- How to watch 4k videos on youtube 1080p#
- How to watch 4k videos on youtube Pc#
- How to watch 4k videos on youtube tv#
How to watch 4k videos on youtube tv#
If you’ve never heard of the Smart TV Effect before… that’s because we just made it up, but the premise is simple enough. Furthermore, the cost of making a 4K device is dropping to the point that the Smart TV Effect is beginning to take hold.
How to watch 4k videos on youtube Pc#
4K TV sales are increasing exponentially, and the ever-hungry PC gaming market is driving the sales of 4K monitors. Now that we’ve talked about how small a market 4K is for YouTube let’s look to the future.
How to watch 4k videos on youtube 1080p#
1080p on an average mobile phone screen is already higher than that, so increasing the pixel density further won’t make a noticeable difference. It is estimated that a healthy human eye can discern detail up to 326ppi (pixels per inch). While it is true that many-probably most-modern phones can display 4K videos, it’s something of a moot point since our feeble human eyes can’t tell the difference on screens that small. To briefly touch on phones since, of course, mobile devices are the most popular kind of device for watching YouTube on. However, 4K TVs are still vastly outnumbered by 1080p, so even if every TV owner on the planet was watching YouTube on their television rather than their computer, 4K would still be in the minority. Well, more and more people are indeed watching YouTube through their TV, thanks to the prevalence of things like Amazon’s Fire Stick, Smart TVs and gaming consoles with an app ecosystem. As shown by (at the time of writing), only 0.12% of users online are using 4K resolution, with 2K just creeping inside the top ten, and regular 1080p (1K, if you like) topping the list by a wide margin.
What we can safely say is that only a tiny share of computer users online have their resolutions set to 4K. Having to wait 4x as long for your video to upload (plus additional processing time at YouTube’s end) might not be an issue for you, but it’s worth mentioning.įinding concrete statistics on 4K as it pertains to YouTube is not easy. As fast as Internet speeds are getting, upload speeds have always been notoriously slow in comparison. One final thing to factor in is your connection. And there is also the possibility that all of a households internet connection will not be available, such as would be the case if someone were watching Netflix at the same time your viewer is attempting to stream your 4K content. Of course, the average Internet connection speed in most developed countries has risen in the 100s, but it is important to remember that averages can be easily skewed by a relatively small number of abnormally high connections.
Internet speeds may be increasing all the time, but many homes don’t have a fast enough connection to stream 4K content, and certainly not at higher frame rates.įor reference, here are the different standard resolutions broken down. The increased resolution of 4K will bring a lot more detail into the light.įinally, there is the issue of streaming. You also need to pay more attention to yourself, your set, and anything that might be in the shot when filming. As anyone who has rendered a video before can tell you video editing is not light work. You also need a computer capable of editing such high-resolution footage. Not only do you need a camera capable of 4K, but it also needs to be a good camera, as poor quality video will be considerably more apparent at that resolution. The name could come either from the fact that the horizontal resolution of 4K is almost 4,000 pixels or from the fact that there is exactly 4x the number of pixels in a 1080p display.ĤK represents several challenges from a creator’s standpoint, from recording to editing and, ultimately, streaming. 4K is a somewhat gimmicky name given to the latest standard screen resolution to hit the market. Before you decide whether 4K is right for your channel, you should know what it is you’re deciding about. If some or all of these things are not true, however, you need to weigh up the pros and cons before deciding 4K is for you. If it is something you can already do-if you have a 4K camera, your set is nice and dressed up, you’ve mastered your makeup game, and you have a beefy Internet connection and a beefier computer, there’s no reason to not upload in 4K. But we want to go a little deeper than that, of course. The result of this being that you could end up putting considerably more time and effort into making your videos 4K, only to find none of your audience is watching in that resolution. 4K is nowhere near ubiquitous, yet the cost of a good 4K camera over a regular HD camera is not insignificant. While channels can-and indeed have-succeed with lower quality video, there is hardly any reason at all not to opt for the highest possible quality you can manage when considering things from a viewers perspective.Īs with most things in life, the practical reality of uploading videos in 4K isn’t quite as straightforward. As a general rule, the better the quality of your video, the better it is for your channel.