Watching movies 4k on 1080p monitor - pointless?

[Guanzo]

Using 4k option on Youtube/Movies etc. in 1080p monitor will make difference or pointless thing? 

[jaslion]

Actually you'll have a higher bitrate coming in so there can be a difference. It wont be massive but it is there.

 

But just to save data id just do 1080p as the difference isnt amazing

[MiszS]

youtube compression is crazy, so 4k might actually look better, because it is compressed on 4k, but when you are watching in 1080p you wouldn't see a lot of the compressed details anyway

[Ottoman420]

Youtube looks like straight ass these days

[OddOod]

4 minutes ago, Ottoman420 said:

Youtube looks like straight ass these days

Looks fine for me. Same as it ever was

[WereCat]

there is more bitrate available to resolutions above 1080p and they also tend to be encoded in VP9 instead of h.264 so you get higher quality even at the same bitrate... so it snowballs into much better quality than 1080p, it's definitely not pointless 

[Spotty]

The 4k versions will typically have a higher bitrate and should provide better visual quality even when displayed on a lower resolution monitor.

 

Here's an example of the most recent LTT video at 1080p and 4k displayed on the same screen with the same viewing window (2236x1118).

There's some noticeable difference around the face and hair. The eyebrows, cheeks, nose, and hair look a little smudgey and less detailed on 1080p compared to 4k.

Spoiler

Click images to expand to full size.

 

 

 

[podkall]

depends how compressed the 1080p version is

[Godlygamer23]

7 hours ago, OddOod said:

Looks fine for me. Same as it ever was

Depends on the content you're viewing. If there's a lot of foliage for example, compression really shows itself - the algorithm can't properly compress the video, so it looks really blocky and blurry. You get the same effect on Twitch as well, at least from what I've seen.

[Stahlmann]

With online streaming content like YouTube, Netflix, etc. 4K will use a higher bitrate and as a result the image will look better, even on a 1080p monitor.