Almost furtively, YouTube has been introducing changes in recent months to extend its support for high definition. 1080p videos are already relatively common, and a trained eye can find several examples filmed in 4K, but now a short film titled Ghost Towns joins the list. It was shot with a RED Epic Dragon 6K camera and, thanks to a pinch of upscaling, reaches the outrageous 8K mark without much trouble. What's the most absurd part? Almost nobody can play it.
8K arrives on YouTube
I still very well remember the astonishment when studying server specifications while we were squeezing our venerable 486s to steal a few extra MHz. Hundreds of megabytes of RAM, entire gigabytes of storage... it was madness. Today those same servers are little more than museum pieces, which highlights the extraordinary progress of technology. Even so, there is always a development that makes us think of the word "ridiculous". We are talking about specifications so high and so far removed from the user that they essentially make no sense. The most recent example is 4K content. Display manufacturers would throw me to the stake without hesitation for saying this, but the feeling is that we are barely beginning to enjoy 1080p, and they already want to multiply the resolution by four. The few pioneering stores offering 4K displays have no native content to play back, and they resort to the old trick of 1080p with upscaling. Is there a limit to this? The answer is no, because a video filmed in 8K recently appeared on YouTube.
If I remember correctly, the exact number for 8K is 7,680 by 4,320 pixels. In other words, each frame in an 8K video is a 33.2-megapixel image, and if we consider that 23.976 frames per second must be played back for a decent experience... we will definitely need a nuclear reactor to watch it. The video is called Ghost Towns, and it was shot with a RED Epic Dragon 6K camera, so an upscale of 125 percent was applied. Google indicated that basic support for uploading 8K videos has been available for five years... but explicit recognition of this content was added in the first months of the year.
Why watching 8K is still a problem
In reality, the problem of viewing 8K content goes beyond resolution. On one hand, the connection speeds many users have around the globe are absolutely miserable, and providers are working to improve that aspect at the pace of a sedated snail. On the other, perhaps YouTube doesn't want to hear this, but the current state of the service is inadequate for playing high-definition content. The standards have existed for quite some time; however, it all comes down to implementation, and despite what those in charge may say, there are some features that make things worse instead of better (such as DASH). Personally, I cannot watch 4K content in the browser, nor with external players. Let content creators enjoy filming in 8K. The technical side of playback still leaves a lot to be desired.
(Editor's note: Apparently, Ghost Towns is not alone on YouTube.)
