Here's a bit of a surprise: YouTube has technically supported videos shot in even higher resolutions than 4K for some time now. That's not to say that it's taken amateur filmmakers and scenery shooters years and years to finally upload something bigger than 4K to the service. Rather, YouTube apparently just flipped the switch on the label for "8K," or a 4320p-resolution video.
Confused? We don't blame you. Google's explanation isn't very clear, as 9to5Google notes.
Regardless of how the whole "support for 8K" question breaks down, YouTube fans with not-so-insignificant computers can now watch movies in twice the resolution of the already-large 4K. And what appears to the be the first video—or, at least, the first 8K video that anybody has found—was uploaded to the service just this week (see below).
It seems that you'll need to be using Google's Chrome browser or Internet Explorer to watch the video, Ghost Towns, at its maximum possible resolution. We couldn't get the 8K resolution to pull up in Firefox. You'll also want to have a fairly good computer; if you're struggling to run 4K at a nice, smooth pace, you might want to avoid the slide projector-like feel that 8K will deliver.
And, of course, if you're just on a 1080p monitor (or smaller), you aren't likely to notice much of a difference between the already ultra-res 4K and the even-more-ultra-res 8K. You might see some kind of slight difference as a result of all the downsampling that has to occur to stuff a 8K resolution on your 1080p screen, but we somehow doubt you're going to see a dramatic quality improvement. If you're on a 4K (or Retina 5K iMac), odds are more likely that you'll notice a difference between the 4K and 8K shot.
Of course, that's not to say that every image in said video has been shot at native 8K. First, very few cameras currently exist that can even do that. As 9to5Google notes, Ghost Towns was actually filmed using a RED Epic Dragon 6K in portrait mode. The images were then stitched together or upscaled in Adobe After Effects to get to the final "8K" resolution of 7,680 by 4,320. And upscaling, of course, isn't "pure" 8K—rather, it's more of an interpretation on a computer's part than a native 8K image shot directly with a camera. Either way, it's going to give your computer a workout.
Confused? We don't blame you. Google's explanation isn't very clear, as 9to5Google notes.
Regardless of how the whole "support for 8K" question breaks down, YouTube fans with not-so-insignificant computers can now watch movies in twice the resolution of the already-large 4K. And what appears to the be the first video—or, at least, the first 8K video that anybody has found—was uploaded to the service just this week (see below).
It seems that you'll need to be using Google's Chrome browser or Internet Explorer to watch the video, Ghost Towns, at its maximum possible resolution. We couldn't get the 8K resolution to pull up in Firefox. You'll also want to have a fairly good computer; if you're struggling to run 4K at a nice, smooth pace, you might want to avoid the slide projector-like feel that 8K will deliver.
And, of course, if you're just on a 1080p monitor (or smaller), you aren't likely to notice much of a difference between the already ultra-res 4K and the even-more-ultra-res 8K. You might see some kind of slight difference as a result of all the downsampling that has to occur to stuff a 8K resolution on your 1080p screen, but we somehow doubt you're going to see a dramatic quality improvement. If you're on a 4K (or Retina 5K iMac), odds are more likely that you'll notice a difference between the 4K and 8K shot.
Of course, that's not to say that every image in said video has been shot at native 8K. First, very few cameras currently exist that can even do that. As 9to5Google notes, Ghost Towns was actually filmed using a RED Epic Dragon 6K in portrait mode. The images were then stitched together or upscaled in Adobe After Effects to get to the final "8K" resolution of 7,680 by 4,320. And upscaling, of course, isn't "pure" 8K—rather, it's more of an interpretation on a computer's part than a native 8K image shot directly with a camera. Either way, it's going to give your computer a workout.
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