Skip to footer

YouTube test drives ultra-HD videos

YouTube is experimenting with 4K videos running at 60 frames per second. Only six videos are available in the new format so far, and you'll need a powerful computer and a fast Internet connection to be able to watch them.

When YouTube first launched in 2005, users could view videos in only a single size – 320x240 pixels – with a single channel of MP3 audio. Those videos look pretty underwhelming by today’s standards (if you need proof, just watch “Me at the zoo,” the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, at full-screen size).

But as home data networks have gotten faster over the past 10 years, they’ve been capable of smoothly playing videos at higher resolutions, and YouTube has improved its supported formats accordingly.

As of 2015, the highest resolution supported by YouTube is 4K, which measures 3840x2160 pixels, or 90 times the density of YouTube’s original format. Now the video site is running some experiments to see if it’s feasible to host videos that are better-looking still.

YouTube now hosts six specially selected clips at 4K size that play at 60 frames per second (fps), giving them a silky-smooth look. If you want to see what it looks like, watch this clip of Secret, a South Korean girl group, singing “Yoohoo” in resolution so high it’s almost unsettling. You’ll need a high-end computer, monitor, and graphics card to run it smoothly, since the 60 frames of 4K video per second is a huge amount of data to process.

YouTube has hosted 4K videos since 2010 and has allowed 60-fps videos since June 2014, but this is the first time it’s allowed 4K videos at the higher framerate – the vast majority of YouTube’s content plays at the standard 24 fps. 60 frames per second is considered the rate at which computer graphics cards ought to be able to power video games, so being able to watch replays on YouTube at the same rate is a boon for gamers. Only high-end video cameras are capable of capturing live action at 60 fps.

Regular users can’t upload 4K 60 fps videos yet, since the format is still experimental and restricted to the six videos in this playlist. Still, YouTube is way ahead of the curve in even experimenting with these high-end formats. Most people don’t have 4K screens yet, so they’ll miss out on the higher resolution. And most computers aren’t capable of decoding 60-fps video at such high resolutions, either, so the videos will play smoothly on only the highest-end rigs.

Finally, these super HD videos consume an incredible amount of bandwidth – 4K at the standard 24 fps requires a connection of 35 to 45 megabits per second, according to YouTube, and bumping up the framerate increases that requirement even further. The average download speed in the US right now is 34.2 Mbps, according to Internet analysis firm Ookla, so hardly anyone’s connection will be able to download data quickly enough to allow them to watch videos in this new format.

Still, processors and data connections will get faster, and screen resolutions will continue to improve. YouTube’s experiment is looking forward to the day when most people’s computers will be able to handle ultra-HD video at a high framerate – and anything less than that could look as dated as 320x240 videos do today.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to YouTube test drives ultra-HD videos
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/0330/YouTube-test-drives-ultra-HD-videos
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe