

YouTube announces support for videos shot in 4K (4096 x 3072) - abraham
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-bigger-than-1080p-4k-video-comes.html

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ars
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> (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>

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).

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hop
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.

------
bd
Check their example videos:

<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).

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fragmede
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=PlayL...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0m1XmvBey8&feature=PlayList&p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F&playnext_from=PL&index=0)
), 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.

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

~~~
plorkyeran
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-o...](http://youtube-
global.blogspot.com/2006/03/your-15-minutes-of-fameummmmake-that-10.html)

~~~
lanstein
Unless you join their premium program, the link for which, sadly, is broken.

<http://www.youtube.com/premium_register>

------
sbierwagen
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
They don't make them anymore :-(
<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
Yeah they do:
[http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/562026-REG/Astro_Desig...](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/562026-REG/Astro_Design_Inc_DM_3400_DM_3400_56_Professional_4K.html)

They cost a fortune though, like $50k+. Such hi-res monitors are only used for
radiography and film at present.

~~~
stephen
That has a 4K resolution, but it's 56"--that's only ~91 DPI.

~~~
fragmede
While true, you're not holding the display a foot from your face like you
would a cellphone.

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

~~~
hugh3
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.

------
zokier
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.

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

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ultrasaurus
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
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.

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thefool
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?

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

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

