Try and watch any new 4K video, trailer or camera test on YouTube in Safari – you will see 1080p or 1440p max!
Until Apple and Google stops ripping off their customers with silly codec wars, here is a solution I’ve found to get 4K YouTube videos working again in Safari.
Why this has come about – and why it still isn’t fixed after 3 years
When high efficiency video codecs came along to replace the common H.264 streaming format, unfortunately Apple chose not support VP9 and went for H.265 only. Even more unfortunately, YouTube chose only to support VP9 and not the superior H.265. Thus, the platform has been streaming 4K and 8K using only VP9 for the past few years. Anything but the earliest 4K videos which used H.264 now maxes out at 1440p or 1080p on a typical Mac OS device running Safari.
