Last month, YouTube started testing a new 1080p video quality that’s exclusive to premium subscribers. The company is still testing it out, and it appears to be expanding it. The new premium 1080p quality was discovered on the desktop version of YouTube.
A while back, YouTube tested making 4K resolution a perk for YouTube premium users. The YouTube community did not take kindly to that, and it was quickly axed. Later, the company changed direction and brought a new 1080p resolution.
Free users can still watch content in 1080p and higher. However, the premium quality has a higher bitrate which will make the video appear better than with regular 1080p. This change didn’t gather as much negativity, and the company is moving forward with it.
The premium 1080p quality was spotted on desktop
At this point, this is a limited test. Only a select pool of users can access this feature. Those people could only access the feature on the mobile YouTube app. However, according to Windows Latest’s Mayank Parmar, the test has made its way over to Windows 11.
Parmer saw the 1080p premium quality while using YouTube on a computer. One odd thing is that it prompted him to subscribe to YouTube Premium… he was already subscribed. This might show that it’s still in early testing and prone to bugs.
That being said, there are some screenshots that reveal one thing about this feature. It’s going to be pretty limited. You’ll only see this quality on videos that cap out at 1080p. So, if there’s a video that goes up to 140p and 4K, you won’t see the option.
We’re not sure if that’s going to change at some point. In any case, it’s still in testing at this point, so we’ll need to wait for it to release it to the public for more information.