YouTube Adds 'Leanback,' Support For 4K Video

teh31337one writes with news that YouTube has announced support for 4K video, which runs at a resolution of 4096 x 3072. From their blog: "To give some perspective on the size of 4K, the ideal screen size for a 4K video is 25 feet; IMAX movies are projected through two 2k resolution projectors. ... Because 4K represents the highest quality of video available, there are a few limitations that you should be aware of. First off, video cameras that shoot in 4K aren't cheap, and projectors that show videos in 4K are typically the size of a small refrigerator. And, as we mentioned, watching these videos on YouTube will require super-fast broadband." They provided a small playlist of videos shot in 4K. This announcement comes a few days after YouTube debuted "Leanback," a service that attempts to find and serve videos you'll like based on past viewing habits, as well as offering a simplified method of browsing.

Comments

not the highest resolution: 8k super hi-vision

[Surt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Hi-Vision

4k video is so legacy.

Re:not the highest resolution: 8k super hi-vision

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Particularly given the existence of films that are never actually filmed(ie. virtually anything Pixar has done, etc.) which make the existence of a camera that can actually handle a given resolution irrelevant to that resolution's "existence", the notion of a "highest resolution" seems rather meaningless.

This goes double for any format with lossy compression(ie. pretty much all of them in any sort of practical use), where you could declare that your format is 16,000,000x9,000,000 pixels, and thus the awesomest available, and then compress it down to 1Mb/S. The result would look roughly like the original Wolfenstein; but it would be the highest resolution out there.

Yay HD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can enjoy horse porn in glorious 4096 x 3072!

How about less compression?

[Beardydog]

I just tried a couple seconds at 1080p, and a couple of seconds at 4k on a 1080p screen, and found the difference to be quite noticeable in the details. The downside was that my 8800GT can't actually play 4k video faster than 4fps. How about instead of a 4k option almost no one will use, we try a 1080p option that doesn't have massive blocks, fringes, and blurring.

Stop the hatin'

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I see it already, the army of Slashdotters saying "no one has the bandwidth for this" and "no one has the video hardware for this" and "YouTube's implementation of this sucks." Well, that's ok. The point is that they're pushing the limits. Remember the first time you saw any video at all on a computer? Chunky, blocky, slow, tiny video coming off a CD-ROM in the early 1990's, perhaps? Yeah, it sucked, but the point was that they were showing something that would, eventually, evolve into something useful. Without the crappy CD-ROM graphics of the early 1990's, there would be no YouTube today. Someone's got to be the first to try it, someone's got to get the technology out there so it can be improved. Wouldn't you like to eventually watch YouTube in HD directly on your television? Today you've got to jump through hoops to do that. Tomorrow it might be as effortless as watching YouTube on your desktop computer.

Framerate, not resolution

[Animats]

James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar, etc.) says that higher frame rates are more valuable than higher resolution. He wanted to do Avatar at 48FPS, but the technology wasn't there yet. The sequel probably will be at a higher frame rate. Cameron points out that 4K resolution is worthless beyond the first few rows of the theater, but frame rate benefits all viewers.

It's a real issue for Cameron, who, as a director, likes sweeping panoramas with high detail. If you pan slowly over a high-resolution scene at 24FPS, there are visible artifacts. This precludes certain shots which look great and ought to be in the movie. It's necessary to defocus slightly or add motion blur for certain shots.

So YouTube should work on getting their frame rates up, not their resolutions. Let's see some IMAX movies at 48FPS on YouTube.

It's the highest in actual use

[Sycraft-fu]

SHV is experimental tech. They are playing with it right now, but it isn't in use anywhere, even in the pro world. It is just proof of concept and early testing.

4k is the high end of cinema. 4k is normally what you scan in and process film at (it is considered to be about the same as good 35mm). You can also get monitors that are very nearly 4k, and the high end digital cinema projectors are 4k. It is a currently used and in production format. If you go to a new, spiffy, digital theater and watch a movie like Avatar, it is probably a 4k projector (though some places with smaller screens use 2k instead, which is just a bit higher than 1080p).

There's a difference between "Technology that is being developed," and "Technology that is being used."

Take Ethernet. 100gb is currently under development. There are test units that exist, and the standard was finalized last month. However it is not a deployed technology. Your network does not have 100gb Ethernet backbones. 10gb is currently the fastest Ethernet out there. It is the fastest deployed in actual networks right now (fastest Ethernet, I know there are faster POS lines and so on).

So it is accurate to say 4k video is the highest for now.