A new study published in Nature by University of Cambridge researchers just dropped a pixelated bomb on the entire Ultra-HD market.

A new study published in Nature by University of Cambridge researchers just dropped a pixelated bomb on the entire Ultra-HD market, but as anyone with myopia can tell you, if you take your glasses off, even SD still looks pretty good :)

  • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    48·
    2 days ago

    A big problem is that we’ve gotten so used to streaming services delivering visual slop, like YouTube’s 1080p option which is basically just upscaled 720p and can even look as bad as 480p.

    YouTube is locking the good bitrates behind the premium paywall and even as a premium users you don’t get to select a high bitrate when the source video was low res.

    That’s why videos should be upscaled before upload to force YouTube into offering high bitrate options at all. A good upscaler produces better results than simply stretching low-res videos.

    • azertyfun@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      4 hours ago

      I think the premium thing is a channel option. Some channels consistently have it, some don’t.

      Regular YouTube 1080p is bad and feels like 720p. The encoding on videos with “Premium 1080p” is catastrophic. It’s significantly worse than decently encoded 480p. Creators will put a lot of time and effort in their lighting and camera gear, then the compression artifacting makes the video feel like watching a porn bootleg on a shady site. I guess there must be a strong financial incentive to nuke their video quality this way.