Some YouTube TV users are getting back the “1080p Enhanced” option. Google officially launched the new quality setting this year. However, it suddenly disappeared for everyone shortly after.
The YouTube TV “1080p Enhanced” quality is basically 1080p/60 fps, but with a higher bitrate. This means that there is less compression in the content, which translates into better overall image quality. The compression algorithm greatly influences the quality of your favorite multimedia content. It may even happen that the same movie on two different platforms with the same resolution and frame rate is visibly different from each other, due to the type of compression applied by each platform.
The “1080p Enhanced” option is again visible for some YouTube TV users
A few days after the initial rollout of the option in February, many YouTube TV users reported its sudden disappearance. At that time, the support team said that everything was due to a bug that “hid” the option from the video settings. However, they claimed that the improved quality had not gone away, and that users would continue to enjoy it on compatible content. But, then people couldn’t try to “force” the highest quality setting on all content. It also prevented them from disabling it in case they wanted to do so for some reason.
Now, some users report that the option reappeared for them. Google has not yet confirmed if it is resuming the rollout of the “1080p Enhanced” quality setting. In any case, it could be a test of limited scope. There are people with multiple YouTube TV accounts who have the option available only in one (or some) of them.
Even if you don’t have the option available, you can know if the content being played is running at “1080p Enhanced” quality. You just have to open the “Statistics for nerds” option and check the “codec” section. If a “412” code appears, then “1080p Enhanced” is enabled for the content.