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by diggan 462 days ago
The problem is not "1080p vs 4K on YouTube" but using YouTube at all for quality video. It's always been bad on YouTube, but videos like this make it extra obvious. For example, this shot: https://i.imgur.com/NRT0AOW.jpeg even in 4K it looks horrible, because of the compression YouTube does even to 4K.

I've tried finding some better version (not on YouTube) but been unable to, maybe it is lost to the passage of time.
2 comments
jsheard 461 days ago
The description of that higher quality upload says they sourced it from a retail demo disk, that's probably the best quality version in the wild. Maybe there's a direct rip of that disk on archive.org somewhere? Otherwise someone could ask them to upload their copy if they still have it.
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p1mrx 461 days ago
Blu-ray was just getting started in 2005, and Bravia TVs were 1366x768[1], so the demo disk is likely a DVD. I think someone would have to persuade Sony to remaster their original film, or release it to an archivist.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sony_Bravia_television...

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diggan 461 days ago
> that's probably the best quality version in the wild

Probably not, would be my guess. Uploading the very same source video to somewhere else than YouTube (and ideally a place that doesn't do heavy compression at all) would lead to an higher quality version easily, someone somewhere must have done just that.

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jsheard 461 days ago
That's what I meant, that the source video for that YouTube upload is probably the best version out there, as you say the second-hand re-encoded version served by YouTube is inferior. I didn't word that clearly, sorry.
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whycome 461 days ago
Try pulling different codec versions from YouTube? Maybe it got upped to Vimeo or something before? Also YouTube got rid of some resolution options a couple years back and that kinda adds to the problem of compression-rot of sorts.
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keane 461 days ago
There's a 2010 copy taken from iTV on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/14504562

Similar but slightly larger file from henry.tv at https://vimeo.com/293364002

The high-quality extended version Sony originally published at bravia-advert.com/includes/vid/bravia_150_sec_high.mov was 700x394 apparently.

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diggan 461 days ago
> that kinda adds to the problem of compression-rot of sorts

I dunno, when even the 4K version (offered by YouTube) shows the very same compression artifacts on a 4K modern TV, then I kind of feel like you screwed up. At least from the perspective of a viewer, of course from the perspective of the business that saves a lot of money from it.

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