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Go to you tube app, the videos have a “4” marker. Additionally you can select Stats for Nerds and it shows the source video and what actual playback is.
 
Their social media person (or persons) probably didn't know about it and they're likely working from home. Their response to anyone who asks is likely a copy and paste from a script. I wonder if Google just wasn't ready for the update to drop this week.
 
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The blame also falls back on Apple. Apple is still promoting 4K YouTube support on the Apple TV 4K apple.com webpage. It’s been one of the features of tvOS 14 that they have marketed the most. And still, they’ve obviously had no dialogue with Google about this. Nobody at Apple has made SURE that Google has an updated app on launch day and that the Google social media and support staff are up to date on what’s happening. Having said that, let me me just also say that Google SUCKS.

edit: there are rumors online that Apple removed VP9 support in the official release. I really hope that’s not the case...
 

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Their social media person (or persons) probably didn't know about it and they're likely working from home. Their response to anyone who asks is likely a copy and paste from a script. I wonder if Google just wasn't ready for the update to drop this week.

According to some devs on Twitter they were only given less than 24 hours notice to submit their final app builds when usually they get 1-2 weeks notice before a new software build goes live.
 
This is really disappointing,I've been waiting for this update specifically to finally play 4K on Youtube forever and now after update,while the video descriptions shows 4K the actual video only plays in HD not 4K.:(
 
During the betas, I had a 4K option on YouTube via Safari. Now, it maxes out at 720p on videos.

I'm only speculating, but my guess is that since vp9 is using software decoding, they disabled it in iOS and iPad OS since it could impact battery life and they are only leaving it enabled in TVOS.
 
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Regarding YouTube on Safari I now only play YouTube in Chrome.Safari is my preferred and main browser but it’s simply unacceptable in 2020 to not have 4K option for YouTube.

I hope Google updates their TV OS YT App soon,it’s a major disadvantage.
 
Regarding YouTube on Safari I now only play YouTube in Chrome.Safari is my preferred and main browser but it’s simply unacceptable in 2020 to not have 4K option for YouTube.

I hope Google updates their TV OS YT App soon,it’s a major disadvantage.

That's the thing though. It was available to people in 4K on Safari in the iOS 14 beta period. It was removed, along with apparently the 1080p option on my iPhone 11.
 
I'm only speculating, but my guess is that since vp9 is using software decoding, they disabled it in iOS and iPad OS since it could impact battery life and they are only leaving it enabled in TVOS.
The VP9 hardware support has been in the PowerVR gpus for years.

Also I still can play 4k HDR on mu iPhone 11 Pro, but my iPad now only 1080p.
 
I can’t watch any YT in 4K with any of my iOS 14 devices. iPad was working one time not anymore maybe we need Premium?
 
Also Safari 14 for macOS promises VP9.2 support (4K and HDR). As of yet, I do not see the result on my mac.
Even cheating on User Agent does not seem to help.
 
The PiP doesn't work for most things as well. Again, this is because of the short notice of release. Apple exposed the API for PiP, now apps need to be written to use it. Much like the 4K support for YouTube. So we must continue to wait.
 
I can’t watch any YT in 4K with any of my iOS 14 devices. iPad was working one time not anymore maybe we need Premium?
Nope, I have Premium and it doesn't work here either. It did work over the summer during beta testing but now we are fully live, its all dead.
 
During the betas, I had a 4K option on YouTube via Safari on the iPhone 11. Now, it maxes out at 720p on videos.
4k playback was via iOS/iPadOS YouTube app not using Safari. Of course the 14.2 beta 1 broke that now. Only Safari in Big Sur allows vp9 to do 4K/8K comparing multiple devices.

tvOS has never supported 4K via YouTube. This is still the case with the recent YouTube app released September 20, 2020.

At this time I don’t know who is at fault Apple or Google, buts it’s unacceptable after so many tvOS versions that it’s not functional along with it being mentioned in the 14.0 documentation. This not knowing is also compounded by why it’s working and now not working with latest iOS/iPadOS beta.

I also think the YouTube application interface to navigate to set resolutions and get into nerd mode is terrible. It should be easier to get to.:)
 
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4k playback was via iOS/iPadOS YouTube app not using Safari. Of course the 14.2 beta 1 broke that now. Only Safari in Big Sur allows vp9 to do 4K/8K comparing multiple devices.

It was an option via Safari on my iPhone 11 during part of the beta period. Obviously, the iPhone 11 is not capable of 4K resolution, but it was an option in the settings, and it did appear to be a little sharper than the 720p/1080p setting.

tvOS has never supported 4K via YouTube.

I'm well aware.

tvOS has never supported 4K via YouTube. This is still the case with the recent YouTube app released September 20, 2020. At this time I don’t know who is at fault Apple or Google, buts it’s unacceptable after so many tvOS versions that it’s not functional along with it being mentioned in the 14.0 documentation.

Google says 4K support for the tvOS app will be coming soon.
 
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