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Why doesn't Safari show me 4K options on YouTube?

I

iBrooker

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 20, 2016
416
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UK
Most of the time it will show me options up to 1080p or 1440, but almost never 4K even when 4K is available and will always show in Chrome.

Is Google trying to get us to use Chrome, or is this down to Safari?

Here's an example:


4K60 in Chrome, 1080p60 in Safari. (Amazing video btw!!)

This is on my MBP 15" TB 2.9Ghz model.
 
Yup, that's super strange. I only get 1080p60 as well in Safari - but I have for sure seen 4K and 1440p options for many videos in the past. What might be an issue is 4K@60fps - Safari might not be able to do that yet as that's a really niche format that probably requires a little retooling. 99% of 4K content is mastered at 24p, so tripling the framerate's got something to do with it. I bet they'll issue an update ate or some way for us to know officially what's going down here. The GH5 is also the first camera sub-$15,000 to do 4K@60fps, and actually using the video at its native framerate rather than using the extra frames to create slow-motion 24 or 30fps footage is rare.
 
Lots of other videos are affected too, e.g. this one:


1440p in Safari and full 4K in Chrome.
 
I'm having the same "problem". I've also noticed a drop in image quality when compared to my PC. I haven't tested chrome on the Mac, I mean I don't want to use chrome on my Mac. I'm not sure what's going on with the image quality, but it really bothers me more than the 4K option not being available. I even tried putting it on a external display and I still have the same issue. I'm comparing 1080P to 1080P. I have a Dell 2713HM 27" display, and youtube videos look a lot better on it when the monitor is connected to my PC. So it's not the built in Retina display because it happens on both. It's odd to say the least. I love the Retina display, but I don't want to except lower quality video from a $4,299 computer. For the record my PC has a Nvidia GTX 650 ti, which is quite old, older than the AMD 460 video card. I hope the new update 10.12.3 solves the issue. If my old PC can run 4K video without any issues I except at least the same from my new MAC, let alone 1080P video.
 
Last edited:
Miltz said:
I'm having the same "problem". I've also noticed a drop in image quality when compared to my PC. I haven't tested chrome on the Mac, I mean I don't want to use chrome on my Mac. I'm not sure what's going on with the image quality, but it really bothers me more than the 4K option not being available. I even tried putting it on a external display and I still have the same issue. I'm comparing 1080P to 1080P. I have a Dell 2713HM 27" display, and you tube videos look a lot better on it when the monitor is connected to my PC. It's odd to say the least. I love the Retina display, but I don't want to except lower quality video from a $4,299 computer. For the record my PC has a Nvidia GTX 650 ti, which is quite old, older than the AMD 460 video card. I hope the new update 10.12.3 solves the issue. If my old PC can run 4K video without any issues I except at least the same from my new MAC, let alone 1080P video.
Click to expand...


I think this is a temporary issue - and if you have to use Chrome for now to get full res on YT, it's not a bad workaround if you only use it for YouTube. It'd be criminal for them to all of a sudden limit their otherwise great browser to 1080p streaming video.

Also, www.apple.com/feedback - do your part. I'll submit one, but the more there are, the better.
 
solideliquid said:
Yeah but you realize the Retina display on the MBP is not 4K, right?

The 5K iMac is capable of true 4K video but not the MBP.
Click to expand...
The screen has a higher native resolution than 1080p... there are definitely benefits with 4K video even if it's not a 4K screen.

Anyways, I can see 4K stuff on YT in Safari on MKBHD's videos so this is a strange issue.
 
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iBrooker said:
Most of the time it will show me options up to 1080p or 1440, but almost never 4K even when 4K is available and will always show in Chrome.

Is Google trying to get us to use Chrome, or is this down to Safari?

Here's an example:


4K60 in Chrome, 1080p60 in Safari. (Amazing video btw!!)

This is on my MBP 15" TB 2.9Ghz model.
Click to expand...
In my experience (I also asked this some time ago from the developer of the ClickToFlash plugin) - higher renditions on YT call for the Flash player. Looking at your screenshot I see the pic similar to what I see with CTF Plugin active. Once you restore Flash, you will see more resolutions.
Not on this particular movie, though. I can't tell, why.
I find the 4K Video Downloader useful to get these from YT in full res. If I observe the downloaded 4K file, I see that it is encoded in plain H.264/AVC.
Haven't checked YT playback in Flash across the board, so it remains unclear to me, why don't I get more resolutions than 1440p.
Screen Shot 2017-01-11 at 08.34.09.PNG Screen Shot 2017-01-11 at 08.34.22.PNG Screen Shot 2017-01-11 at 08.35.23.PNG
 
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iBrooker said:
Lots of other videos are affected too, e.g. this one:


1440p in Safari and full 4K in Chrome.
Click to expand...
This video launches automatically into 4k (2160p) mode in Safari on my 2016 15" connected to a Samsung U24E850 4k external monitor.
 
I suspect this is completely on the end of YouTube.

When they detect Safari or Firefox, they serve H.264 encoded videos. When they detect Chrome, they serve content that's encoded with their own (less patent-encumbered) VP9 codec.

Apparently, the YouTube backend doesn't encode all sizes for all codecs. Doesn't surprise me, really. Sounds like a good way to keep costs down because rendering a 4K video burns a lot of CPU cycles.

What you could do, is install the H264ify extension in Chrome. It requests H.264 content on YouTube.
 
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daveak said:
Interesting. I see 4k as an option when viewed inline, but not on youtube.com itself. No different with the 1080@60 though.
Click to expand...

That is interesting - same here!! So it's clearly not a lack of ability in Safari.

I think this is Google, they want us to use Chrome :rolleyes:

How can we complain? :mad:
 
On the same videos (tried MKBHD), YouTube gives me 4k on Chrome and Firefox, but not Safari. So there must be some sort of Safari limitation.
 
jerryk said:
On the same videos (tried MKBHD), YouTube gives me 4k on Chrome and Firefox, but not Safari. So there must be some sort of Safari limitation.
Click to expand...
I get 4K (and even 1440p) options for MKBHD on my 15" in Safari, on iGPU. Strange.
 
xmonkey said:
I get 4K (and even 1440p) options for MKBHD on my 15" in Safari, on iGPU. Strange.
Click to expand...

2160p is the Youtube 4K option. 1440P or lower is not.

See if you get the 2160p(4k) option with this video in Safari. I tried the video below on my 2015 15" rMBP with dGPU and did not get the 2160p (4k) on Safari, but did get it on Firefox and Chrome.

 
jerryk said:
See if you get the 2160p(4k) option with this video in Safari.
Click to expand...

Here is what I see on my 13" TouchBar with LG 5K.

1. Open in Safari max 1440p
2. Open in Chrome 2160P (4K)
3. Play the video in Safari embedded in the forum, I see 2160p (4K). See screenshot.

Screen Shot 2017-01-11 at 11.44.02 AM.png
 
jerryk said:
2160p is the Youtube 4K option. 1440P or lower is not.

See if you get the 2160p(4k) option with this video in Safari. I tried the video below on my 2015 15" rMBP with dGPU and did not get the 2160p (4k) on Safari, but did get it on Firefox and Chrome.

Click to expand...
Yes, when I said 4K that means 2160p. I get that option on all his videos, it looks great.
 
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