YouTube has confirmed that it’s experimenting with a higher-quality 1080p possibility for Premium subscribers after some Reddit customers observed a brand new “1080p Premium” possibility within the high quality settings menu. The choice is at the moment accessible to “a small group of YouTube Premium subscribers,” in response to Paul Pennington, a spokesperson for the corporate.

“1080p Premium is an enhanced bitrate model of 1080p which offers extra info per pixel that leads to a better high quality viewing expertise,” stated Pennington, including that “there are not any modifications to the present high quality choices for 1080p (HD) decision on YouTube.” There have been considerations that YouTube is nerfing the usual 1080p mode to make the Premium model extra interesting, however the assertion implies that the corporate hasn’t made any modifications.

Whereas 1080p describes a video’s decision, or the variety of pixels that make up the picture, there are extra components that go into total video high quality. Bitrate and colour depth are additionally vital components and may even lend to good 1080p video wanting higher than unhealthy 4K footage. Bitrate is commonly used to explain how a lot information is used to switch every second of video.

For instance, a 1080p Blu-ray may give you a most of 40 Mbps, which offers a fairly crisp picture. In the meantime, YouTube’s customary 1080p bitrate hovers between 8 and 10 Mbps and could be noticeably blockier than Blu-rays or the unique exports. It additionally will depend on what codec the video is compressed with, as some are extra environment friendly than others and may produce higher outcomes with much less information, typically with prices elsewhere — it may be fairly difficult. (Additionally, bitrate isn’t totally separate from decision; what number of pixels are in a video will play some consider how a lot information that you must transmit it in a suitable high quality. If you wish to go deep into the idea, right here’s a fairly good explainer.)

Nonetheless, it’s typically correct to say that video encoded with the identical codec however at a better bitrate will look higher. That appears to be what YouTube’s doing — one Reddit consumer with entry to the function posted a screenshot of the corporate’s “Stats for Nerds” device, which reveals that the Premium 1080p possibility ran at round 13 Mbps versus 8 Mbps in the usual mode for a similar video. Nonetheless, it’s value noting that YouTube often makes use of variable bitrate encoding, which means that the quantity of information it makes use of will fluctuate a bit relying on what’s proven on display screen.

The corporate didn’t instantly reply to The Verge’s request for touch upon what the common premium bitrate could be.

The explanation YouTube doesn’t simply present you the unique video file at its most bitrate is that doing so could be costly, each for them and probably for you, relying in your velocity and information cap. The decrease a video’s bitrate, and thus the decrease its high quality, the much less bandwidth it takes up within the journey from YouTube’s servers to your display screen. The 1080p Premium check signifies that YouTube could possibly be keen to let folks entry extra high quality so long as they pay for the service.

This isn’t the primary time YouTube has experimented with placing higher-quality video behind the Premium paywall. Final yr, the corporate ran a check that made it so some folks weren’t capable of entry 4K playback except they had been subscribers, a transfer that garnered a number of pushback from the neighborhood. Nonetheless, a number of that got here right down to the truth that folks had been shedding one thing they beforehand had entry to without spending a dime. If YouTube really is retaining the standard for the common 1080p possibility the identical, then the experiment is simply including a perk for paying clients.