YouTube confirms adding ‘1080p Premium’, podcast features

A week after longtime YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki resigned, certain changes are already taking place at the video-streaming giant.

Including YouTube’s experiment on a higher quality 1080p option for its Premium subscribers.

A Reddit user initially noticed a ‘1080p Premium’ option, then YouTube eventually confirmed that it is currently available to a small group of Premium subscribers.

Image/ From Reddit via u/KZedUK

1080p Premium means more bitrate

YouTube spokesperson Paul Pennington told The Verge that the new ‘1080p Premium’ option is an enhanced bitrate version of 1080p that provides more information per pixel, resulting in a higher-quality viewing experience.

Pennington added that there are no changes to the existing quality offerings for 1080p resolution on YouTube.

While resolution describes a video’s number of pixels, there are other factors that contribute to overall video quality such as bitrate and color depth.

YouTube’s standard 1080p bitrate is between 8 and 10 Mbps and can be blocky compared to Blu-rays (40 Mbps max) or original exports.

The video’s codec also affects its efficiency and can produce better results with less data. Videos encoded with the same codec at a higher bitrate will look better, which is what the ‘1080p Premium’ is aiming for.

YouTube’s usual video processing uses variable bitrate encoding, meaning that the amount of data it uses will fluctuate depending on what’s shown on screen.

That is why when you upload a video on YouTube and download it again, the file size becomes smaller since it’s not the original bitrate anymore—which saves you some internet bandwidth.

YouTube previously experimented putting higher-quality video behind a paywall.

Last year, the company caught flak on testing the 4K video quality exclusive to Premium users. Fortunately, they did not push through with this limitation.

Podcast is coming too

Moreover, YouTube is planning to add podcasts to its library of audio and video content on YouTube Music, according to Kai Chuk, the company’s head of podcasting.

The feature will be available for all users, including free and Premium tiers, with ad-supported playback for the free tier.

Audio-first shows will be highlighted with a special podcast badge. Chuk said that users will have a great experience whether they want to watch or just listen to podcasts.

A podcast feature has also appeared on Creator Studio, enabling creators to add podcasts on existing content or upload new videos.

YouTube is not currently planning to add exclusive shows or licensed originals. They will instead focus on its creators and users.