HDR videos in YouTube mobile app now capped at 1080p
Google has made a change to the resolution options in the YouTube mobile app for HDR videos. The resolution now maxes out at 1080p, regardless of the display of your phone.
Previously, the resolution options went all the way up to 4K, provided you had a Sony Xperia XZ Premium. For most other flagship it was going up to 1440p.
The limit is likely being put because of how bad HDR video performance is in the YouTube app. Even on flagship devices, including Google's own Pixel 2, playing HDR videos over 720p caused massive frame drops and a generally unusable experience.
The YouTube app is alone in this, as other apps with HDR support, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, have no issues with HDR videos up to 4K resolution.
Google's solution is rather strange, where instead of improving playback performance the higher resolution options are now simply obscured from the user.
Reader comments
- Matt99
Boohoo YouTube bandwidth, for the uploader mostly! YouTube uses a much more compressed version to download.
- 06 Nov 2017
- nG}
- Anonymous
Does anyone know how to cap videos to 720/480p in Youtube settings. HD is expensive for Africa.
- 06 Nov 2017
- 7k7
- Anonymous
Another Sony troll.
- 06 Nov 2017
- XNk