Home Theater Geeks 545 Transcript
Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
Scott Wilkinson [00:00:00]:
In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I answer a question from Christian Dietz who wonders about resolution on YouTube. So stay tuned. Podcasts you love. From people you trust. This is TWiT. Hey there, Scott Wilkinson here. the Home Theater Geek. In this episode, I answer a question from Christian Dietz who asks, I have a Sony X900F TV, which is the best TV I have ever had by far, with a Roku Ultra 2024.
Scott Wilkinson [00:00:52]:
When I watch YouTube from the Roku, I often have the choice of 1080p Or 2160p. Since Sony is noted for having excellent upscaling, I was wondering if it would be better to set the YouTube video to 1080p and allow the Sony to upscale, or is the 2160 setting in YouTube better? I know the simple answer is whatever looks better, but from a technical standpoint, which option is better? I know from past episodes of HTG you have stated that true 4K video, not upscaled, is the best picture. But are 2160p video settings in YouTube true 4K or upscaled by YouTube? Thank you for any advice you can provide. Well, thanks for the question, Christian. As with most things in life, The answer is it depends. YouTube does have some native 4K UHD 2160p content, quite a bit actually, and the, and the amount of it is growing over time. But the majority is still 1080p or less. Now if the content is native 2160p or UHD, the best YouTube setting is obviously 2160.
Scott Wilkinson [00:02:26]:
But if it's 1080p or less, is it better to have YouTube do the upscaling, uh, or is it better to have the TV do it? That's really the essence of your question. I'm going to get to that in a minute, but first I want to see if we can determine what the native resolution of the video coming from YouTube is. Um, and I looked at a number of YouTube videos, including standard definition television shows from the 20th century and some very early television programs, uh, experiments really. Um, now to— and I wanted to see what was the resolution that YouTube was putting out, so It turns out that you can determine that while the video is playing. Basically, you want to click on the settings icon, which looks like a gear in the lower right of the image. On Roku, this icon appears when I press the A or B button on the remote. Which you can see here. Now, I've seen different images of different remotes for the Roku Ultra, and yours may very well be different.
Scott Wilkinson [00:03:48]:
Some of them have 2 buttons there labeled 1 and 2, and some don't have any such buttons. So I'm not quite sure how you would get the icons— that particular icon which appears with several of them when I press the A or B button. But in one way or another, that's what you need to do to determine what the actual resolution of the video is. So if you click on that settings icon, one of the items in the menu that pops up is the quality setting. And again, the menu might very well look different than this, but in this particular version of it, you can see down near the bottom it says quality. Sometimes in some cases that word quality is followed by the parentheses and the actual resolution. And if you then click on that quality button, you'll get another menu. And here we see apparently there's a new YouTube quality menu.
Scott Wilkinson [00:05:05]:
on the right— on the left here. On the right is what I have normally seen. It defaults to auto and it has in parentheses a resolution, in this case 480p. And you can choose any resolution. In this particular illustration, you can go beyond 480p to 720p or 1080p. And I assume then that YouTube will upscale to those resolutions. In my personal experiments on my system, I didn't see resolutions higher than the— what's in the auto setting, which I have to assume is the default or the native resolution of the content. In this new interface, you can see you can select higher Auto or higher picture quality or data saver, which means lower picture quality, and, uh, or selecting a specific resolution, which gives you, I think, this menu on the right.
Scott Wilkinson [00:06:10]:
Anyway, um, that's how you can tell probably, uh, what the resolution, the native resolution of the video is, uh, on YouTube. Many of the older TV shows that I looked at from the '50s and '60s, which would obviously have been standard definition or 480p, were actually shown on YouTube at 1080p. So I assume whoever uploaded it to YouTube scaled it up to 1080p. There are also lots of documentaries. About the early days of television, say, which have clips, but those documentaries themselves are all at 1080p. So, uh, the YouTube video is at 1080p. Now I did find some examples of 480p or even less for some very early programs, which means they were uploaded in their native resolution. And in those cases, as I said before, the available resolutions in that quality list are at or below the auto setting.
Scott Wilkinson [00:07:31]:
So I think YouTube has a feature that I've never uploaded to YouTube, but I think they must, where when you upload something, you can say upscale it to 1080p, or perhaps the content, the The person who uploaded it upscaled it offline in their own computer and then uploaded that. Now I will have to say there is some gorgeous 4K content on YouTube, and I looked at some of it. It's beautiful. It's mostly nature photography, but I would definitely take a look at that because it's gorgeous. And it defaults to 4K or 2160p as long as your display can accommodate it, which your Sony X900 certainly can. It can also be shown at lower resolutions if necessary. I'm going to include a link in the show notes that will lead you to this 4K content. So back to your question, uh, if there's any upscaling to do on YouTube content Which device does a better job of it? In your question, you ask, quote, are 2160p video settings in YouTube true 4K or upscaled by YouTube? I suspect that the choice you are given when you see this choice on your screen comes from the Roku, not from YouTube.
Scott Wilkinson [00:09:02]:
The Roku wants to know what resolution do you want to display it in. And it, it's regardless of what the native resolution of the YouTube video is. I don't think it's coming from YouTube, it's coming from Roku. As to which upscaler is better, I'm afraid the answer is it does come down to which looks better to you. So here's how I would do it. I would find a YouTube video that's 1080p or lower And play it at that resolution from the Roku, which means that the Sony TV will be upscaling it. Then play the same content with the Roku setting at 2160p. Which looks better? I would guess that the Sony's upscaling will probably look better because the Sony is a much more expensive device than the Roku.
Scott Wilkinson [00:10:01]:
And they have really great upscaling, as you note. And the processor is probably more expensive and more capable than the processor in the Roku. But there's only one way to find out, and that's to do it. That's to try it both ways and see which one you like better. So I'm sorry to say there is no true technical answer. If I was a— if I was an engineer at Sony or at Roku or at a— at the company that designs video processor chips, I might be able to answer that more objectively. Um, but I'm not. So the best I can do is try it both ways.
Scott Wilkinson [00:10:47]:
And the best you can do is try it both ways. Now, if you have a question for me, send it along to HTG at twit.tv. And I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show. And if you have a home theater you're proud of, send me some pics. I'd love to see them, and maybe we'll get you on the show to take us on a tour. Until next time, geek out.
