The 4k movie has been gaining steam in the last few years. It has solid roots in film theatres and is starting to make headway with TVs, but what about an online movie? The format is supported by YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix and Amazon now with many more on the way, but the chief obstacles to entry in 4k streaming movies are the costs involved to altering production for companies and bandwidth issues for audiences.
Google is aiming to make 4k video more accessible with changes coming for their rendering algorithm on Chrome, and of course the massive boost in bandwidth if you’re fortunate enough to be getting Google fibre.
Is 4K Generation Quality Required?
One thing we might want to think about is what’s relevant to online video. Add to this list light, audio, depth of field and a whole host of additional manufacturing worries and any resolution over 720p begins to appear unnecessary to the ordinary viewer.
Sure audiences might be requesting 4k video, but odds are they can’t stream fast enough to view it or are not watching it on a device where they can even tell the difference. YouTube may encourage higher res, but their primary focus is not about the ultra-high 4k resolution.
Among the most significant reasons not to take in 4k is undoubtedly the storage and time required to keep the video files. That time could be saved and utilised doing a range of different things for your movie.
Assessing resources towards promoting or editing your articles to different blogs and message boards could be more beneficial. There are a lot of facets to creating a movie, and 4k video should be the least of your concerns. If you’ve got the equipment, the excess storage space and time for making it, then obviously, do it. It will not hurt, and you might rank higher in search results by creating 4k content. When 4k content is more widespread with viewers, you might find a small increase in SEO.
But at the end of the day, many audiences either can’t or will not be watching your video in 4k for some time. Many will not even be seeing it in 1080p even if they’re watching on YouTube. Regardless of what your preferred resolution is, YouTube will feed audiences video content in a much lower resolution to keep that smoother experience.
I am a big proponent of being first to market for items in the video realm and particularly in the social networking space if you would like to get an edge on the competition. But here we’re almost five years in from when YouTube launched support for 4k video and despite improvements, the industry is not ready for it yet.
