This development may be a sign that YouTube’s engineers have run out of things to do. Or it could just be a not-particularly-hilarious joke. But for whatever reason, YouTube recently announced support for videos that are meant to be shown on 25-foot screens.
For those of you who don’t happen to work in movie theaters or use whole walls as televisions: that means YouTube now supports a resolution known as "4K." And to put that in perspective, a post on the YouTube Blog confirmed, "4K is nearly four times the size of 1080p."
Which is neat from a technical perspective, at least. It could also more than negate YouTube critics’ longstanding complaints about shoddy video quality.
It’s a bit hard to imagine who or what will be able to take advantage of the 4K option in the near future, however. The blog post later noted, "[V]ideo cameras that shoot in 4K aren’t cheap, and projectors that show videos in 4K are typically the size of a small refrigerator. And . . . watching these videos on YouTube will require super-fast broadband."
Ah, well. YouTube’s put together a short playlist of 4K videos if you feel like trying to view one.