This year YouTube turned 20 years old, because time is a nightmare from which only oblivion can be saved. But this means that a lot of older content uploaded to YouTube is in pretty poor condition compared to the HD and 4K videos that have now become the norm. Google has a plan to make all this better with… guess what. Yes, you got it. This is “AI”.
“We’re also introducing a new AI-powered feature that automatically generates higher-resolution videos.” says the YouTube blog. Initially, the program will only work on various TV platforms – smart TVs, set-top boxes like Roku or Nvidia Shield, etc. – and will only shoot lower quality videos up to 1080p. But YouTube says the goal is to upscale video quality from old-school standard definition to 4K. Videos with higher resolution will receive the “super resolution” tag because GSMArena reports.
If you know anything about how digital video works, alarm bells may be ringing in your head right now. Upscaling is not the same as, for example, remastering a film for a new Blu-ray release. During this process, new high-resolution digital scans are made from the original physical film, which are then carefully adjusted to maintain the intended appearance (with different results). On the other hand, scaling is essentially the equivalent of enlarging each frame in Photoshop one by one and then adding some algorithmic processes to make it smoother.
Upscaling from DVD to 1080p or 1080p to 4K might look pretty goodat least if it's done well. When this is not the case, the results are terrible. And considering how poor Generative Artificial Intelligence Systems YouTube at this point, and how bad compressed YouTube videos can look on their own, even if they're uploaded in 4K, I wouldn't hold my breath expecting great results. Plus, I'd be shocked if this feature remained TV-only for a long time.
There's a little bit of good news hidden here: YouTube won't hard-convert your original video files into this AI-enhanced upscaled version, and the original resolution will be preserved… for now. Creators can opt out of enhancements if they want viewers to see the original unaltered, and viewers can also turn it off on their end.
