5 ms·

YouTube announces support for videos shot in 4K (4096 x 3072)

24 points by abraham 16y ago

sbierwagen 16y ago
Now we just need monitors, rather than projectors, that can actually display 4K content at its native resolution. Every LCD panel I've seen tops out at 2560x1600.
- sp332 16y ago
  They don't make them anymore :-( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors native resolution of 3840×2400 pixels (WQUXGA) on a screen with a diagonal of 22.2 inch (564 mm). This works out as over 9.2 million pixels, with pixel density of 204 pixels per inch (80 dpcm, 0.1245 mm pixel pitch)
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    Yeah they do: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/562026-REG/Astro_Design_Inc_DM_3400_DM_3400_56_Professional_4K.html http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/562026-REG/Astro_Desig... They cost a fortune though, like $50k+. Such hi-res monitors are only used for radiography and film at present.
    - stephen 16y ago
      That has a 4K resolution, but it's 56"--that's only ~91 DPI.
      - fragmede 16y ago
        While true, you're not holding the display a foot from your face like you would a cellphone.
- pmjordan 16y ago
  They do exist, they're just crazy expensive. They tend to be used for medical imaging and similarly specialised applications.
- wmf 16y ago
  Quad HD 3840x2160 prototypes have been shown, so we're getting close. Once 3D becomes a standard feature, TV makers may have to adopt quad HD to keep margins up.
- chaosmachine 16y ago
  And gigabit internet access.
- zweben 16y ago
  I've got a 2560x1600 monitor, and honestly, the 4k video looked worse to me than 1080p. Blocky all over the place. If they can't raise the bitrate on the 4k videos, there's really no point to it.
hop 16y ago
High density or "retina display" monitors should be on their way soon, I've seen a 15 inch prototype display, not sure the resolution, but it was gorgeous. It will be interesting to see how web standards evolve to work well with these resolutions.
Linear 16y ago
And yet they still limit videos to 10 minutes for some reason.
- protomyth 16y ago
  I would guess the answer to the time limit is the h.264 royalty license.
- plorkyeran 16y ago
  The 10 minute limit is to make uploading episodes of TV shows more annoying [1]. It has never been a technical limitation. [1] http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2006/03/your-15-minutes-of-fameummmmake-that-10.html http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2006/03/your-15-minutes-o...
  - lanstein 16y ago
    Unless you join their premium program, the link for which, sadly, is broken. http://www.youtube.com/premium_register http://www.youtube.com/premium_register
bmalicoat 16y ago
Can't wait to see my first 4K cat video.
- wmf 16y ago
  I'm sure somebody out there is shooting his home videos with RED.
- hugh3 16y ago
  This has real applications. Take a 4K video of your cat, send it to some mechanical Turks, and they'll tell you if your cat has fleas.
ultrasaurus 16y ago
How can you possibly monetize this? 5 times the bandwidth/storage (rough guess) and all the extra information is wasted. It seems like a weird play. Unless the idea is that when people have 4k displays, YouTube will have a tiny expensive back catalog.
- chime 16y ago
  YouTube wouldn't be what it is if they kept wondering how they'd monetize free video on the web. First they experiment, then they expand, then they take over. Even if money does not follow directly, it will eventually make its way into Google's core product: Adsense.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  Youtube is pushing out of its niche and wants to become the place for storing and sharing any kind of video on the internet. Note that Google has storage to burn, they've mastered high availability clustered network storage at a cost per gb far lower than the rest of the industry, they might as well try to use that for leverage. Also, google is a backbone internet provider, they don't pay for bandwith the same way that Microsoft or Apple might. Youtube bandwitch may cost them nothing, and even in a worst case scenario it only costs them rock bottom wholesale rates. Again, they're way ahead of the competition, so it makes sense for them to push.
ars 16y ago
Every time they have more disk space or bandwidth, they find a way to use it.
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  I'm certain they have the disk space. I'm not certain they have the bandwidth (or at least the correct buffering algorithm).
thefool 16y ago
So if I'm understanding this correctly, its a move to populate the site with high rez videos, so in a few years (or more) when monitor resolutions catch up, the site will be full of high rez content to watch?
ars 16y ago
It might "officially" be 4K, but it's so heavily compressed that there are visible 8x8 blocks in the images, so it might as well be 8 times smaller - i.e. it has an effective resolution of 512x384 Take a look: http://imgur.com/YFsGb.png http://imgur.com/YFsGb.png (I didn't change the image at all, except to crop it. I used mplayer to play it directly to png, and I made it a png so it's not jpeg artifacts.) For comparison here is the 1080 version: http://imgur.com/wkClm.png http://imgur.com/wkClm.png Interestingly the png of the 1080 is twice as large as the 4k version! Even though the 4k "officially" has twice the resolution in both directions (i.e. 4 times as many pixels).
bd 16y ago
Check their example videos: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F It seems since about 720p quality bottleneck is more in codec artefacts than in the resolution. So for overall effects it would be probably better to give additional bandwidth to less lossy codec / settings than just to pure resolution (their first video "Life in the garden" has 28 MB in 720p and 91 MB in 4k resolution).
fragmede 16y ago
I don't have the gear to watch real 4k video properly, but watching the first video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0m1XmvBey8&feature=PlayList&p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F&playnext_from=PL&index=0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0m1XmvBey8&feature=PlayL... ), I wouldn't consider it 'real' 4k. I bumped the res to 'original' and saw highly visible encoding artifacts on a 1080p monitor. Artifacts that I absolutely would not expect to see on 4k source RED footage, never mind 2k. It's a nice marketing number, but like buying a camera by megapixels and ignoring lens quality, it's not truly indicative of quality.
zokier 16y ago
Pure marketing stunt. Most Blurays are probably higher quality even if they are "only" 1080p. But they have bitrates hovering somewhere between 10 to 20 Mbps, while YouTube apparently uses <1Mbps even for 4k. Incidentally it could be interesting to see some kind of visual quality vs bitrate vs resoltion -chart, ie what would be the optimal resolution for some bitrate.
petercooper 16y ago
So at "4096p" the number refers to the horizontal res but at 720/1080, it's the vertical? Oddly inconsistent.

24 points by abraham 16y ago

Now we just need monitors, rather than projectors, that can actually display 4K content at its native resolution. Every LCD panel I've seen tops out at 2560x1600.

sp332 16y ago
They don't make them anymore :-( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors native resolution of 3840×2400 pixels (WQUXGA) on a screen with a diagonal of 22.2 inch (564 mm). This works out as over 9.2 million pixels, with pixel density of 204 pixels per inch (80 dpcm, 0.1245 mm pixel pitch)
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  Yeah they do: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/562026-REG/Astro_Design_Inc_DM_3400_DM_3400_56_Professional_4K.html http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/562026-REG/Astro_Desig... They cost a fortune though, like $50k+. Such hi-res monitors are only used for radiography and film at present.
  - stephen 16y ago
    That has a 4K resolution, but it's 56"--that's only ~91 DPI.
    - fragmede 16y ago
      While true, you're not holding the display a foot from your face like you would a cellphone.
pmjordan 16y ago
They do exist, they're just crazy expensive. They tend to be used for medical imaging and similarly specialised applications.
wmf 16y ago
Quad HD 3840x2160 prototypes have been shown, so we're getting close. Once 3D becomes a standard feature, TV makers may have to adopt quad HD to keep margins up.
chaosmachine 16y ago
And gigabit internet access.
zweben 16y ago
I've got a 2560x1600 monitor, and honestly, the 4k video looked worse to me than 1080p. Blocky all over the place. If they can't raise the bitrate on the 4k videos, there's really no point to it.

hop 16y ago

High density or "retina display" monitors should be on their way soon, I've seen a 15 inch prototype display, not sure the resolution, but it was gorgeous. It will be interesting to see how web standards evolve to work well with these resolutions.

Linear 16y ago

And yet they still limit videos to 10 minutes for some reason.

protomyth 16y ago
I would guess the answer to the time limit is the h.264 royalty license.
plorkyeran 16y ago
The 10 minute limit is to make uploading episodes of TV shows more annoying [1]. It has never been a technical limitation. [1] http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2006/03/your-15-minutes-of-fameummmmake-that-10.html http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2006/03/your-15-minutes-o...
- lanstein 16y ago
  Unless you join their premium program, the link for which, sadly, is broken. http://www.youtube.com/premium_register http://www.youtube.com/premium_register

bmalicoat 16y ago

Can't wait to see my first 4K cat video.

wmf 16y ago
I'm sure somebody out there is shooting his home videos with RED.
hugh3 16y ago
This has real applications. Take a 4K video of your cat, send it to some mechanical Turks, and they'll tell you if your cat has fleas.

ultrasaurus 16y ago

How can you possibly monetize this? 5 times the bandwidth/storage (rough guess) and all the extra information is wasted. It seems like a weird play. Unless the idea is that when people have 4k displays, YouTube will have a tiny expensive back catalog.

chime 16y ago
YouTube wouldn't be what it is if they kept wondering how they'd monetize free video on the web. First they experiment, then they expand, then they take over. Even if money does not follow directly, it will eventually make its way into Google's core product: Adsense.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
Youtube is pushing out of its niche and wants to become the place for storing and sharing any kind of video on the internet. Note that Google has storage to burn, they've mastered high availability clustered network storage at a cost per gb far lower than the rest of the industry, they might as well try to use that for leverage. Also, google is a backbone internet provider, they don't pay for bandwith the same way that Microsoft or Apple might. Youtube bandwitch may cost them nothing, and even in a worst case scenario it only costs them rock bottom wholesale rates. Again, they're way ahead of the competition, so it makes sense for them to push.

ars 16y ago

Every time they have more disk space or bandwidth, they find a way to use it.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
I'm certain they have the disk space. I'm not certain they have the bandwidth (or at least the correct buffering algorithm).

thefool 16y ago

So if I'm understanding this correctly, its a move to populate the site with high rez videos, so in a few years (or more) when monitor resolutions catch up, the site will be full of high rez content to watch?

ars 16y ago

It might "officially" be 4K, but it's so heavily compressed that there are visible 8x8 blocks in the images, so it might as well be 8 times smaller - i.e. it has an effective resolution of 512x384 Take a look: http://imgur.com/YFsGb.png http://imgur.com/YFsGb.png (I didn't change the image at all, except to crop it. I used mplayer to play it directly to png, and I made it a png so it's not jpeg artifacts.) For comparison here is the 1080 version: http://imgur.com/wkClm.png http://imgur.com/wkClm.png Interestingly the png of the 1080 is twice as large as the 4k version! Even though the 4k "officially" has twice the resolution in both directions (i.e. 4 times as many pixels).

bd 16y ago

Check their example videos: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F It seems since about 720p quality bottleneck is more in codec artefacts than in the resolution. So for overall effects it would be probably better to give additional bandwidth to less lossy codec / settings than just to pure resolution (their first video "Life in the garden" has 28 MB in 720p and 91 MB in 4k resolution).

fragmede 16y ago

I don't have the gear to watch real 4k video properly, but watching the first video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0m1XmvBey8&feature=PlayList&p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F&playnext_from=PL&index=0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0m1XmvBey8&feature=PlayL... ), I wouldn't consider it 'real' 4k. I bumped the res to 'original' and saw highly visible encoding artifacts on a 1080p monitor. Artifacts that I absolutely would not expect to see on 4k source RED footage, never mind 2k. It's a nice marketing number, but like buying a camera by megapixels and ignoring lens quality, it's not truly indicative of quality.

zokier 16y ago

Pure marketing stunt. Most Blurays are probably higher quality even if they are "only" 1080p. But they have bitrates hovering somewhere between 10 to 20 Mbps, while YouTube apparently uses <1Mbps even for 4k. Incidentally it could be interesting to see some kind of visual quality vs bitrate vs resoltion -chart, ie what would be the optimal resolution for some bitrate.

petercooper 16y ago

So at "4096p" the number refers to the horizontal res but at 720/1080, it's the vertical? Oddly inconsistent.