Why do some 1080p vidoes on Youtube look like 360p?

[macroy]

Originally Posted by The Grandeur

It is happening in 1080p old movies on Youtube.

Despite being 1080p on Youtube, they don't look remastered at all. Poor Quality.

Just because something is being presented in 1080P in terms of aspect ratio doesn't mean the actual content was shot in HD or is there any indication the content was digitize/remastered.

In certain situations, presenting something from a lower resolution in HD may actually make it worse. You just essentially bring out the limitations even more....

[gguerra]

I can view the video just fine at 1080p. Doesn't mean it's actually 1080p quality like a BluRay you can buy. Two things at play here besides the resolution on Youtube. Quality of the original film and the quality of the capture which I assume is 1080. More to it than just resolution. Bitrate also affects quality but there is no "upscale" here or in other words no digital enhancement.

Let me give you another example. If I was to capture video from a VHS tape at 1080, do you think I would actually get 1080 quality? You can't create something from nothing. The details are not there to begin with.

[Yelling_at_Birds]

Originally Posted by The Grandeur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvPUfCevC9A

It's kind of hard to tell with an old film upload. Here are the various formats that Youtube has that file in:
139 m4a audio only DASH audio 53k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.5 (22050Hz), 22.30MiB
140 m4a audio only tiny 129k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@129k (44100Hz), 59.18MiB
251 webm audio only tiny 143k , webm_dash container, opus @143k (48000Hz), 65.75MiB
278 webm 256x144 DASH video 95k , webm_dash container, vp9, 25fps, video only
160 mp4 256x144 DASH video 108k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d400b, 25fps, video only
242 webm 426x240 DASH video 220k , webm_dash container, vp9, 25fps, video only
133 mp4 426x240 DASH video 242k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d400c, 25fps, video only
243 webm 640x360 DASH video 405k , webm_dash container, vp9, 25fps, video only
134 mp4 640x360 360p 504k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d401e@ 504k, 25fps, video only, 230.41MiB
244 webm 854x480 DASH video 752k , webm_dash container, vp9, 25fps, video only
135 mp4 854x480 DASH video 1155k , mp4_dash container, avc1.4d400d, 25fps, video only
247 webm 1280x720 DASH video 1505k , webm_dash container, vp9, 25fps, video only
136 mp4 1280x720 720p 1995k , mp4_dash container, avc1.64001f@1995k, 25fps, video only, 912.23MiB
248 webm 1920x1080 DASH video 2646k , webm_dash container, vp9, 25fps, video only
137 mp4 1920x1080 1080p 4199k , mp4_dash container, avc1.640028@4199k, 25fps, video only, 1.87GiB
18 mp4 640x360 360p 632k , avc1.42001E, 25fps, mp4a.40.2 (44100Hz)
22 mp4 1280x720 720p 2124k , avc1.64001F, 25fps, mp4a.40.2 (44100Hz) (best)

Can you try through this frontend https://yewtu.be/watch?v=LvPUfCevC9A and see if it looks any different? Maybe Youtube's js player is giving you issues.

[djmilf]

It played fine for me, both in the linked video on the forum and at the YouTube website.

Keep in mind that this is a movie that was shot on grainy black and white film back in 1923, and was lost until the movie's original negative was rediscovered, but was badly decomposed and almost unsalvageable. What is now on YouTube is probably the mostly restored version that still contains evidence of the negative's damage.