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YouTube has been continuously upgrading the streaming capabilities of its video player, and it’s now taken another big leap forward.
The Google-owned company is now trialling 4K-resolution videos playing back at 60 frames per second, as first noted by TechCrunch.
The company first introduced 60 frames per second footage playback last year, with 4K content coming only last month.
Merging the two means YouTube now offers its highest quality content yet, although it’s only available on a very limited selection of clips right now.
It’s worth noting that most videos aren’t shot in 4K or 60 frames per second, so it’s still a fairly niche video output option.
Many cameras can shoot at ultra HD resolution with impressive frame rates, but they tend to be expensive rigs, and require plenty of processing heft to capture.
Related: Best 4K TVs 2015
It’s good that YouTube is getting the option in early however, as it means they’ll have sufficiently tested the standard well in advance of 4K/60fps footage becoming mainstream.
Anyone can view the new 4K/60fps clips, but you’ll need a display that can handle 3840 x 2160 natively to actually take advantage of the boosted quality.
If your rig isn’t suited to 4K footage then watching the videos will be fairly fruitless however, and will likely look worse than when played back at a lower resolution.
Buffer times will also increase too with the new video standard; that’s because there’s a significantly higher quantity of data being downloaded with such high quality, high framerate video.
