you have some secret super efficient lossless codec that you're not sharing with the rest of the world, please ditch 4k support and work on improving your codec and/or compression. Or increase video length. Or support hardware rendering. Or allow larger file sizes. Or fix 1080p. Or let us use larger background images on channels. Or just something that would affect more than .1% of people.

Thanks

:)

Aesthetic Quietus said...

I'm fully aware that I've probably missed it since it's been edited since, but I fail to see where they mention 4096p (or w/e, the number is too weird and long and it's too late/early). Furthermore, why the hell are you guys complaining? Yes, they use Adobe Flash to display their videos... because like 90% of people who visit the net have it installed. Sure they could use a Java platform, but Java's not going to be any better, Java creates an emulated platform it interacts with which when you are talking video adds a hefty processing draw. Sure they could use Html5 except most browsers aren't ready to play with this, plus it's still having kinks worked out. [And being developed].

Now onwards: No, they don't need to add 4k yet and their 4k is not 4k of good pixels, but it is better than your standard def and IMO better than 1080p on YouTube. Adding it now is obviously a move towards a future project (ie Google TV or something similar), just enjoy it and shut up.

Yes it takes ages to load, yes it takes a lot of processing power, however you are dealing with something in the order of 4.5x more pixels. Even compressed that's a huge increase. If you didn't expect either of those [Load/Power], then by god please step away from the computer.

Compression: Yes, their videos are compressed rather severely. I imagine that that's because Flash will be doing something to do with it, on top of the fact that serving a 30 MB files to 65 million people is going to get rather expensive 30 MB * 65 Mil peeps = 1.8 Petabytes of data sent. [One of Justin Biebers videos hit around this many views, and 30 MB is a realistic size for a standard def uncompressed video]. However add video compression, and you cut that down to about 8 MB [The actual size of the flv version of his One Less Lonely Girl song which had 62 mil hits], and you cut the data down to 495 Terabytes. It's 18MB in HQ[.mp4], which is 1.08 Petabytes of data. This is the reason that the videos are ad supported and compressed so heavily. Believe it or not, they are a business and are there to try and actually survive. Not to mention when you have that many connections going on, you are doing to start having serious bottlenecks with the amount of people they can serve at once. Smaller videos mean that people are out of the way quicker and thus less likely to cause someone to have to wait or get a server timeout error.

Adding a surround sound to a video will boost it's size by an incredible amount. Once again, modern technology just can't do it cheaply yet.



TL;DR version:
They are a business, putting out lesser compressed high quality videos to that many people is far too expensive and impractical at this point. Further more, wait until HTML5 is ready before you advocate a move to it. Further, further more, Flash is part of the problem here but they do hold the majority of the Internet user base; deal with it for now.
Also, you're complaining about them adding features?
They are aware of the current limitations, don't be idiots. I mean seriously, do you think they look at the video and go "Oh man, that is like super high def, it just looks so gorgeous, their's not pixelations or anything."...
Modern Net Tech simply can't do what you guys want cheaply enough to be able to break even with what it's going to cost in hosting and what they'll earn from it.


TL;DR version of the TL;DR:
Stop all the freakin' hating. If you think you can do better, do it.

Aaron said...

The cheapest 4k monitor I could find was $30,000.

Until you have a $30,000 monitor, there is absolutely no reason why you should ever watch a video in 4k.

You're just watching a giant video, being scrunched down to fit on your pitiful, probably-not-even-1080p monitor, and it likely will look much better if you just watch it at a proper, native resolution to your monitor (like 720p or 1080p, or perhaps even lower).

Annoys me that people might get excited about this even though they can't even take advantage of it :\

Vladimir said...

Either they're total idiots or they've got some logically really weird scheme going on. Obviously this benefits only really rich people with 5m screens and those 4k projectors, and of course cinemas/film makers. This being the case they could very well restrict 4k use to special accounts in order to avoid delirious people hogging up the bandwidth.

Let's assume I stop seeing individual pixels with text at a 30 degree viewing angle (from between my eyes to both sides of the screen) on a 1280x800 screen. If I had a 4096 h.pixel screen with the same pixel size, I would be viewing the screen from a 81,2 degree angle.

This means that if you were watching from a 5m (16.4 ft) screen, you'd be sitting about 2.9m (9.6 ft) away (assuming you sat right at the center).

The respective viewing angle for 1080p is 43,8 degrees. This means you could be watching a 2.3m (7.6 ft) wide screen from the same 2.9m distance and still perceive the same pixel size.

So basically, people with TVs or computer screens won't benefit from 4k.

cindymat848 said...

This is cool, good stuff!

* said...

Edison's 1908 films look and play better than 4K.

Talk to ISPs (bandwidth) and the people who have computers bought later than last month (video/audio cards).

We don't all upload or watch YT from a PS.

terrorist96 said...

Lame. Go up to 4320p UHD(T)V and then we'll be talking. Also, what others said: >10 minute video limit and 60fps.

And I can't post a comment with my YouTube account? Wow..

terrorist96 said...

Oh, and one more thing: I hope HTML 5 and Web M and all that stuff will start to be more prevalent. Opera already supports it in its current final build. Much better than Chrome and Firefox in several aspects.

Morgan said...

This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I have a display that costs about two thousand dollars and it's not that hi-res. Who is this FOR?

Michael said...

Why is youtube not hearing us in regards to the ability of being able to upload videos longer than 10:59? They keep increasing the resolution (which is great) but we want to be able to upload self created videos that are longer than 10 minutes! It seems that Youtube is less and less interested in the people that forged this site and made it what it is today in favor of this "partner" paradigm; that if you are not some goofy guy that acts like a fool on camera or some ultra hot make up guru chick with 300,000 subscribers, youtube doesn't even hear you when you speak! This is very sad! It seems the little guys that just want one thing, just one: the ability to upload videos that they created themselves that are over 10:59, are not really all that important to a company like Google/Youtube! These were the folks that put Youtube on the map of growth over the past 5 years. We are being completely squeezed out of existence and ignored! Rant over.

SharpS said...

I don't think that anybody can run it smoothly at the moment, but it doesn't matter. Youtube has avoided being a bottleneck by allowing this new resolution, and by supporting features like this, it is only speeding up the rate at which the rest of the industry adopts this new standard.

I really wish that youtube could have a page showing a timeline, with all of the new features they would like to include (longer video lengths, 60/120 fps videos, 3D monitor support...). It's a novelty to see what Google plans to do next!

Spizz_XP said...

This is just a little more than POINTLESS!!!!!
Gawd google, why must you screw EVERYTHING up
you probably don't even read comments like this or approve them since you're too busy shoving $100 bills up your ass...

@Micheal same...

Jeremy said...

Wow 1080P was great but this new 4K is above and beyond all expectations. Thanks Google!

Nick said...

Wow, how ridiculous. I'd much prefer to have an actual comment system that works, a compression system that isn't terrible, or a video length longer than 10 minutes.

Henrik said...

It's gonna look like shit because of the limited bitrate. A little darkness and you'll see the blocks. Just look at Big Buck Bunny at 1080p (and 720p too for that matter). If all those bits that got wasted into 1080p would've been used to encode in 720p, the outcome would've pretty much looked like a scene release.

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DiSCo said...
This post has been removed by the author.
tautvydas13 said...

4K is actually 4096x2304. You people calculate it in wrong way not google/youtube. 2K is 2048x1152.

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Godis3inOne said...

Hey, I just watched a video off the playlist that has been taped in 4K. I have a 4 year old iMac and it played perfectly with no problems. I have Comcast high speed, too. So if you have a PC, GET A MAC. There are only 2 viruses for Macs, not 6 million like the PCs have.

Azkay said...

Its funny because people complaining are complaining for the sole reason their computers/connections arent good enough to view it.

steve.cowie said...

Why all the pixels that MOST people won't be able to see?

Surely it would be better to up the TEMPORAL resolution.

up to 72fps which is supported by .wmv or
up to 300fps with some high speed cameras.

SGL said...

Most computers today can't play this resolution of footage, and most internet connections today can't provide the required bandwidth anyway, but this is beside the point. The point is YouTube has these protocols in place as soon as possible so that people can upload 4K footage if they've got it, and not have to reduce resolution to upload footage today, only to have to re-upload it later in 4K.
e.g. I'm glad that I can upload my original footage in 1080 today, even though I choose only watch in 480 or 720 due to my connection speed, but this will change once Australia gets it's planned optical fibre to home network.

Raener said...

4K, nice resolution but really, it is pointless unless you have a screen that supports the res natively. Otherwise watching higher than 1080 on your 1080 screen will make diagonal lines look distorted for example.

All in the efforts to get you hooked then make you pay once you can't live without it. And when you pay, incomes the hardcore censorship and it becomes a cable network. But no, you'll still think all the user submitted content gets through. Hello editor.

In fact, the internet as a whole is soon to become a grand cable network when Internet 2 comes about. As Internet 2's slogan says, 'The internet is dead'. I guess they want to 'fix' it. More like break it.

Florin Sev said...

Great!
I just upload my 4K clip on YouTube. Enjoy!
View in HD or 4K!!!
4K Timelapse - American Cities

Taco McSpanky said...

This is a great featuree, allowing fullHD in stereoscopic 3D. TV sets capable of this are landing in homes all over the world.

anonymous said...

I think that you need a PC with an Intel Core i7 CPU, at least 8 GB RAM, and a high-powered HD graphics card with at least 1.5 GB graphics memory to watch 4K videos.

ConnorBehan said...

This requires an ultra-fast broadband connection "even on Youtube"? Try ESPECIALLY on Youtube! Even if I had the four monitors and two video cards I would need to watch 4K, I would not be masochistic enough to do this with a browser plugin!

linguisticcodification said...

I think it's more important to allow high speed video (50 or 60 frames per second) than allowing more than 1080p frame sizes, because computers which are able to render more than 1080 videos are rare.

Can said...

they must be uploaded for the bestbuy staff who plays 720p or worse on full HD Tvs.

hitman 13 said...

indeed why doesn't goggle/Youtube even publicly acknowledge that they use older ffmpeg or even contribute back their patchs to the main codebase as is expected as a basic courtesy from goggle/Youtube/ jogos para celular using it and profiting from it's use ?

also the generic super filmes HD 4K as defined and tested in September 2003 is 3840×2048 for 2K, and 7680×4320 for 4K so your a little low and late at 4096x3072 that's 3K NOT 4K as you state above BTW ....

Dexter said...

I don't think that anybody can run it smoothly at the moment, but it doesn't matter. Youtube has avoided being a bottleneck download de filmes by allowing this new resolution, and by supporting features like this, it is only speeding up the rate at which the rest of the industry adopts this new standard.

Einstain said...

I can hack youtube in first week of June. May be 3 or 4 June. Lets wait and see.

Sam said...

Protip: Upscale your vids by 2X width and height and upload as that to reduce the negative effects of Youtube's atrocious video compression which they seem to refuse to fix while having no problem introducing higher resolutions.

HJH said...

waiting for Ultra HDTV 4320p

Habib Alamin said...

Whoever posted that Google is "innovating" is ignorant! Allowing viewing of higher quality video is not innovating, inventing something that can create this content for cheap, that is innovating. Most people do not have the Internet speeds, NOR the screen resolutions, NOR the graohic cards to display these videos. They affect almost noone. These are the real things you should be concentrating on:

HTML5
Better video compression
More FPS
Taking away the video time limit

This is a good thing, since as one commenter has mentioned, it saves people reuploading footage AFTER Google supports it only when more people can view it, but the top things are problems and complaints that many users have. This 4K thing is just an appeasing tactic, to keep the users engaged.

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