This is not a joke.

"Today at the VidCon 2010 conference, [Youtube] announced support for videos shot in 4K (a reference resolution of 4096 x 3072), meaning that now we support original video resolution from 360p all the way up to 4096p."

Read the rest of the blog post here: YouTube Blog: What's bigger than 1080p? 4K video comes to YouTube (http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-bigger-than-1080p-4k-video-comes.html)

As of this writing, there are only 5 videos currently up. They are here...

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5BF9E09ECEC8F88F)

Sigh... Now I have to get a 4k projector just to watch my lolzcats.

Looks like youtube is determined to prevent sites like vimeo getting a jump on them like what happened with HD.

Whats the cheapest 4k monitor/projector currently available retail?

720p is cleaner. Resolution means little if not backed up by massive bit rate.

Resolution means little if not backed up by massive bit rate

I just watched two 4k video's on youtube and I hardly saw the difference between 1080p and 4k, the 4k red footage displayed artifacts and I also see that it all comes down to used bitrate. showing 4k footage in it's native resolution but with limited bitrate has almost no advantage over 1080p footage. And once you crank up the bitrate your files will get huge and no-one with normal computers will be able to watch them.

Plus the fact that all youtube watchers have lcd screens that support max 1080p so what's the use? I actually can't see a reason why someone would publish at 4k for internet use?

Some people just love bigger numbers, it's a rather pointless exercise given how these videos are going to be viewed. The film makers will have to up their game to make this more than a "wow I shot this 4k" line!

I think it is an experiment in the future of delivery - it's still pretty beta, and it's not going to be perfect in its first incarnation - like all things that push the technical envelope, this too will change.

I don't see a need for Youtube 4K for the web as it exists today, either, but this won't be the same web 15 years from now, anymore than the web of 15 years ago (can you say 1995, AOL, text-based browsers?) resembles what we have today.

Most monitors don't even support 4k yet, it's really quite pointless to watch 4K on a 1080P Monitor. Guess they jumped the gun.

Jumping the Gun vs. Pushing the Envelope. I don't see it as a loser for YouTube. It's just more R&D, and some good press and internet buzz. Win/Win in business terms.

Plus the fact that all youtube watchers have lcd screens that support max 1080p so what's the use?

It's not 4k but plenty of people currently have 30" displays which support greater than 1080p. With the release of the iPhone 4 & it's 'retina display' hype I wouldn't be surprised to see a trend towards higher pixel densities in monitors over the next few years - even a 20" display at 300+dpi would be well over 4k resolution. As others have said - it's not about hitting the current target but doing R&D for what's coming down the line.

It really depends on how close people are going to sit in front of their screens. If the screen is going to dominate as in the front row in a cinema, the higher resolutions make sense, but it's more like the back row much less so.

Personally, I'd much rather them work on youtube Pro:

Longer time limits. Imposing ten minutes has done nothing to stop shows from being uploaded.
Pro account will allow for uploading of music files in videos, so no fear of deletion.

I'd say a $10 Pro account would match that of what vimeo has to offer.

I'd ditch YT altogether where it not for one thing. More eyeballs :).

I'm not sure if you meant $10 a month or $10 per year but if you did meant per year, I don't think that would cover the downloading of the original files. They'd have to do that to match Vimeo's service.

Idk guys... I understand the point of pushing the envelope and what-not... but 4k? Really? I would think it would be a better move to focus on improving the mobile codec. Or at least figure out some way to download of the site like the previous guy said. Google Video has it... why not Youtube? This is the resolution equivalent of the Vuvuzuela button. Sure its funny, but useful?

And besides, downloading those must be such a pain in the a$$ in terms of speed... why bother? the 1080p will full screen or bigger for the majority of monitors.

Oh, BTW, there IS a non official way to download videos..
Get firefox and look up easyyoutube video downloader. Not original file, but MP4 is next best thing...

And we do know youtube has this option....Users can re-download their own footage in the my video section...My guess is they do not offer this feature due to all the illegal show uploads.

Specs are like crack and too many people in our business are crack addicts. For the foreseeable future, this spec means nothing.

Dan

4K won't happen for a long time, if ever, for consumer consumption. There is not any demand for it. HD is simple "good enough." We learned this lesson with audio, all high end audio formats have failed miserably as far as consumer delivery. 4K does have value as a public display format, theaters, churches, maybe even high end sports bars with large screens. This may be an attempt by Youtube to get into that market, we'll see but I can assure you that the masses could really care less and they certainly aren't willing to pay for it.



ash =o)

All I see is a huge gimmick. My only case study where this situation would work is with people that want to rent a 4K movie then watch it streaming via (Google) gigabit.

There in lies another problem for this: 4K is meant to be experienced uncompressed (or with single digit to 1 compression, AKA Cineform or HDCAM SR.) H.264 or WebM at the moment don't belong in the 4K realm at meer bitrates of 5-10Mbps.