Google offers to test a 1080p mode on YouTube with better image quality. This mode is for YouTube Premium subscribers only.
Source: Aroged – Chloé Pertuis
By adding more and more ads to its YouTube video service, Google is clearly trying to push users into the YouTube Premium subscription. The firm regularly adds other benefits for subscribers to the service.
As several Internet users have spotted it, Google would now have an idea that is likely to make a lot of talk about it: reserve better video quality for subscribers.
Pay to remove compression
Multiple users
have, in fact, discovered a new option “1080p Premium” in the menu allowing to choose the quality of a video. The option specifies that it is a bitrate improvement. Bitrate refers to the amount of data contained in the video for each second. In other words, it is a marker of video compression. The higher the bitrate, the better the video will be, but the more demanding it will be on your internet connection.
La nouvelle option 1080p Premium // Source : u/KZedUK
Obviously, this new quality mode would be reserved for YouTube Premium subscribers. Increasing video quality is especially in demand in the gaming industry where gameplay footage in a game can easily be ruined by overly aggressive compression.
The addition of a 1080p Premium mode will not fail to put back on the table the debate on a two-speed YouTube between the free users of the service, who still watch advertising and therefore pay Google, and Premium users.
One wonders if Google will go further after this step. Could the 1440p, 4K, 60 fps or 360 modes also eventually switch to the Premium subscription? The idea had already caught on. For the firm, it is undoubtedly a question of rationalizing the costs in storage and in computing power induced by the progressive improvement in the quality of the videos on its platform.
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