How to see 4K video in the YouTube Sony Xperia xz Premium?

[Justluk]

Hi, I was trying to watch videos in YouTube with 4k resolution but apparently the phone doesn't switch the display resolution and stucks in full HD (1080x1940) also if I change the stream quality to 4k as you can see at the voice viewport when you open statistics for nerds. There is a way that I don't know to be able to switch the display to 4K resolution in YouTube?

Thanks

[NunoSEN2]

Hi @Justluk ;

Just tested it, when watching a 4K movie select top right 3 dots menu>Quality>2160p.

[Justluk]

Thank you for your reply, I know that, doing what you said just change the stream resolution and not the actual resolution of the display that remains 1080x1920.

You can see that by clicking up-right on the 3 dots/statistics for nerds/viewport.

The viewport shows the actual resolution of the display that in 4k(2160p) should be 1920x1080*2

(3840x2160) but this is not happening.

Either with 4k or full HD quality (streaming) the actual resolution in viewport remain the same 1920x1080 that is the full HD resolution.

I hope it is more clear now and to find a solution because the display is amazing and deserves 4k content!

Thank you again for your replay.

[NunoSEN2]

@Justluk, I don't know why the Viewport shows always 1920x1080, even if you choose lower resolutions, for example, I chose 144p and could see a clear downgrade in the video screen image resolution, nevertheless the Viewport showed 1920x1080, and I was progressively increasing the resolution and seeing video image quality also increasing, and the Viewport showed always 1920x1080. So I suppose that what is really important is the value in the Video Format, maybe the Viewport shows only the screen dimension because when I see the YouTube videos in thumbnail it shows always 1080x608 in all the video format resolutions. 

[Justluk]

@NunoSEN2 It doesn't change because the display resolution remain 1920x1080 and YouTube automatically upscale the lower streaming resolution to the bigger of the display.. you can see that in the same box (statistic for nerds) where it says video format.

It is also evident watching the movie you can't see any difference between 1080p and 2160p.

The viewport shows the actual resolution of the video box that's why when you change from full screen to window mode it's going down to 1080x608 but in full screen mode should show 1920x1080*2 (3840x2160) in order to be 4k.

There is a problem in the UI that doesn't switch the display's resolution or it is from the YouTube app, not sure witch of the two but I guess it's more probable the UI or android issue.

If you still have doubts try to take a screenshot of the video in full Hd and in 4k quality and then go to compare them zooming in.. there is no difference and should be there the double of the pixels.

I am quite sure  that is not switching to 4k that's why I decided to write a post in Sony's forum to make them aware of the problem.

Update

I've tried also to open YouTube in Google Chrome and it has the same problem:

2160p streaming quality

Window mode (portrait) 

viewport 706x301*2.549999 = 1800x768

Full screen

viewport 753x424*2.549999 = 1920x1080

So it appear that it's not only a YouTube app issue but also Google Chrome, I'm going to try with Twitch now but I guess it is an android/UI issue..

New update

Twitch don't have 4k content at the moment neither a way to monitor the display resolution output (viewport).

I don't have Amazon video and Netflix premium accounts yet so I can't test them.

If somebody can do that and report it here it would be very appreciated.

[Justluk]

Here we are!

I show you the final prove that YouTube don't switch the display's resolution.

I downloaded the Sony test video in 4k from youtube and then I played it first with VLC player, takes a screenshot and the same with YouTube in 4k and then in 1080p resolutions.

I attached here the screenshots so you can judge by yourself but I've compared them with a 4k 55 inch smart TV and the difference between VLC real 4k and the YouTube one is obvious.

Sequence of screenshots

1 VLC 4k

2 YouTube 4k (in theory)

3 YouTube 1080p

What do you think?

Notice that the resolution of the screenshots is the same but the actual pixels in the image are very differentVLC 4k

YouTube 4k

YouTube 1080p

[Lord_viridis]

You're neglecting to take into account YouTube bit rate compression.

[Justluk]

Hi @Viridis

I've thought about it but the point is that when I play videos on the smart TV the resolution in the viewport it is correctly shown as UHD 1920x1080*2.

This doesn't happen with the phone where the viewport show only 1920x1080

[Lord_viridis]

YouTube 1080p crop

YouTube 4k crop

[Justluk]

Also cropping I don't see differences btwin 4k and 1080p in YouTube screenshots but I see a difference with a VLC screenshot of the same video (same compression).

Again I don't understand why YouTube don't recognise the actual display resolution as UHD as you can see in the viewport. In all the other devices that are actually UHD the viewport shows 1920x1080*2