What is YouTube 1080p Premium?

[@AbysmalEnd]

if Linus ever retires. Riley has to be the guy who takes his place.

[@kurvahdid3399]

Linus is yaping while Riley spits facts don't compare F1 and karting thank you

[@tabxtra7057]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[@Benji10109]

I think it would be primarily a mix of riley, alex, jake, dan, and maybe luke if linus leaves. Riley > tho

[@Gebator]

riley is the GOAT

[@rujigo69]

The actual protege is Jake, Linus has pretty much been a second dad to him.

[@soJellyman]

I always notice videos looking bad and then I check and yup, there's the 1080p premium option. Doesn't happen if the video doesn't have that option

[@theakira05]

Same, it's usually on popular videos too, and it's a big reason why I advocate for FHD+ on videos

[@prezlamen7906]

Does this video have that option?

[@matthewshields]

Placebo effect, 1080p didn't change. There's just an extra 1080p that's better.

[@AndreasElf]

@@matthewshields But what about old videos since many years back with this Premium option? Are YT really saving the first uploaded video? (Before they encoded it on their side) I'm sure they are re-encoding the normal quality 1080p to a lower quality and then calls the normal 1080p Premium instead.

[@CalebBaker500]

​@@matthewshields not true. It has been proven that KZbin lowered the standard 1080p video bitrate.

[@littlekirby6]

yeah youtube 100% lowered the bitrate on standard 1080p and 720p options, I thought I was going crazy. I got a 1440p monitor about 4 years ago, but I noticed that 1440p quality on videos didn't seem that big of a difference to me and felt that 1080p or even 720 was good enough 99% of the time. But I started noticing about 2 years ago that 1080p videos that used to look fine suddenly looked terrible in scenes with fast motion or lots of variety in the image. Now I default to 1440p quality when available because it seems to have that good bitrate like the 1080p videos of the past

[@davidrose2899]

Agreed. I used to be great with 720p on mobile, but noticed a quality reduction near the time KZbin shorts become a thing. Now 1080p is what 720p used to be

[@alexatkin]

@@davidrose2899 Their excuse is probably that its a different codec that is "comparable to what it was before at the higher bitrate", which is never true in my experience.

[@hanuman9]

One difference is that they offer both x264 and VP9 videos. According to my tests, VP9 is ~35% more efficient, but sometimes the x264 file is considerably larger and of better quality. So the best quality is either x264 or VP9 depending on the video. Also they removed 256kbps AAC audio to replace it with 128kbpx Opus, which is very disappointing for an audiophile. Opus is more efficient but not by 2x.

[@A2theC]

@@hanuman9 as you stated the x264/av1 video is more clear, but oddly enough also smaller size in some videos. I use a downloader which defaults to MP4 but I'll check which is smaller often enough & compare quality (if important in context or not).

[@hanuman9]

@@A2theC I programmed the "Yang Downloader" which automatically selects the best stream based on file size. When I have time, I should look into getting that Premium stream if possible...

[@DiegoTeliz]

The differences aren't subtle. Whenever I notice a clear drop of video quality, surely enough, there's a 1080p premium option available.

[@DanKaschel]

I'll bet you don't have yt premium. Get a trial, if you can, and try selecting that option. I'll bet you it does a lot less than you think.

[@yensteel]

Can you give me an example video? I can take a look and compare the two I have a uni discount.

[@Kidsnd274]

​@DanKaschel Disagree. Everyone has different sensitivity when it comes to this. But MrBeast's videos in non premium turn to absolute mush.

[@sepg5084]

If you actually watched this video and understood how they explained how video compression worked then maybe you'd realize that it is possible the videos that you are claim to be of poor quality has a lot more going on screen, like more dynamic scenes and whatnot, which would cause it to look worse on youtube's regular 1080p. A video with less motion, color differences, etc. would look better on the same bitrate.

[@I_billed_that_beard_guy]

Use revanced i always play videos on 1440p even on 1080p devices

[@bush2137]

Funny that a video about 1080p premium doesnt have 1080p premium

[@scottydc]

its in 4k, thats why. 1080 premium would be less than just setting it to 1440p, even on a 1080p screen

[@jake_leg]

Yt typically take a few hours to finish rendering a video for higher resolution and bitrate. As I'm posting this comment its been 30ish minutes since posting which isnt enough time for yt to do the thing

[@matthewshields]

​​@@scottydcexcept not all devices can do 4k or 1440p (Chromecast for example) but could do 1080p premium.

[@unvergebeneid]

​@@matthewshieldsyeah but why would they reduce the bitrate for everyone else just to benefit this super niche application?

[@scottydc]

@matthewshields sounds like a skill issue to me

[@Zalkard]

I've first hand seen older videos I had watched relatively soon prior to them implementing the 1080p premium, and they actually straight up destroyed the quality for non premium 1080p. It literally started with the observation "Why does this video I watched earlier suddenly look so bad? Did it change to 480p or something?". It's outrageous. They did nothing but lock the old quality behind a paywall and give you a really bad version of 1080p otherwise. They're holding the old 1080p as ransom.

[@swianr]

Literally noticed this the other day, i was watching a video at 1080p about gpu performance, the fps overlay was so garbled i though i was watching at 720p I remember when we had worse internet speed, 480 wasn't half bad, and 720p was better than today's 1080p

[@SRC267]

Software like YTDLP is able to grab 1080p Premium if you choose to, usually its the default in some GUI versions.

[@viperion_nz]

Mostly unrelated to this video, but relevant to YTDLP; if you're a basic muggle like me and only use the GUI version and not the command line version, where do you find the "download this particular resolution" options?

[@SRC267]

@viperion_nz it's just the regular 1080p option in the settings. That's what it is with the one i use - "ytdlp-interface" by ErrorFlynn.

[@SRC267]

@viperion_nz it's just the regular 1080p option in the GUI settings. The one I use is made by ErrorFlynn. "Ytdlp-interface"

[@MaxC_1]

​@@viperion_nz if you're on PC then open video downloader is nice. On mobile app (i prefer it) YTDLnis is great

[@ShaferHart]

​@@viperion_nz by default CLI downloads the best quality combination so GUI should get it by default, otherwise just look at the resolution settings

[@sonofasalesman]

ALSO SOMETHING TO NOTE! Even if you have a 1080 display, 4k often looks better because of this compression nonsense. It's insane that's what we need to do to get better video but yes it does help

[@KyleDavis328]

That's also just supersampling.

[@NinjaSynFrey]

For smaller channels uploading in 1080p, the quality is pretty bad as well. KZbin won't use the VP9 or AV1 codec on your video if it isn't popular. A workaround is to upscale your final render in 1440p and KZbin will automatically convert it to VP9.

[@miguellopez3392]

​@@KyleDavis328no. You get a much higher bitrate in 4k than 1080p, 4k with the same bit rate would look the same, super sampeling is if you are generating the pixle detail.

[@riccardopetrina4212]

I knew it, those pieces. VP9 format 617 is so much better than what KZbin plays on the browser, even compared to AV1. And I think format 617 has a max bitrate of around 6100Kbps, instead of the 4000 or 3000 that is usually served. That same 6000 is used on 4K videos of smaller channels, which is barely appropriate. They pushed saving cost a lot, and people noticed it too.

[@yensteel]

Sometimes, at the same bitrate (pretty low as in YT rates), 1080p would look better than 4k. It's because there is less detail loss and compression artifacts (blockiness and smearing) in fast moving scenes like game streams. If given a choice between a bit-rate starved 4k or a moderate 1080p, I would choose 1080p (but not pay for it). The codecs behave differently in regards to which details to keep for Av1 and hevc. For x265, use adaptive-SAO when you're compressing. A lot less detail is lost without penalty.

[@psfilmsbob]

This is why physical media is so important, if you want to enjoy your favorite movies and shows as best as possible. Netflix throttles their bitrate so much that watching a 4K stream is worse than watching a Bluray.

[@BassLiberators]

Physical media sucks in its own ways though. It's all going to become plastic trash in landfill one day, and it requires way more resources to produce.

[@bobclarke5913]

@@BassLiberators But once produced uses no additional resources while datacenters hosting all things "cloud" are massive. And you can't use one for a coaster.

[@NexusGamingRadical]

Pirating 4k 80Gb films doesnt have this problem :D Can't buy that quality sadly but you can get it for free.

[@jsncrso]

Physical media is also compressed, albeit not as much.

[@i3looi2]

That's where AV1 codec comes in.

[@anuki_too]

yeah basically just render in 1440p/4K. i did these before "premium bitrate" was even a thing. even if your comp is 1080p, it's just free quality boost at no extra cost~

[@WaspMedia3D]

Yeah that's what I often do. If Google doesn't want that clogging up their servers, they can just make everything 1080 "premium" ... but the don't - they just want to suck more money out of you. I remember when YT didn't even have any ads, and somehow they stayed afloat - its all to feed an insatiable greed and lust for money ...

[@AL-lh2ht]

Yea this is trick that works, for whatever reason 4k is at a higher bit rate on not just the pixals but the color information and whatnot. So if you watch 4k, even on a 1080p monitor, it will look better the the 1080 option.

[@fenn_fren]

Actually, don't. It's horrible practice. I'm generally against using resolutions above any footage in the video, just like I am against 60 FPS video with no 60 FPS footage. Besides wasting bandwidth, you're also putting extra tax on low-end hardware. And above all else, you're also using up extra storage space for basically no reason, which hinders both your disk and KZbin's.

[@woof225]

​@@fenn_frenI agree with you on not uploading as a 60fps video when it's actually 30fps. Its very annoying and looks bad. However I think they are referring to after the video has been uploaded. If your screen only shows 1080p they set it at 4k (given that's what video was uploaded as) so that it would have less bitrate compression. You are only seeing 1080p, since that's the maximum resolution the monitor supports, but KZbin is showing you the video at a higher bitrate.

[@fenn_fren]

@@woof225 They specifically say rendering at higher resolution. You also know what's also annoying and looks bad? Watching blurry 1080p footage in "4K" which makes the actual 1080p just look even worse. This happens both due to bitrate compression and due to KZbin downscaling the 1080p 4K video back to 1080p. You're basically just doing a more advanced version of shrinking and expanding an image in MS paint.

[@xBris]

4:16 - *EVERY* time I notice, that video quality seems to be particularly poor on a video, I click the little gear icon - and you can bet that "enhanced bitrate" is shown as an option. Every now and then, I click on videos with "normal" quality, and that option is never there (like on this video). So yeah, going by anecdotal evidence: KZbin is definitely decreasing the bitrate on some videos on purpose just to upsell their premium service.

[@fireeraser2206]

From just this information you cannot really deduce malicious intent. It's possible to collect metrics about the quality of an encoded video and KZbin certainly uses some of these. The most likely explanation for your observation is that KZbin always uses their default preset first and only bothers with an additional higher quality encode if the compression defects are above a defined threshold.

[@justarandomguy8694]

​@@fireeraser2206giving them way too much credit here

[@sepg5084]

If you actually watched this video and understood how they explained how video compression worked then maybe you'd realize that it is possible the videos that you are claim to be of poor quality has a lot more going on screen, like more dynamic scenes and whatnot, which would cause it to look worse on youtube's regular 1080p.

[@hanifarroisimukhlis5989]

Definitely. I also noticed KZbin increasing contrast while lowering bitrate for all resolution (haven't tried "premium" yet). It's okay for text, but anything else will cause annoying halo effect.

[@robertp457]

Is that option visible if you didn’t pay for the service?

[@Aeturnalis]

2:57 skip ad

[@robertp457]

Way to support the free content you consume.

[@arnerademacker]

@@robertp457 It's not pay per view, so skipping it has no effect. They already got payed.

[@TheRealSkeletor]

The GoAT

[@Kxycxx]

A man of the people 🙌🏿

[@A2theC]

SponsorBlock 🫡 🤫

[@ElitistMagi]

They lower the bitrate for normal 1080 and give you the normal bitrate on premium, is not like they improve on the original.

[@NobbsAndVagene]

They said they wouldn't do this, but it's exactly what they did.

[@Stilo95]

Scamming people legally.

[@toothpac607]

If that'd be case, you'd have 1080p premium on all videos and not just a few that were released since its existence

[@jake_leg]

Proof?

[@CGGS_0]

@@toothpac607No, it’s because they downscaled the bitrate for none-1080p Premium users. It’s the equivelent to how Netflix doesn’t give you 4k res (for the 4k tier) if you don’t have a specific TV. They’ll just give you 720p or 1080p on a 4k tier plan.

[@rongrishaver7537]

The craziest thing is that before covid hit the "premium bitrate" was the normal bitrate if anyone remembers they cranked the normal bitrate down because everyone and their grandparents was watching youtube so now a couple years later they are bringing it back with a premium fee

[@A2theC]

The AV1 codec was created for streaming video in 2018 but was only adopted by Google in 2020, so you're not wrong. They've started forcing it as default only this year though, which uses more CPU on devices without hardware decoding, also burning battery life.

[@Razear]

The difference ain't worth padding the bottom line of a multi-trillion-dollar corporation whose former mantra was "Don't be evil."

[@fenn_fren]

KZbin literally went "Be evil 😈"

[@ryanthompson3737]

They do not make anywhere near multi-trillions of dollars per year, and quoting their market cap as their worth is just a fundamental misunderstanding of what the stock market is and what market cap is. I can, right now, create a stock with 1 trillion shares in it... if I convince 10 people to pay $10 for a share, I've only gained $100 while the stock market declares my net worth to be closer to $10 trillion.... I'd be 40 times richer than Elon musk off of $100. The market cap and stock market does not make a company more valuable.

[@jex-the-notebook-guy1002]

​@@fenn_fren prob thx to google. Do people know facebook is the government spying on you? Same day spy program gets shut down, facebook releases.

[@A2theC]

@@fenn_fren Ah, so you remember "KZbin Red" era 🤣 RIP Google Play music/movies

[@emilflarsen2]

720p back in the day looked crisp and when i look at the those same videos today they're way worse. I don't think it's my eyes playing a trick on me and i think KZbin did in fact do something to older videos. 720p was consider a HD resolution by KZbin until just recently when they removed the HD watermark.

[@dftfire]

They are re-encoding old videos in older formats, such as VP8, VP9 or H.264 into the newer AV1. Maybe during the conversations something is not going right? And 720p isn't HD thesedays, as clearly we're now in a world where 4K exists. As things move up, so does where the entry-point begins too. Just like most MP3s now are all 320kbps as standard, or people use FLAC. 128kbps MP3 is no-longer seen as "high quality", it was just the lowest people would go to when we had less storage on devices and Internet was slower so smaller files were faster to transfer

[@Falcodrin]

@@dftfire Its almost certainly to save storage and bandwidth costs

[@Senthiuz]

The VHS wears out after it gets played too much.

[@KaitouKaiju]

720p is the original HD resolution

[@emilflarsen2]

720p was a go-to for many youtubers over a decade ago due to upload speeds. I too think that something has gone wrong. While higher resolutions exist today KZbin wasn't wrong in labeling 720p as HD since 720p is literally the entry point of HD technically speaking. What i fear is that when 1080p becomes obsolete (it will happen sooner than we think) they'll also reduce those videos as well. What i'd really love from KZbin is letting the creators download their older videos in the original compression for preservation. That way the user still has a choice to re-upload certain videos in better quality.

[@Konigreich]

I noticed on a few videos that the regular 1080p option was encoded in AV1 while the enhanced bitrate one was encoded in VP9. Which means that the higher bitrate version is using a less effecient encoder lol.

[@Space.]

Lol why not use av1 for all its a good upgrade

[@HNedel]

Sounds like it defeats the purpose… maybe they need both encodes as not all devices will support the newer codec

[@mrkitty777]

AV1 is luxury, very heavy codes for CPU

[@dftfire]

It might be that your device doesn't support AV1 at the higher-bitrate, so it's dropped-back to VP9? I notice in Chromium browsers videos often play in AV1 or H.264 on one of my older PCs, but mostly VP9 in Firefox

[@yensteel]

Facepalm.. well.. that's not smart..

[@Gregorius421]

Recent months yt started to regularly step down the resolution on its own every 5-10 minutes, until HD videos are played in 480p, on GIGABIT internet. Ridiculous. Obviously they are pushing users to pay for the normal quality.

[@OG_Zlog]

Yep... their don't be evil, rule was actually become evil over the next 20 years so no one notices. Well, we noticed....

[@A2theC]

@@OG_Zlog The founders don't even work here anymore, since 2015 they've adopted a new phrase "Do the right thing" instead. Right for the company or right for the consumer? That's a matter of perspective & each case is evaluated by Gemni in 0.00000001ns, nah let's be real, the A.I. doesn't care about humans.

[@rodhester]

This is why BR discs are better than streaming movies on a 4k tv. 1080P movies: Blu-ray discs typically have a maximum bit rate of around 40 megabits per second (Mbits/s) Ultra HD Blu-ray movies: These movies can have bit rates as high as 128 Mbits/s

[@Olivyay]

The reason people have noticed lower quality of "standard" 1080p is VP9: when you compare the sizes of all the VP9 versions of a video, the 1080p one has the lowest bits/pixel of all, lower than 720p and 480p. Comparatively, the 1440p and 2160p definitions have much higher bits/pixel (which doesn't really makes sense, as quality differences become more difficult to spot the more you increase definition, as screen sizes don't increase at the same rate). This means KZbin is specifically lowering the relative quality of 1080p, *but only on VP9* : the H.264 encodings of 1080p are much bigger than the efficiency difference between VP9 and H.264 would explain.

[@Velocifyer]

If a video is uploaded above 1080p, normal 1080p is "enchanced bitrate". (That is why you see somepoeple upload stuff captured from a switch in 2160p when it can only do 1080p output)

[@RobloxianX]

Fun fact: any video that doesn’t have a 1080p Premium option has 1080p at that increased bitrate already

[@sethmorgan0305]

It's an add-on, not the reason to pay. Obviously, no ads and YT music are the actual value.

[@bigbubba0439]

What value? Just use brave browser and Spotify (or Apple Music) for no ads and free music

[@isaacibbotson4632]

I still haven't used yt music. Normal yt app does the same thing

[@unvergebeneid]

Downloading videos is the actual value. ReVanced does as removal at least as well.

[@AlGhostZX]

​@@unvergebeneidnot on smart tvs, not even pihole kills those

[@Falcodrin]

@@AlGhostZX FireTVs have something called smarttube which is basically all the features of revanced and is also actively fixed when things are changed.

[@SupaKoopaTroopa64]

One thing to note is that a lot of youtubers, especially those who are not very knowledgeable about video encoding, tend to upload their videos at equal, or even lower qualities than standard KZbin bitrate (which varies a lot, but tends to be ~3-7 mbps for standard 1080p). The video quality gets even worse when KZbin then re-encodes the video, adding artifacts on top of those that were in the original video. I'm always shocked when I see the the encoding settings that some channels use (if they ever show their video editor's settings for a split second). If your video editor has an option called "CRF," set that to ~14, then you won't need to worry about stacking artifacts. Sure, your video might be a few gigabytes in size, but you can just delete it once it's uploaded. If, you don't have that option, 1080p Blu-rays are 25 mbps, so that should give you similar quality.

And some people are even knowledgeable enough to use correct units… because mbps != Mbps. (m is milli, M is mega)

[@user-ui4fn6fj3p]

Usually people denote that with a capital B. Mbps for bits, MB/s for bytes.

[@CoolJosh3k]

Plenty of creators want to keep an archive of all their videos and maybe even their source assets. This means they have to fork out a lot of money for the storage, or reduce the quality. Personally I make a high quality video for sharing, then store a low quality version for my archive just incase.

[@DanKaschel]

​@@user-ui4fn6fj3phe's suggesting that "mbps" would refer to units of one thousandth of a bit per second (milli being one thousandth). Which is silly since that's not a distinction that needs to be made (as bits are indivisible, at least in this context), but he clearly takes great solace in his condescension.

[@SupaKoopaTroopa64]

@@CoolJosh3k I usually do something similar (Although I haven't really uploaded much in a long time). However, I mostly just keep the source videos and re-export if I need the edited version.

[@jmitzenmacher5]

4:15 I do have some signifigant (though maybe incidental) evidence of this. I has a small archive of about 1500 youtube videos downloaded in full quality. Obviously I haven't checked all of them, but from what I have seen, if I try to re-download any of the older ones, the bitrate is either the same or in many cases worse. And I have also noticed youtube has recently removed the vp9 and av1 versions of many old 1080p videos, so those videos look pretty terrible now, and there isn't even a premium option for those. Suffice to say, whether or not it's true across-the-board, in many individual cases KZbin has reduced the quality of videos.

[@A2theC]

I believe the reason for this is, the videos are being transcoded as the data is transferred to you. I use a downloader sometimes & will notice the file size fluctuate on certain videos/format, so I'll switch it to another codec. I don't mind losing tiny amount of quality if it's informational, but if it's 'art' like music video or presentation I want better.

[@jmitzenmacher5]

@@A2theC TLDR: Don’t think you are losing quality when the file size fluctuates, thats just how some stream types work. This is not true, youtube doesn’t have the processing power to transcode a new copy any time someone streams a video. They generate a bunch of copies in batches, and everyone sees exactly the same versions until youtube decides to reprocess the video for everyone. What you are seeing with fluctuations means that particular stream is fragmented. The downloader can’t know the total file size, because all of the fragments are a bit different, so it looks at the beginning of the stream and estimates the total size using the bitrate of the first fragments. So while it looks like new stuff is being generated just for you, remember that youtube doesn’t have the power for that. If you download that same stream again, you will get the same file, bit-perfect. If you pause the download, and pick it up days later, the estimate will be consistent across that too.

[@Hennie1254]

Who is your new co-worker named "Server Rack"? Great job managing the production :)

[@chuckMvideos]

4:24 all I want with my paid YT subscription is for it to remember that I want all my video to be 1080p. And STOP 🛑 changing it or forgetting it. Use to you could set it in settings for exactly what you want, now you can choose "high" quality... it thinks 720 is high enough for my paid subscription. They are about to lose my money and viewership, rumble looking better everyday.

[@icantcomeupwithnames469]

I can do that for free lol

[@addy.is.live1]

4:45 nothing is free they show ads 😂

[@Living-gnu-64]

It’s “free” in the monetary sense that they are not taking money out of your bank account. Of course if you want to argue ‘time’ then yes it “costs” time to watch those ads but that’s the trade-off in a society driven off of a time-money management system. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. It’s not free for google to host all these videos, the site, pay its’ creators, and everything else around it so they have to make up for it somewhere.

[@ARG_ON18]

I'm confident KZbin significantly lowers the regular 1080p quality. I remember when the "enhanced bitrate" just started, the quality on channels I usually watch dropped hard. Especially it was noticeable on dark scenes, as blocky artifacts started appearing. Moreover, I'm surprised that free accounts still have access to 4K video, but not 1080p "premium"? So no, I don't think it's about "their pipes don't get clogged".

[@Kavyatej]

i second this.

[@AtomAndRose]

They definitely changed the quality of standard 1080p. I remember watching a video in 1080p and came back to it when enhanced 1080p came out and It was a noticible difference in quality, for instance pixelation around the edges of everything depending on the scene. What I think has happened, is that the premium 1080p that you now have to pay for, is what we actually used to have for free. Glad I found the video as it was driving me nuts for a long time and I couldn't seem to find anyone talking about it.

[@mc116]

This is how Google gets you to embrace/cave into their ecosystem. First it starts with a Google account that had for a long time, then a trial for KZbin premium, then you go back watching ads, then another trial and then you noticed 1080p premium, then you try KZbin music (which is pretty damn good now). Now you're contemplating switching from Spotify to cut costs and that's how Google gets you!

[@3nertia]

That's just how business works under capitalism lol

[@mc116]

@3nertia I say it's worse with big tech and companies from other industries take notice like with subscription models, integration with other products, etc. I'm personally consumed with Google products from the pixel 9 pro XL to Gemini and all the software. Can't quit google if I tried. It's a love/hate relationship 🙃

[@3nertia]

@@mc116 Capitalism always trends toward monopolies lol

[@Dampfaeus]

I like how Riley got the power to pop up on a screen inside the video, or even come down from the top, upside down. Very entertaining.

[@Fredrickwayde]

Woah..i thought they really discontinued this channel

[@nj_mlimi]

It was probably recorded before they went on hiatus.

[@noufaris2790]

They're shutting techquickie down? Where was it announced?

[@Justachamp772]

​@@noufaris2790 no it's not shutting it down, they ran out of topics and now trying to find a creative way to make a new format of video

[@Donzo89]

@@noufaris2790 That's what I wanna know.

[@ItzStardustYT]

​@@noufaris2790 check the community tab of the channel

[@3dhYT]

That's why sometimes a DVD movie looks better than a 1080p movie with a low bitrate.

[@jajssblue]

All I know is that YT will still give you a lot of 360p and garbage even when you're paying for premium.

[@toothpac607]

There are browser extensions that enforce a quality level, and revanced has a setting

[@TazerXI]

This is really bad for me on mobile. There it can only default to either 'auto', 'higher', or 'data saver' qualities, with you manually needing to select under 'advanced' a particular resolution for each video. But even though I have 'higher', the number of times it says 'higher picture quality (360p)', and even 'higher picture quality (144p)' is ridiculous.

[@user-dofjlkfxv4]

​@@TazerXIif you're on android use revanced to get the old video quality menu back

[@hanifarroisimukhlis5989]

@@TazerXI Use Newpipe, it respect your preferred quality setting, remembers it, and even auto-switch resolution when you switch from mobile to wifi.

[@I_billed_that_beard_guy]

Use revanced and be happy

[@LemarSullivan821]

2:57 is where it ends

[@EHKvlogs]

it is interesting how slightly higher bitrate in 1080p is paid but 4k is free

[@Auditore1507]

Please don't give them ideas!

[@slayerdwarfify]

​@@Auditore1507I guarantee you that's already in the works somewhere

[@PDCMYTC]

Bitrate probably costs them way more than resolution.

[@Jon717]

@@Auditore1507 They already tested making 4k a premium feature back in 2022. The experiment didn't last long.

[@ultramegax]

They planned to make 4K a premium feature but backed down after the large backlash.

[@SytanOfficial]

I have a friend who has KZbin premium from part of his family plan, and we have both confirmed that the significantly better option to increase visual quality is just to bump up to 1440p. Going from normal 1080p to normal 1440p looks monumentally better than going from normal 1080p to 1080p premium If anybody is using KZbin on a 1080p display, and has a decent internet connection / computer, just start watching videos in 1440p or 4K, I guarantee you you will see an astronomical difference in quality

[@dftfire]

Lol, on a TV or computer screen maybe. But I know friends who literally pay for like 50GB or more mobile-data a month so they can watch KZbin at like 4K... on their phones. They are adamant it definitely looks better, but I'm sure we're in placebo territory there 😂

[@tomokototo]

​@dftfire 50GB? Unlimited data is only 25$ so why do they limit themselves?

[@dftfire]

@@tomokototo Lol, well it depends on the country. Unlimited data isn't cheap everywhere. But my point remains: do people really need to watch in 4K on their phone-screen? (Yes, if you Chromecast from your phone to a large TV, that's a different matter). I bet if you did randomised tests, very few could notice a difference between a 1080p, 1440p or 4K video when viewed only on a phone screen

[@lance_374]

@@dftfire I think most people don't even notice the difference between 720p and 4k on their TVs. I notice on my Roku the auto quality on KZbin always defaults to 720p, even though my internet is 500mbps and the resolution is set to 1080p. Google just wants to save bandwidth.

[@dftfire]

@@lance_374 Oh I'm sure on a TV thesedays most could notice a difference between 1080p and 1440p or 4K, especially on larger screens But clearly when people ask "will the PS6 and next Xbox offer 8K" the answer is: no. Hardly anyone needs that for the size TV or monitor they have. But 16K in a cinema? Sure

[@BrianG61UK]

Streaming video isn't often compressed - IT'S ALWAYS COMPRESSED. The amount of data required would be ludicrously large if it wasn't compressed.

[@ThatCallahan]

He went on to explain that like 10 seconds later 😅

[@BrianG61UK]

@@ThatCallahan More like 30 seconds.

[@dftfire]

@@BrianG61UK Can you imagine a FLAC equivalent but for videos? 😱 Every frame of the video would be like one PNG, compared to one JPEG. The file-size would be huge! (Though you could perhaps reduce it by only encoding the bits of the picture that have changed between frames. But even then it would still be a massive file.)

[@CyanRooper]

30 Seconds To Ours(ponser Pulseway)

[@FlintTD]

Unfortunately, this video doesn't talk about lossless vs lossy compression. It just assumes all compression is lossy.

[@hammerth1421]

The worst thing that can happen to KZbin compression is leafless foliage. Makes the video so blocky that 1080p looks more like 144p. I think AV1 does a better job than VP9, but both codecs struggle with it because they just don’t have enough bitrate.

[@masonx54]

I watch at 480p at 2x speed, and videos look fine to me.

[@Rontastik]

YT premium family subscriber for years now and I can say it's worth it. No ads and YT music are the main benefits for me and my family. That bitrate premium is just a plus. lol

[@stevenhelicpoter]

Never heard about 1080p Premium until I heard that it's from KZbin Premium. That's why

[@cjc2010]

I have KZbin Premium and I've never seen this feature.

[@preciadoalex123]

Idk man once you get premium there's no going back. I think it's worth it with the many hours I watch everyday

[@gordonfreeman5958]

@@preciadoalex123 No...

[@CGGS_0]

I dunno man, once you get KZbin ReVanced (for Android) or UYouEnchanced (for iOS) and Ublock (for PC). You will never want to pay for YT Premium again. @@preciadoalex123

[@R3cKi7]

revanced. google makes enough money as it is

[@xeode]

ehhyyyyyy, and you used the right image for 'football field' too, that's the spirit

[@xSynatiiC]

Videos offering the "Premium Bitrate" do look worse than usual when watching the free 1080p and it's very noticeable. Take "WhistlinDiesel" for example. Some of his videos use Premium bitrate, others do not and those using premium look like crap when in regular 1080p, compared to his videos without that "feature"

[@dariugui]

The best part about paying for better resolution on KZbin is that I will always have to select it because no matter how good my internet is, it's always set to 480p automatically

[@xFluing]

Oh good, they took regular 1080p and are now charging money for it. The video is also misleading - premium does not remove ads, they still exist just under "sponsored"

[@tychovw]

I've had premium for a couple months now and I've seen a grand total of zero ads.

[@dftfire]

Sponsor sections in videos are not the same as ads. Ads are what KZbin randomly plays as you use the site or app. Sponsor sections are what the creator themselves put in videos and only benefits them

[@radicalnight]

The way you get around KZbin compression is to do a lossess upscale of your video to 4K like in HandBrake and then upload it to KZbin. Your video won't improve in quality by upscaling, but it will trigger KZbin to give a 2160p viewing option on KZbin, which will help counter the compression.

[@yensteel]

@@radicalnight HANDbrake. And it’s best to do it using an algorithm such as Lanczos and NEDI.

[@K113-A]

I'm not addicted enough to KZbin to make Premium worth the money Ads? A certain ad blocker on an animal browser helps.

[@LittleMopeHead]

Or if you are Brave enough to go without addons/extensions.

[@AshKnightMusic]

If you don't want to shell out money to the Google overlords, and you have the processing power, it's much better to play the videos in 1440p or 2160p even if your monitor doesn't support it. The overall video will look sharper because of its higher resolution, and it should look visually better as higher resolutions need more bitrate. You're welcome :)

1:50 "Large green football field" and it's an actual football field, not a handegg field. \o/

[@the-thane]

They're Canadian. What are you expecting?

[@BassLiberators]

The "foot" in "football" refers to the fact the game is played on foot rather than horseback, it's not referring to the part of the body you contact the ball with.

[@maxlvl01]

@@BassLiberators nuh uh

[@maighstir3003]

There are, as far as I know, two major categories of "football" - gridiron football and association football. Association football got the nickname "soccer" to dissociate it from gridiron (because both were called football, people like shortening things they say often, and "association" has just a tad too many syllables). The two sports spread around the world (soccer rather more so than gridiron) and gridiron itself became two separate sports - what we now call rugby and American football. For some reason, England decided to go back on the "soccer" moniker and reuse "football" solely for that sport (they now had "rugby" for the other one), so the "soccer" name was from then on considered American even if it originated in the UK. Both kinds of football are football. Anyway, this comment is just a rant from a European internet idiot who has no interest whatsoever in either of the three footballs, and you're entirely free to dismiss it as such.

[@atharvaparihar951]

Higher Bitrate. Makes sense because KZbin normal compression is awful when you watch it on a bigger screens like tv, monitor. Even i have a 768p monitor and i watch video at 1440p in it just becoz youtube compression. I can clearly see the artifacts or pixelation in even in 1080p on 720p monitor

[@someoneonly]

Wait isint this channel supposedly on pause? Is this just the backlog?

[@ne0n_witch]

The difference is most visible on OLED monitors because the pixels are more sensitive to contrast. The OLED screens on phones are very small, so it's less noticeable.

[@gavinbar1988]

1:50 Finally someonme who knows what a football field actually looks like!

[@jakthebomb]

The option that I have to MANUALLY set each time because “Higher Picture Quality” loves to auto set to 720p on a Gigabit connection.

[@PK19899]

0:54 the internet is a series of tubes

[@ianujkhurana]

Yeah and You only use "You" Tube

[@unlokia]

That’s plumbing 🚰

[@JamesTM]

Did you *have* to use the terrifying Duolingo video as your background example? The reminder makes me fear the owl. And I've never even used their service!

[@ms3862]

I'll never pay for this crap website

[@Kavyatej]

ill never pay for it as well

[@HarrisonBorbarrison]

The bitrate given to 8K KZbin videos is very big. The video is also encoded in AV1 by KZbin.

[@onnoschouten3848]

youtube supports 8K?

[@penepleto1210]

1:15 "speeds up to 1 Gbps" what the hell is wrong with y'all, here in Chile 800 Mbps is literally the starter plan for most ISPs, and it goes up to 10 Gbps for home use

[@user-k5y8l]

Are you sure it's true 800 Mbps speed and not just a Placebo effect. In my country my wifi speeds only get to approximately 2-8 Mbps and it's not very consistent and strong.

[@dftfire]

Here in 🇬🇧, you'll usually get either 30-35 Mbps or 60-65 Mbps, depending on which package you go for, on what's called a "partial fibre line". If you have "full fibre" all the way into your home, then 70-150 Mbps is more common

[@penepleto1210]

@@user-k5y8l Yes, I've measured it, since I have that exact 800 Mbps plan (got it upgraded for cheaper recently because I've been a client since 2020 when they had just arrived in my area with 300 Mbps). In high traffic hours it slows down to like 250-350 Mbps, but is consistently over 600 otherwise. I mean, I was aware that Chile has like the third best internet in the world, but I didn't expect at all to find out the rest of the world has it that bad wtf

[@Luukebaas]

Definitely depends on where you live, for me its 40 euros to get 1Gb/s up/down, and can get up to 8Gb/s with more expensive plans, but in the UK for example, they might pay 40 euros for 100 Mb/s advertised, but in reality only get 50 Mb/s Edit: just wanna clarify that for me I pay for 1000 Mbit up and down & in reality I actually get MORE rather than less, which might be surprising to some people, cuz I actually get 1080 Mbit up and down

[@userless_world_9540]

In Germany the max speed is 1Gbps for 70€ you cant get more speed unless you have a business. Starting plans are 16 Mbps for DSL and 150 Mbps for Fiber but only 1/3 of households have fiber

[@Starlesslemon]

You know what's better than enhanced 1080p? Anything 1440p and above...

[@fenn_fren]

So long as your footage is actually 1440p or above!

[@hidden_origin_dnb]

This "premium bitrate" is very annoying on music videos. The music sounds like shit on these!

[@fenn_fren]

Music videos? That's so 2012 man. KZbin Music is much better for listening to music.

[@4ntig3n]

For quite a while, I have had a feeling that specifically on videos with premium 1080p available, the normal 1080p variant looks noticeably worse than on videos where the premium option is not available at all. As in - I'll be watching a video and notice that it doesn't look crisp like other videos. Then in 95% of cases it will have enhanced 1080p available.

[@Donzo89]

More Riley on the main channel please.

[@gchristnacht]

More Riley everywhere please

[@jinbas]

Workaround for creators is to always upload in 4k which results in the 1080p version to have higher bitrate

[@Apocrypha303]

I pay for KZbin for no ads and to support the creators I subscribe to. Currently, it's $15.18 a month. If it gets much higher than that, I'll just go back to ublock.

[@riccardopetrina4212]

I just use yt dlp to dowload videos I care to see in good quality, specifically format 617 which is the best quality that is normally not selectable and takes a couple hours for a 25 minute video (most people will see the much worse alternative formats) to render. Then I watch it using Nvidia VSR and MPC HC, an open source video olayer that supports Nvidia upscaling and deblocking.

[@hammerth1421]

I’d bite if it was less than $10 a month. Like this, I am happy to be a net detriment to KZbin’s bottom line.

[@goodfortunetoyou]

This is why we put so much effort into developing better compression algorithms. So marketing can add a user option that you pay for, and reverse the low bitrate achieved.

[@HellDuke-]

Honestly they could probably also lock anything beyond 1080p to Premium (I was kind of surprised they did not do it when they added the resolutions, wasn't Red a thing already?). Not that many people use it so it won't be missed by most people and for those that do want to use it, it's a more tangible improvement than bitrate.

[@KyleDavis328]

I think they sort of tried that (having "auto" cap out at 1080p and automatically setting all videos to auto) and there was some pretty heavy backlash.

[@fenn_fren]

You don't remember that time they wanted to make 4K a premium feature?

[@HellDuke-]

@@fenn_fren not really, must have been a minor enough thing where Google just decided it's not worth it. Especially seeing how 4k is not that common, most I see tends to cap out at 1440p with few channels having the ability to upload 2160p.

[@jhgvvetyjj6589]

4K displays are getting significantly cheaper over time, so there is no reason to artificially restrict resolution

[@HellDuke-]

@@jhgvvetyjj6589 displays is not the concern. The bandwidth, storage and filming equipment are the main concerns. From filming equipment side it's what determines how many channels upload 4k, which again, not that many from what I can see. That lessens the impact of limiting 4k to premium users (you can keep it quiet and nobody would probably notice). From the bandwidth side, even if you have a 4k monitor, if your connection does not keep up, you won't watch 4k content. Finally it makes sense for these to be paywalled, because the content uses up more bandwidth for KZbin to send data and it takes up more storage than regular 1080p content. Makes sense to recoup the cost of allowing that resolution. I like free stuff as much as the next person, but realistically speaking it wouldn't be too wild to see anything above 1080p to require Premium. Still keeps KZbin as good as it is, ads value to Premium and allows KZbin to recoup costs of offering higher end features.

[@ShaferHart]

At this point Google can set the default to be 480p and they're still never getting my money.

[@sturdybutter]

The rumors of Techquickies death have been greatly exaggerated

[@dftfire]

Nah, they're just realising the videos they'd already made before the decision to pause

[@Haritsa-N]

1. Video quality preferences: * Auto (Recommended) * Higher picture quality * Data saver 2. Data Saver: * Reduce video quality * Reduce download quality Me: * Before watching this video: What does this actually mean? 🤔🤨 * After watching this video: You sneaky KZbin! 😡

[@SGM260190]

Been using premium for around 2 years now and since they introduced 1080p Premium I can honestly say I haven't noticed a difference. Either on my phone (which has a 2k display), tablet (1080p) or my 4K monitor. That said, I still make sure it's on 1080p premium (or better) when I start a new video 🤣

[@user-ui4fn6fj3p]

2k is 1080p.

[@willwunsche6940]

Imagine if we could lock our quality to a setting on mobile too like we can on Desktop with extensions. Would save me so much time

[@Dwarfi01]

lol I was thinking that videos at 1080p looks worse than a few years ago. and I don't belive Google on what they say

[@himanshurajput523]

He actually said the football field instead of the soccer field.

[@thexgamer8240]

So, 1080p Premium is actual 1080p, while the normal 1080p is actually just enhanced 720p.

[@fhm4]

the word you're looking for is upscaled.

[@user-ui4fn6fj3p]

Nope.

[@kefpull6676]

4:34 KZbin premium can still get ads apparently, so not even that. And they're making it more expensive

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

A scam

[@Errcyco]

Having a nice display and good internet connection is fine with me. I did always wonder what enhanced was though. Thanks Riley

[@danzen6246]

The reason I use KZbin premium is cause I don't wanna bother around setting up ad blockers especially when I'm only paying an amount that's 2 cups of coffee. These perks are just cherry on top

[@something3194]

these are pretty expensive cups of coffee

[@issholland]

$7 coffee...

[@AggBaddie]

setting up an ad blocker takes less than a minute

[@scottydc]

thats some expensive coffee my man

[@joeyd0923]

Haven’t watched a KZbin ad in what 10 years. Not to mention you get access to KZbin Music, which is basically Spotify and the ability to turn off your screen on any KZbin vid. To me all of this well worth the price of admission. Probably one of the better streaming services out there imo.

[@LittleMopeHead]

Anybody remember like 15 years ago when there was this little trick for KZbin where you change some hex code of the uploaded video (FLV?), and this prevents KZbin from tampering with it (e.g. compresses/converts) and retains original quality? I remember doing this. Fun times.

[@dftfire]

I think the code was so adverts could avoid getting overly recompressed 🤔 (Because if anything on KZbin has to always look good, it's the ads! 😂)

[@yensteel]

@@LittleMopeHead Heard of it, and tried it before but it didn’t work decades ago. There could be many reasons my my side it didn’t work so oh well.

[@dirty-kebab]

I literally googled this question today - the tech is quickie

[@Resursator]

If you imagine, that youtube doesn't ruin free users with extremely low bitrate - this is a surprisingly good solution, not an extremely dumb war with adblockers/extensions. The only kinda good change I can remember in a few years. However, it's hard to believe, that they will be moderate enough with the approach, I'm expecting the significant drop of quality after some time.

[@KvapuJanjalia]

Create the problem. Sell the solution.

[@franz0901fw]

Me watching this on 1440p with a 1080p screen so I don't have to pay

[@IdealIdeas100]

Who needs 1080p premium when many videos also have higher resolutions that you can watch at and effectively that's the same thing as 1080p premium if you watch it on a 1080p screen

[@fenn_fren]

When I got my new QHD monitor I was actually pleasantly surprised just how many channels I regularly watch already upload in QHD or 4K.

[@nuttySweeet]

Informative AND Entertaining, thank you kind Sir.

[@pipipip815]

It’s where you pay to not get adverts but still get adverts and get access to a music streaming service you’ll forget you have.

[@notCAMD]

There's a browser extension that automatically sets the KZbin video to 1080p or higher, if you choose.

[@ScottBaker_]

Google seems to think that higher quality means 480p. Not sure they even know what 1080p is.

[@luedriver]

Imagine KZbin letting you change bitrates as well as pixel dimensions of videos and even giving PC users a scalable video to the pixel count used, instead of using a separate extension to make sure that the image actually is 720p when watching 720p video

[@moocatmeow]

me sitting here as someone who has never really watched a video fully in a higher resolution than 720p except to gain more bitrate for noisy images by switching to standard 1080p

[@IanGacek]

I find it ironic about the "doesn't necessarily mean a better picture" line. When I switched from 1080p to 4k on this video, the purple background got noticeably lower quality

[@merion297]

Oh c'mon! I thought you'll show a side-by-side comparison! 😡

[@Kavyatej]

yea, i expected them to download both (the premium one using browser cookies and ytdlp) and compare the bitrate and quality. till then it's for someone else to do

[@Zeke2p9]

I just realized the background would look bad compressed but the moving speaker is vivid.

[@-never-gonna-give-you-up-]

I'd gladly pay for ad free KZbin. And those sponsors in your video's are with 3 quick taps/clicks on screen gone with the wind. And the premium bitrate is just a nice extra. Sometimes you have to accept that you have to pay for something. And those people saying they use ad blockers and what not are not thinking straight. It could possibly put your entire Google account at risk. And unless you have hundreds of burner e-mail accounts, it's quite risky.

[@ExtremePilot4472]

Damn, Server Rack is pulling double duty as both production manager and art director, impressive

[@Mad4rcher]

A point could also be made for audio as crowd noise can easily be awful because of the selected bitrate and I experience it in every Daily Show video. Thanks Google !

[@A2theC]

Personally I watch 4k setting for YT **JUST** to see video clearly on my 1080p tv. Yes I can clearly see a difference. I've noticed some older videos actually look better as they haven't been reencoded to this lower bitrate MP4 -> WebM, AV1/VP9 This is nuts how bad it looks after they've lowered bitrate. Some creators have Patreon specifically to offer full quality video, such as Digital Foundry.