I remember the days when video was all uploaded in 360p or 720p, and at the time it looked great, but ten or fifteen years later it looks blocky and unwatchable.
Now I’m making a bunch of YouTube videos and I’m trying to decide weather to export my videos in 1920x1080 or 3840x2160 resolution. I have a decent computer monitor and the 1080p looks okay to me, but I don’t know how that will appear on a big tv or ten years from now when technology gets better.
My only real concern is the higher resolution files are way larger. YouTube doesn’t seem to care about how big the files are, but the hard drive on my computer does.
Is it worth going to the higher resolution to keep pace with video technology, or does it really matter at this point?
My opinions and thoughts here, some people might call that bs for no reason
But as you can say by my profile, I am bit onto AI’s side. Considering AI is already doing things we didn’t expect, like generating realistic vids, images and a lot, it’s also upscaling stuff, this existed in the past but not this good. I believe in the near future, you are going to have so much AI tools that probably the camera wouldn’t even matter, the AI could just upscale the footage.
And now let’s talk about practicality, even though seems like that, we can’t be sure, and considering storage is constantly being cheaper these days, you can just buy some cheap ssd and hdd if you really need it. And yes, the better the quality, the more future proof it is.
You answered it yourself
Tech would be better, so it might just make your content better by doing some AI magic.
And obviously by my profile, I am a bit more towards the AI side. And have the opinion that the higher the quality the more future proof it is. But others might have their own opinion. And it really depends on your needs.
This needs context. For someone in a high-churn or short deadline environment, time is as big a deal as hard drive space. Time to transfer files to the computer, time to edit on a less-responsive timeline if not using proxies, time to make proxies if using proxies, time to export, time to upload, etc
If you are live streaming, then 1080p is used very often for these reasons plus reliability (less processing to do, less chance of stutter, less bandwidth needed). If you are making daily uploads, then 1080p may be appropriate for speed reasons. Fox News and MSNBC are making so many daily uploads that their videos look like 360p now. Nobody cares because nobody will go back to watch them. They are instantly out of date.
Meanwhile, if your videos are meant to be high-quality masterpieces with high rewatch value, then 2160p makes sense. Also, YouTube provides higher quality streams to viewers when the sources are 1440p or above. Viewers will notice a distinct quality increase, especially on large TVs.
AI upscaling for video playback does not excite me yet. The models for high-quality upscaling are large and require expensive hardware that the majority of Earth’s population will not be able to access for 10 years.
Although… if your target audience is mobile device users, then 1080p is fine for their tiny screens.
Although… if these videos are something you want to look back on for yourself because there are family memories in them, then you will never regret the 2160p. If time allows, do the final export with AV1 and the final files won’t even be that big. If you don’t have an AV1 hardware encoder, Shotcut has a software AV1 encoder called “10-bit AV1 WebM” near the bottom of the stock preset list.
I used to be unimpressed by my 42" 1080p HDTV (I have 3 others that are 4K including monitors). But recently I got prescription eyeglasses for near-sightedness, and it was a remarkable upgrade upgrade for that TV! Keep in mind this is at viewing distances around 8 - 10 feet. My point? I guess to say video quality is very relative to various factors especially–but often overlooked–screen size, eyesight, and distance; and 1080p is not so bad for this typical scenario (as well as most laptops and smartphones).
On the other hand, I like to say that 1080p SDR was the old quality bar (think: par), and 4K HDR is the new one. I am referring to generational leaps in quality similar to VHS to DVD to Blu-ray: SD to HD to Ultra HD Premium (4K SDR is just a stepping stone).
Given your “ten years” comment, consider that screen sizes are increasing (TVs) and screen closeness is decreasing (goggles/glasses). Both of these trends take advantage of increased resolution or density. I do not have an 85" TV, but I bet that 1080p from 8 ft without excellent ML/AI scaling is going to be soft even with my eyeglasses on. However, I am very skeptical that 8K is going to be much better than 4K in that example. On the flip side, I have no doubt that 8K90 per eye (3D) in the Apple Vision Pro headset will be a lot more awesome than watching a flat 1080p60 SDR video.
I suggest that if the majority of sources are at least 4K then go with 4K. However, if they are at least 1080 HD, then upscale a little to 1440p QHD as Austin suggested to take advantage of YouTube’s compression quality improvement.
in 10 years, I may be 6 feet under (or in ash form in an urn);
We’ve just had parents pass away and cleaned out their home. Plenty of photos, and some video, some video older than me (71) in Super 8 or similar, but converted.
There were 2 categories with their photos and video
about 99% was of no interest to any of us siblings - photos from trips, with relatives we didn’t know etc. Or photos we already had.
the remaining 1% were of more archival interest - not the sort of things we’d print and display - just keep “in case”.
And I’ve been thinking the same with my “stuff”. What will my children just dump? Maybe I should just dump it now and save them the bother.
No - I didn’t answer your question - it’s unanswerable in a way.
That’s one point, quality doesn’t matter as long as we have feelings connected with that video or image.
To be true, this is something of future, who knows what will happen. Maybe there’s none development considering an average person wouldn’t even notice something above 8k or 16k at most.
It depends on really a lot of factors, will scientists be able to record what himan sees from their eyes? Or there would be an advanced version of neuralink?
For now, the more the quality the better it is (not quantity) a HD video with sufficient light and good filmography is far better than a 4k footage with no light and zero consideration of filmography.
What quality level does the audience expect or require? I assume their opinion is valuable, or else the OP would keep the videos local rather than post them on YouTube.
As in, high-end fashion tends to expect higher resolution than compilations of dash cam videos.
