Colour me stupid - Safari on Mac doesn't show 4K YouTube

[sundialsoft]

After me blabbing on about my MacBook (2020 MBA) running 4K on Safari without any problems I realised just yesterday that it was only running the YouTubes in 1080p. After a quick check with Chrome which can run 4k YouTube I can see the difference in quality and performance (Safari is always better performance with lower quality) so while I won't use Chrome as my default I can at least use it if I want to see things on the laptop. I have a 4K TV anyway and a 4K external USB-C monitor for the MBA so no worries.

As it happens my 66 year old eyes don't see much difference with 4K on TV as I'm sitting too far away.

In summary, My Bad, Safari Bad and I'm not installing a plug-in to get 4K on Safari.

Happy WWDC day.

 

[trinec]

It's related on the used codecs. Apple doesn't want to integrate Googles high efficient codec for 4K; so only other browsers will provide you full 4K support for YouTube.

 

[mmomega]

Correct, as of the current Catalina build and before, if you want 4K YouTube, we use Chrome.

potentially, a future safari build will enable it, but I’m not personally putting value in that until it actually happens.

same that native YouTube app on AppleTV does not do 4K even though it shows that the videos are available for 4K. That’s the misleading part for me.

 

[trinec]

With yesterdays announcement of TVOS14, it said that "latest YouTube Videos" could be played in 4K. This seems to be related in AV1-Codec. Maybe this'll be supported by the new macOS, too? First Beta-Testers could maybe already provide feedback.

 

[sundialsoft]

With yesterdays announcement of TVOS14, it said that "latest YouTube Videos" could be played in 4K. This seems to be related in AV1-Codec. Maybe this'll be supported by the new macOS, too? First Beta-Testers could maybe already provide feedback.

Let's hope so. I'm only an iOS developer so can't get a macOS beta to try.

 

[Andropov]

With yesterdays announcement of TVOS14, it said that "latest YouTube Videos" could be played in 4K. This seems to be related in AV1-Codec. Maybe this'll be supported by the new macOS, too? First Beta-Testers could maybe already provide feedback.

YouTube on macOS 11 Big Sur still maxes out at 1080p.

 

[trinec]

Thanks for testing @Andropov

 

[mmomega]

Can someone else either on Catalina or Big Sur with Chrome verify this?

In Chrome, this video should give you the option of going up to 8K.
After upgrading to Big Sur, Chrome now only shows a max of 1080p.
On a headless Mac Mini on Mojave at my office, I still see up to 8K as an option for this video.

Can anyone else in Big Sur see an option higher than 1080p in Google Chrome?
Can anyone else in Catalina see the option for higher than 1080p in Google Chrome?

Just away from most of my computers at the moment and noticed this, wondering if only my laptop is being funky.
I know Safari typically will not show higher than 1080 but Chrome always has.


EDIT:****
So I found my culprit. In case anyone else runs in to this.
I do not even remember getting this extension in Chrome or where it came from, called h264ify.
Either way, it got enabled after the Big Sur upgrade somehow and that blocks the VP8/VP9 codecs.
Removed the extension and reloaded YouTube, 1440p, 4K, 8K higher is available again.