4K YouTube Videos Support on tvOS14 Not Yet Enabled

Although Apple promised 4K video support for YouTube videos on Apple TV with tvOS 14, its release does not seem to have enabled the feature yet. As noted by MacRumors, 4K video content is not available after applying this week’s tvOS 14 update.

Apple clearly notes on its Apple TV 4K website that 4K support for YouTube videos is a feature that’s supposed to be included in tvOS 14 , but it is missing in the recently released version of the software.

As you can see in the tvOS 14 screenshot above, selecting a 4K video on a 4K Apple TV continues to limit the video playback to 1080p as before.

It may be that YouTube needs to push an app update for the feature to work, and YouTube’s Twitter support team seems confused. Just yesterday, a TeamYouTube account said that 4K resolution YouTube can’t be delivered to the Apple TV 4K because it does not support VP9.

“Appreciate the details – we can’t deliver 4K resolution bc Apple TV 4K model (5th generation) does not support VP9 at this time. But we appreciate your suggestion and we’re actively making improvements based on user input.”

In a recent tweet, however, YouTube support has clarified that Apple TV 4K will support 4K playback “soon.”

Sorry about the back and forth — jumping in to clarify that Apple TV 4K will support 4K playback soon. Stay tuned for an update here.

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube)

September 18, 2020