Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Are M1 Macs ready for 8K Youtube?

G

giggles

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 15, 2012
1,052
1,286
So, in Chrome these new Macs have 4K and sometimes 8K available on youtube videos.

In a video I heard a guy say that if the machine is detected to be a MBA M1, the 8K option is not offered, whereas if it is a MBP M1 it is offered. Is that true? What about the Mac Mini M1?

Now, even when 8K is offered, can it actually run smoothly? I’ve seen it stutter in a video but it was not clear if it was a buffering problem.

What are the experiences of the owners here with 8K youtube?

(not that it’s a deal breaker, just a curiosity)
 
giggles said:
So, in Chrome these new Macs have 4K and sometimes 8K available on youtube videos.

In a video I heard a guy say that if the machine is detected to be a MBA M1, the 8K option is not offered, whereas if it is a MBP M1 it is offered. Is that true? What about the Mac Mini M1?

Now, even when 8K is offered, can it actually run smoothly? I’ve seen it stutter in a video but it was not clear if it was a buffering problem.

What are the experiences of the owners here with 8K youtube?

(not that it’s a deal breaker, just a curiosity)
Click to expand...
Link to the claim?
 
  • Like
Reactions: kpluck and Tagbert
My experience with 8k is that makes sense only in cinemas , but in these times when cinemas are almost out of business...
Again 8k for youtube is pointless
We want 16k in youtube because we can see the pixels in 8k
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: addamas and ksec
Serban55 said:
My experience with 8k is that makes sense only in cinemas , but in these times when cinemas are almost out of business...
Again 8k for youtube is pointless
We want 16k in youtube because i can see the pixels in 8k
Click to expand...
True, a bigger screen needed but not necessarily a cinema. Viewing distance is the key.

This level doesn’t need to be mainstream for a long time anyway. It’s only useful for shooting so that you get more colour information and better definition when cropping a shot. They can make the deliverables 4K now and then redeliver in 8K in 10 years.
 
Hexley said:
Better quality citation? :)
Click to expand...

Isn’t it quicker to just ask the tens of owners here? That’s why I opened the thread.
Probably that guy is wrong but he made me question it.

Owners of the M1 Macbook Air: do you see the 8K option for 8K youtube videos in Chrome (native ARM version)?
 
giggles said:
Isn’t it quicker to just ask the tens of owners here? That’s why I opened the thread.
Probably that guy is wrong but it made question it.

Owners of the M1 Macbook Air: do you see the 8K option for 8K youtube videos in Chrome (native ARM version)?
Click to expand...

Try the video New York in 8K. It’s one of the few on YouTube that Google haven’t disabled 8K on the M1.

It takes ages to cache and it can be slow.
 
Serban55 said:
My experience with 8k is that makes sense only in cinemas , but in these times when cinemas are almost out of business...
Again 8k for youtube is pointless
We want 16k in youtube because i can see the pixels in 8k
Click to expand...
Same things we said in 1999 about 2K...

8K will happen when hardware becomes cheap enough.

I expect 8K streaming to become mainstream as early as 2026.

8K Blu-ray discs could happen as early as 2026. This is assuming that 4k Blu-ray discs and players sell well enough.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ThomasJL
ArPe said:
True, a bigger screen needed but not necessarily a cinema. Viewing distance is the key.

This level doesn’t need to be mainstream for a long time anyway. It’s only useful for shooting so that you get more colour information and better definition when cropping a shot. They can make the deliverables 4K now and then redeliver in 8K in 10 years.
Click to expand...
Here we dont talk about shooting..but for watching youtube
We want 16k
 
Hexley said:
Same things we said in 1999 about 2K...

8K will happen when hardware becomes cheap enough.

I expect 8K streaming to become mainstream as early as 2026.

8K Blu-ray discs could happen as early as 2026. This is assuming that 4k Blu-ray discs and players sell well enough.
Click to expand...
Nobody said that about 2k in 1999
At least i dont know anyone
Its physics, 8k for youtube is irrelevant
Go 16k or go home
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Hexley
To be clear, the whole thread is a “curiosity”.
Since in most other ways they’re the ultimate general purpose PC you can buy right now, I wondered if they also ticked this particular box.
Like, will a Mac Mini M1 play 8K youtube smoothly on an 8K tv 10 years from now. (yes I keep Mac Minis that long)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Polly Mercocet, CNiles38006 and Hexley
giggles said:
To be clear, the whole thread is a “curiosity”.
Since in most other ways they’re the ultimate general purpose PC you can buy right now, I wondered if they also ticked this particular box.
Like, will a Mac Mini M1 play 8K youtube smoothly on an 8K tv 10 years from now. (yes I keep Mac Minis that long)
Click to expand...
Looking at the spec sheet they're capable of 6K output.

You will need to connect it to a 8K display to verify if it can output in 8K.

By 2030 I'd buy a new Mac mini that performs better than any Threadripper or RTX 3090 today.

And I know that my claim will cause people to go ape sh!!t bananas but it's 10 years from today.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Gudi, addamas, DeepIn2U and 2 others
Hexley said:
Looking at the spec sheet they're capable of 6K output.

You will need to connect it to a 8K display to verify if it can output in 8K.

By 2030 I'd buy a new Mac mini that performs better than any Threadripper or RTX 3090 today.

And I know that my claim will cause people to go ape sh!!t bananas but it's 10 years from today.
Click to expand...

They support DP 1.4 with DSC at HBR3 rates (as demonstrated by people posting screenshots of them using a 4K 144Hz DSC display), so they should be able to output 8K 60Hz via DP (not sure about HDMI tho).
 
  • Like
Reactions: DeepIn2U, Tagbert and Hexley
giggles said:
They support DP 1.4 with DSC at HBR3 rates (as demonstrated by people posting screenshots of them using a 4K 144Hz DSC display), so they should be able to output 8K 60Hz via DP (not sure about HDMI tho).
Click to expand...
It appears you know it can do it.

In the unlikely event you're wrong by 2030 then buy a 2030 Mac mini with better performance than any Threadripper or RTX 3090. ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tagbert
Serban55 said:
Even for 2020 blu-ray is a dead tech
In 2026 no new tech will have blu-ray
Click to expand...

In 2005ish some said Blu-ray would get nowhere, but here we are in 2020.

BTW there are very big data centers that store to optical media or ‘ice storage’ as it is called.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Gudi
More than pixel count, maybe the codec makes a huge difference?

Out of curiosity, since it seems that a lot of 8K streaming will use AV-1, what about AV-1 decoding with the M1 chip?
 
ArPe said:
There were people who said things like that and about 4K too. I remember some saying because Toy Story was rendered at 720p and blown up to 35mm cinema that 4K wouldn’t be necessary 😂😝
Click to expand...
That's why history and context need to be explicitly provided.

So when someone says it'll take 210 days out of 2 years to complete the Intel to Apple chip transition will not call you crazy. ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: ArPe
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back