4K Video on YouTube

 Last Week Pixel Corp's show MacBreak posted its first 4K YouTube video as an experiment.  Because they shoot video with the Red Camera at incredibly high resolution, they figured they might as well test it out.  In order to access the 4K, click this link, then choose originally from the drop down (the video defaults to 360p).  Unless you are on a fairly beefy machine you are likely to experience some trouble playing back the video and there seems to be evidence that browser playback varies (Alex noted on Macbreak Weekly that Chrome seemed to playback the video best).  Keep in mind that the original resolution of the video is also 4096 x 3072 which means you are definitely having to scale the video down to play it back (i'm on a 30 inch Apple display and my max resolution is 2560 x 1600).

Want some perspective on what 4K means?  IMAX films are projected at 2K resolution and 1080p is 1K.  Why has YouTube added 4K?  Well, much for the same reason MacBreak posted the video - because they can.  Sure, no one will be able to play them back natively or easily for now, but long term it shows where they believe the technology capabilities are heading.  By the way, in full disclaimer, I lent the Pixel Corps gang a little help with settings to try their test out - so i'm particularly happy everything worked out so well for them!

Comments

[George D]

I've just come back from the IMAX convention in Tennesse and am producing an IMAX. True 15/70mm Imax is FAR beyond 2k and even 4K projection, both of which we saw on a giant (>70 foot) screen. I am all for digital, and indeed am desperate to use it for cost reasons, but 15/70 film is still visibly superior to any digital technology extant today. Sorry to burst your bubble.