I use a 1080p monitor and what I’ve noticed is that once creators start uploading 4k content the 1080p version that I watch on fullscreen has more artifacting than when they only uploaded in 1080p.
Did you notice that as well?
Watching in 1440p on a 1080p monitor results in a much better image, to the detriment of theoretically less sharper image and a lot higher CPU usage.
I sit quite close to a large 1080p monitor. That’s why I notice when the bitrate is low and the video I am seeing lacks true 1080*720 pixels. Basically it’s compressed so much, that the image is noticeably worse than an image my monitor could display. That’s why when I use a higher pixel count compression, like 1440p, the compression problems don’t show as bad on the screen that will only show 1080p pixels anyways. That’s what I am talking about. On a phone or a laptop screen it will probably be less noticeable. I guess that’s why Youtube does it, it probably saves them a huge amount of bandwidth and people who want really good quality video might already have 4k displays which then get a way higher bitrate video feed anyways.
I guess the 1080p monitor size starts to be a niche. More and more people using it are on smartphones I guess so it really makes sense to have a very low bitrate.
Turns out, I have an old dumb FullHD TV that should be ideal for this experiment. So, if I watch a YT video on 1080p, I should be able to see compression artefacts that are invisible when using a higher resolution. How is that supposed to work anyway, given that the browser knows the output resolution? Will it just download a higher resolution video, drop every other pixel, and display the rest?
Yes, just like it can show a 1080p video not in fullscreen :)