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When you think about video quality, the first thing that probably comes to mind

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is that little gear on YouTube that allows you to adjust the vertical resolution,

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720p, 1080p, 2160p,

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but that isn't the only factor impacting how good your streaming videos look.

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In fact, YouTube kinda tells you this themselves with that 1080p premium option

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that pops up on certain videos, which is part of the YouTube premium paid subscription.

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But how is this different from just plain 1080p? Seeing as the two options

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give you the exact same number of pixels. The answer is bitrate,

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and it's part of the reason more pixels doesn't always mean a better picture.

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On a fundamental level, bitrate is exactly what it sounds like.

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A higher bitrate means that each frame of the video you're watching

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has more data that ultimately forms the image.

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You see, streaming video on the internet is often compressed,

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so it doesn't take up as much bandwidth and loads on your device more quickly.

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To do this, some of the information from the original video that's uploaded to YouTube

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is discarded. To put this in perspective, uncompressed 1080p video at 30 frames per second

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can take up around a gigabit and a half of data per second,

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which is a higher bitrate than many home internet connections

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would be able to easily handle. Compressed video, on the other hand,

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might only take up a few megabits per second, or even below two megabits per second,

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depending on the service. Immediately, you can see how important video compression is.

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There are several ways to compress video, but a simple example is to only keep data

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representing how pixels change from one frame to the next

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and discarding the rest instead of storing two complete raw frames.

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Another is to discard data for parts of the image that look very similar,

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such as on a large green football field. These techniques make it possible

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to save lots of bandwidth with, hopefully,

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minimal or even imperceptible loss of quality.

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But all video compression isn't created equal.

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Too much compression will make your videos look like a blocking mess,

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even though they still might be at a high resolution,

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while too little will put more load on your network or device for no appreciable gain.

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Google hasn't publicly disclosed their typical ranges

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for YouTube video bitrates for either regular or premium 1080p videos.

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We can tell you that YouTube does use variable bitrates,

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meaning the bitrate at any given moment will depend on exactly what's happening in the video

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with scenes featuring lots of constantly changing

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visual elements, generally using a higher bitrate.

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And we can also tell you that both the regular and enhanced versions appear to mostly be

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in the single digits of megabits per second, both of which are, of course, far lower

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than uncompressed video. As to whether it actually looks better,

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after all, it's a feature you have to pay for. Some users have said that videos have more detail

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and fewer weird artifacts that can result from compression,

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but that the differences can be relatively subtle and challenging to notice

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unless you're doing a side-by-side comparison, which does make some sense,

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considering bitrate, like resolution, is one of only a number of factors

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that go into exactly how good a video looks

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with other factors like HDR support, color grading, frame rate,

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and the equipment used to record and play the video, all making a big impact.

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Of course, with Google being relatively opaque as to the actual numbers,

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there was speculation that they actually lowered the quality of non-premium 1080p

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in order to sell premium subscriptions, but there hasn't been any hard evidence of this.

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Putting a higher bitrate option behind a paywall, as unpopular as it might be,

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does provide a way for Google to dangle a carrot in front of folks who might be interested in paying,

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primarily to remove advertisements, while also ensuring their pipes don't get clogged,

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trying to deliver high-quality video to the massive number of free users

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watching content on their service. We can't tell you whether it would be worth it,

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as only you can decide whether a higher bitrate is worth a monthly fee.

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But if you do want to give it a test run and you end up not being impressed,

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just make sure to cancel before your trial runs out, as I'm sure you don't need yet another recurring bill

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you might have forgotten about. Hey, thanks for watching. And if you liked this video,

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check out our other video on how the term 4K can be misleading.

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Don't trust it. It's shifty, it's a shifty term.