Jaromir Miko When it comes to optimization, we can say with a cool head that Safari is truly the best optimized browser for Mac. Even so, there are situations when it is not the best choice, and one of those situations is watching a video on YouTube. Retina is becoming the new standard and we can find it on all devices except the most basic 21,5″ iMac. However, you cannot enjoy the video on YouTube in a resolution higher than Full HD (1080p).
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Amaya Toman Users who want to enjoy video in higher quality or with HDR support must use a different browser. But why is that so? That's because YouTube videos now use a codec that Safari doesn't support, not even three years after YouTube implemented it.
At a time when the H.264 codec was really old and it was time to replace it with a newer one, two new solutions appeared. The first is the natural successor of H.265 / HEVC, which is more economical and can maintain the same or even higher image quality with a smaller amount of data. It is also much more suitable for 4K or 8K video, thanks to better compression, such videos load faster. Support for a higher color range (HDR10) is just the icing on the cake.
Safari supports this codec and so do services like Netflix or TV+. However, Google decided to use its own VP9 codec, which it began to develop as a modern and mainly open standard with several other partners. Therein lies the crucial difference: H.265/HEVC is licensed, while VP9 is free and today supported by most browsers except Safari, which is now only available for Mac.
Google - and especially a server like YouTube - has no reason to license a technology that is similar in many ways when it can offer users its own browser (Chrome) and users can enjoy the Internet to its fullest thanks to it. The last word thus rests with Apple, which has nothing to prevent it from also starting to support an open standard in the form of VP9. But today he has no reason to do so.
We have reached the point where the VP9 codec is being replaced by the newer AV1 standard. It is also open and Google and Apple participate in its development. Google even ended development of its own VP10 codec because of it, which says a lot. Additionally, the first stable version of the AV1 codec was released in 2018, and it remains a matter of time before YouTube and Safari start supporting it. And apparently that's when Safari users will finally see 4K and 8K video support.
What was the whole article about?
Have you tried reading it? Or at least the headline?
how old are you ??♂️
About the fact that it's free and that Apple stinks, so he'd rather not use it.