YouTube needs more potato

sgibson5150@slrpnk.net to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 187 points –

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Edit: Thanks all for the troubleshooting advice but this occurred on a channel that is known to me that regularly posts 4k HDR content. At the time I tried to play it, the video had 14k views and had been up for two days. It's probably just a transient thing. I mainly thought this was funny because I'd never seen such an anemic selection of resolutions. Perhaps you guys can try to enjoy the post in that spirit.

Edit #2: I know I said we weren't troubleshooting but if anyone wants to try it out, the video is here. I tried on my phone this morning and there are only the two crappy resolutions.

Edit #3: Credit to skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl here. I think they came the closest to explaining the problem. After I tried this on my phone, I tried it on the laptop and all resolutions with and without HDR were available. This may indicate that something like H.264 High Profile was used for encoding which (depending on the level) may not be supported on mobile device and it would seem, set top boxes like my Roku Ultra.

Edit #4: Some others had commented about the same problem in the video comments on YT so I told the content creator what I knew and (politely) asked how the video was compressed. Will report back if I get a response.

Edit #5: Clarified a point in Edit #3. Some mobile devices may support some levels of High Profile, or at least that's my understanding.

Final Edit: Creator did not respond to me directly but they indicated that they requested help from YouTube in the matter. Haven't checked the Roku yet but all resolutions are now available from my phone as of 2024-04-13T11:12:00.000 UTC.

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This also happens when the video was just uploaded recently and YouTube hasn't finished encoding all the different resolutions.

First time it's happened to me but I'll take your word for it. As of tonight, it's been up for two days and has 14k views. I figured it was either something transient or YT was applying some traffic management during peak demand.

Ok if it's up for two days and still not showing better quality than something different is going on. YouTube is typically pretty fast with encoding videos and most of the time all resolutions are finished between 15min and 1h after uploading the video, so it's maybe not that in your case.

Usually this happens when the only resolutions available are the ones shown (typically because it's an older video)

I think it was posted within the last week. I remember the HDR processing wasn't done processing the first time I tried to watch it. Would I be complaining about the resolution of a video from 2007?

Edit: Sorry. My reply sounds rude, but I ran into this problem on a channel I'm familiar with. They're an HDR walker. All of their content is in 4K. I could have included that in the post, but you could have assumed that I'm not a complete dumbass. Maybe we both can learn from this.

You probably didn't watch enough ads for crap you already bought

Haha, 144p @ 60hz is fricking hilarious.

Reminds me of seeing completely rubbish resolution real player videos embedded in websites back in the late 90s and me thinking, "Well that isn't ever going to take off".

Yeah it's a long HQ video so it takes a while for YouTube to process, wait a week and see.

Thank god for the Nvidia Shield Pro and SmartTube.

Yes, I am obviously the problem with my inferior equipment and stock software. By all means, show us how it is done. https://youtu.be/oMMf_K_P-no

Well, my shit TV was the problem. I meant no offence, buddy. The only way to solve the issue for me was to throw money at it. Show me an affordable smart TV that can stream 4k out of the box, day or night, with no buffering, I'm your guy. Or am I reading too much into this, and do you really just want me to photograph my TV while it streams that video in 4k?

I apologize unreservedly if I misread your tone. No, I wanted to see what resolutions you showed available for the video. This could just be a weird YouTube issue. Maybe an error happened on their end when they were generating the various files. I checked this morning and it showed the same two pitiful resolutions when I tried to play on my phone. The real mystery is how it got 14k views in this state. I watch HDR content to enjoy my TV, but HDR on a postage stamp ain't it.

Edit: I think I found an explanation that fits the available facts. See latest edit in main post.

Alright mate, all good, I will run it when I get home and report back. For what it's worth, the video is showing the 4k option on my Android phone using Grayjay app.