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So you can't actually watch 4K video on iPad Pro?

moxxham

moxxham

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 8, 2015
357
451
Sydney, Australia
im still a little confused. I have an iPad Pro. I know you can edit 4K video in iMovie. However, you can't actually watch it in 4K it appears? I export it to my camera roll, or watch the preview in iMovie and it certainly isn't 4K.

Am I doing something wrong, or is it purely just to edit 4K video on and not watch it on.
I would love the ability to actually watch 4K video (or 2K) on apps like Videos, and YouTube!
 
4K = 3840 x 2160. 2K = 2560 x 1440. The iPad Pro is 2732 x 2048, so you can only really utilize a maximum of a 2K resolution in a 16:9 format.

YouTube doesn't support 2K yet on the iPad Pro, but I believe you can use a third party player such as nPlayer to watch 2K / 4K (downscaled) movies.
 
I get that the iPad Pros resolution isn't 4K, but it would still look incredible on it...even if it down scaled to 2K! 1080p on the pro is just starting to look a little low-res.
 
masotime said:
4K = 3840 x 2160. 2K = 2560 x 1440. The iPad Pro is 2732 x 2048, so you can only really utilize a maximum of a 2K resolution in a 16:9 format.

YouTube doesn't support 2K yet on the iPad Pro, but I believe you can use a third party player such as nPlayer to watch 2K / 4K (downscaled) movies.
Click to expand...


?? 2K is not 2560x1440. It is near to 1080p and is an official label for a cinema resolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K_resolution


You can refer to 1080p and 1440p and 4K. Something like Netflix as far as I know has nothing inbetween 1080p and 4k. So while I have theorised it would be good to stream 4K to an iPad pro, it has been pointed out that the stream bitrate is so poor at 4K there may be no gain whatsoever.
 
Isn't true 4K 4096x2160? The 3840x2160 is UHD, which is referred to as 4K as a marketing gimmick. 2560x1440 is quad HD - 4x as many pixels as 1280x720.
 
moxxham said:
im still a little confused. I have an iPad Pro. I know you can edit 4K video in iMovie. However, you can't actually watch it in 4K it appears? I export it to my camera roll, or watch the preview in iMovie and it certainly isn't 4K.

Am I doing something wrong, or is it purely just to edit 4K video on and not watch it on.
I would love the ability to actually watch 4K video (or 2K) on apps like Videos, and YouTube!
Click to expand...

The iPhone 6S (and 6S Plus) can shoot in 4K, yet you can't watch the videos in 4K. According to the Apple website, the iPad Pro can play videos up to 1080p.
 
This whole 4K thing with Apple devices is getting frustrating. I don't know all the numbers, but you have a device with 5 million pixels and it can't watch 4K videos, but it can edit 4K videos? So what you are looking at when doing the editing, isn't actually 4K? And the iPhone 6S can shoot in 4K, but not view it anywhere? Apple really needs to get this all straightened out. I don't expect it to work with older devices, but if you have the newest device, it should be able to view 4K video. Otherwise, don't have products that can produce it. Makes no sense.
 
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DNichter said:
This whole 4K thing with Apple devices is getting frustrating. I don't know all the numbers, but you have a device with 5 million pixels and it can't watch 4K videos, but it can edit 4K videos? So what you are looking at when doing the editing, isn't actually 4K? And the iPhone 6S can shoot in 4K, but not view it anywhere? Apple really needs to get this all straightened out. I don't expect it to work with older devices, but if you have the newest device, it should be able to view 4K video. Otherwise, don't have products that can produce it. Makes no sense.
Click to expand...

It really is annoying.
 
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DNichter said:
This whole 4K thing with Apple devices is getting frustrating. I don't know all the numbers, but you have a device with 5 million pixels and it can't watch 4K videos, but it can edit 4K videos? So what you are looking at when doing the editing, isn't actually 4K? And the iPhone 6S can shoot in 4K, but not view it anywhere? Apple really needs to get this all straightened out. I don't expect it to work with older devices, but if you have the newest device, it should be able to view 4K video. Otherwise, don't have products that can produce it. Makes no sense.
Click to expand...

No, what makes no sense is the lack of understanding.
You can't physically see a 4K video on screen with a much lower resolution. It is a pointless waste of resources to play it anyway, downscaled to the native resolution.
 
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TurboPGT! said:
No, what makes no sense is the lack of understanding.
You can't physically see a 4K video on screen with a much lower resolution. It is a pointless waste of resources to play it anyway, downscaled to the native resolution.
Click to expand...

It's more of a waste for the iPad Pro to have that type of screen and NOT be able to watch 4K videos. My biggest complaint is just the confusion of it all.
 
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TurboPGT! said:
No, what makes no sense is the lack of understanding.
You can't physically see a 4K video on screen with a much lower resolution. It is a pointless waste of resources to play it anyway, downscaled to the native resolution.
Click to expand...

No it isn't! It won't be a pixel for pixel viewing, but it will look much, much sharper play 4K on the iPad Pro than 1080p will look on it. I watch 4K video on my 2011 13" MacBook Pro and it looks way sharper on a screen that isn't even 1080p.
It may be your preference not to watch 4K video on it, but a lot of people would benefit from it.
I'm a professional video editor and photographer. 4K video on iPad pro would be so incredibly useful!
 
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Well, you technically can't watch 4K video on a retina macbook pro too.

In order to watch 4k video you need a 5K iMac or a 4K monitor.
 
Just out of curiosity so I can follow along. Can you "play" a 4k video on an iPad Pro and it just scales accordingly or do you get an error/black screen/etc?
 
Sylon said:
It'll just scale it down to 1080p.
Click to expand...

How is this any different then 1080p on any iPhone (that's not a Plus series)?

Seems weird to me to all of a sudden have a problem with the way Apple and most manufacturers have been operating for years upon years.
 
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cynics said:
How is this any different then 1080p on any iPhone (that's not a Plus series)?

Seems weird to me to all of a sudden have a problem with the way Apple and most manufacturers have been operating for years upon years.
Click to expand...

I think the OP's point hasn't been described very clearly. I believe the requested feature is to be able to make maximum use of the number of pixels available on the iPad Pro when playing high-resolution video. e.g. instead of playing only 1080p video (which YouTube is currently limited to on the iPad Pro), allow for playing 1440p video that can better utilize the amount of pixels available, albeit with black bars, but at least the vertical resolution (2048 in landscape mode) is not wasted on simply 1080 pixels.

(Note that for 16:9 videos, the maximum resolution that can be played without zooming in on the iPad Pro would be around 1536p)

(interestingly I just realized that the iPad Pro doesn't precisely have a 4:3 ratio, as 2048 is not divisible by 3).
 
moxxham said:
No it isn't! It won't be a pixel for pixel viewing, but it will look much, much sharper play 4K on the iPad Pro than 1080p will look on it. I watch 4K video on my 2011 13" MacBook Pro and it looks way sharper on a screen that isn't even 1080p.
It may be your preference not to watch 4K video on it, but a lot of people would benefit from it.
I'm a professional video editor and photographer. 4K video on iPad pro would be so incredibly useful!
Click to expand...

No kidding. Because you compare to 1080p, the next widely available resolution. It is unfortunate that there is no other widely available resolution for content that is closer to the resolution of the iPad Pro, but that's how it is. Saying that the right move is to allow 4K playback is the wrong the compromise.
 
DNichter said:
It's more of a waste for the iPad Pro to have that type of screen and NOT be able to watch 4K videos. My biggest complaint is just the confusion of it all.
Click to expand...
Only from the perspective that the purpose of the iPad Pro is to watch pre-produced video content in the best possible detail, regardless of tradeoff.

In reality, every other aspect of iPad benefits from the size and resolution of that display, having nothing to do with video playback.
 
While we are on the subject of YouTube and 4K.

Does anyone's 3G/4G wireless internet able to handle 4K YouTube ? If you don't know what about your 3G/4G wireless internet being able to handle a 1080p YouTube video fine without buffering ?
 
max2 said:
While we are on the subject of YouTube and 4K.

Does anyone's 3G/4G wireless internet able to handle 4K YouTube ? If you don't know what about your 3G/4G wireless internet being able to handle a 1080p YouTube video fine without buffering ?
Click to expand...

This really is a question of bitrate. Assuming that the iPad Pro's computing power is sufficient to decode VP9, you can get the same quality as a legacy h.264 stream at half the bitrate (supposedly the same performance as HEVC).

Let's take the iPhone 6S as an example. According to Anandtech:
  • 1080p30 @ 17Mbps
  • 4K30 @ 50Mbps
Thus, if you use VP9 encoding (which Youtube should be...), then 4K30 would be rendered at 25Mbps, which means you'll need roughly 47% more bandwidth.

This is all theoretical however, because I have no idea about the exact bitrate strategies the official Youtube app uses (it is dynamically dependent on the quality of your internet connection - I believe the resolution also adjusts accordingly).
 
masotime said:
This really is a question of bitrate. Assuming that the iPad Pro's computing power is sufficient to decode VP9, you can get the same quality as a legacy h.264 stream at half the bitrate (supposedly the same performance as HEVC).

Let's take the iPhone 6S as an example. According to Anandtech:
  • 1080p30 @ 17Mbps
  • 4K30 @ 50Mbps
Thus, if you use VP9 encoding (which Youtube should be...), then 4K30 would be rendered at 25Mbps, which means you'll need roughly 47% more bandwidth.

This is all theoretical however, because I have no idea about the exact bitrate strategies the official Youtube app uses (it is dynamically dependent on the quality of your internet connection - I believe the resolution also adjusts accordingly).
Click to expand...

Thanks very helpful.

That means people using 3g/4g wireless internet can't stream 1080p30 or 4K30 without buffering :(
 
Most the UK homes don't have 50mbps... I have 20mbps and that's considered quick.

Most the people I work with have 1-5mbps.
 
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