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If you are one of the owners of Apple computers that support 4K resolution (above left), you have certainly encountered unpleasant problems in the form of playing videos via the YouTube service. Despite that Macbooky or iMacs from production Applu have a perfect display with high-quality resolution support, you can't just watch 4K videos on YouTube. Of course, only if we are talking about the default Internet browser Safari. The 4K resolution is nothing new in the world of video and photography. Nevertheless, Google blocks this exclusively anti-oriented option Safari. So if you own an iMac or another Apple computer that has 4K support, via Safari you simply won't watch any video on YouTube with a higher resolution than, say, 1440p. How is that possible?

This fact intrigued me as an iMac user, so I started a little research. Since 2017, Google, which owns YouTube, has switched to a standard in the form of the VP9 codec. It is a specific video format that provides an increase in resolution without an increase in bandwidth. Through the application of the VP9 code, according to developers and engineers, it will be possible to achieve HD and even 4K resolution, using half the bandwidth. In practice, this means that with the same bitrate, videos in VP9 appear to be of better quality than in the previous case, when the h.264 standard was widely used.

The catch, however, is that as long as you run any 4K video in Safari, you won't even get a menu to set a resolution higher than 1080p or 1440p. Of course, even in this case, the videos are in HD, but on a larger screen, the video in a similar resolution is not very high quality. Images that are basically configured in 4K on YouTube are paradoxically in the browser Safari you will not use in 4K. One solution to this problem is to simply run the video using a different web browser. On a Mac, you can play a 4K video from YouTube or via Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Opera. A lot of people don't have a problem with this solution, but compared to other browsers, it offers Safari functions, which for example in Chrome You just can't find it.

If you use a browser to play YouTube videos Safari, you cannot achieve a higher resolution than 1080p or 1440p.

Maybe it's just my personal preferences, but in 99% of work with an iMac or MacbookI am currently using Safari. So the first point can be a more comfortable and familiar environment, which users would not like to change just for ordinary videos on Youtube. However, if we get into this sphere, we will find many positive elements that other browsers (in most cases) do not have. The very fact of perfect cooperation Safari with the new macOS Mojave, it results in clear and simple options, thanks to which you can start the "picture in picture" function, for example.

Through the browser Chrome you simply click through to 4K or 8K, of course depending on the resolution of the video itself.

However, if you want to work your way up to playing 4K or even 8K videos from Youtube via Safari, there is a slight (though not very convenient) workaround. Safari has an extension in the form of "Player for YouTube", which forces the browser to use the Flash Player instead of the HTML 5 player. In addition, you can play with the display of annotations or similar distracting elements in the settings. However, using this extension is not stable and does not guarantee high-quality video playback in all cases.

We'll see how long this "4K war" between Google and Apple to continue, but apparently we will not see a change in the next few months. However, this is not an issue that would prevent users from playing 4K or 8K videos on YouTube. Videos in 4320p resolution or, if you prefer, 8K, are not that widespread on the service, but you would certainly be pleased to watch one of the available images without having to unnecessarily click between browsers. If you already buy a computer or monitor that supports high resolution, then it is logically expected that you will also receive high-quality resolution. However, the current situation is "zero 4K" pre Safari.

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