Upload 4K Video from iOS to YouTube on Mac

Upload 4K Video from iOS to YouTube on Mac

The iPhone 6S/6S Plus/7/7 Plus and the iPad Pro have the ability to shoot video at a 4K resolution video with 4x times more pixels than a normal Full HD video. After the recording, you can either upload the 4K video with the iOS YouTube uploader directly from your iOS devices or transfer the 4K video to your iPhone and then post the 4K video with the YouTube app on Mac computer. The following article will walk you through 4K YouTube uploading process in those 2 different ways with detailed information.

Upload 4K videos to YouTube from iOS

When the 4K shooting is completed, a lot of people try to upload the 4K video directly from photos iOS to YouTube, but the video resolution will always drop to standard just as the condition listed below.

“My iPhone vids are always in 720p even though I’m recording in 4K (I have checked my settings multiple times and it is set to 4K). I also selected “HD” before uploading. Any idea why everything is downgraded to 720p? It would seem the Photos to YouTube is limited to 720p and I would need to use iMovie in order to upload in 4K. Is that really the case?”

The fact is that although the native iOS YouTube uploader will allow you to upload 720p and 1080p videos to YouTube without a problem, but when you try to upload a 4k video, it only gives you the “standard definition” option. Therefore, for those people who insist on uploading 4K video from iOS to YouTube, the best workaround for this is to use iMovie to upload the video. After you record the 4K video, just load it up in iMovie, select the upload to YouTube option, and you’re all set.

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Upload iOS 4K Video to YouTube on Mac

Best uploading formats and settings for YouTube

Different from iOS YouTube uploader, the YouTube app on your Mac does accept 4K video uploading. To ensure a smooth and high quality YouTube 4K video uploading experience, the iOS recorded 4K video meet the following standards.

Container: MP4

Video codec: H.264
Progressive scan not interlacing
High Profile
2 consecutive B frames
Closed GOP. GOP of half the frame rate.
CABAC
Variable bitrate, no bit rate limit required, though we offer recommended bit rates below for reference,
Chroma subsampling: 4:2:0

Audio codec: AAC-LC
Channels: Stereo or Stereo + 5.1
Sample rate 96khz or 48khz

Frame rate and bit rate to view 4K uploads on 4K TV with YouTube
SDR uploads
24/25/30 fps standard frame rate – 35-45 Mbps
48/50/60fps High Frame Rate – 53-68 Mbps
HDR uploads
24/25/30 fps standard frame rate – 44-56 Mbps
48/50/60fps High Frame Rate – 66-85 Mbps

Resolution and aspect ratio

YouTube uses 16:9 aspect ratio players. If you’re uploading a non-16:9 file, it will be processed and displayed correctly as well, with pillar boxes (black bars on the left and right) or letter boxes (black bars at the top and bottom) provided by the player.

Time and file size limitations for YouTube video upload

Size: Make sure you’re using an up-to-date version of your browser so you can upload files greater than 20GB. The maximum file size you can upload to YouTube is 128GB.
Length: By default, you can upload videos that are up to 15 minutes long, but you can upload longer videos by following the steps below to verify your account.
1. go to the upload page at youtube.com/upload.
2. At the bottom of the page, click Increase your limit. You can also go directly to https://www.youtube.com/verify.
3. Follow the steps to verify your account. You can choose to receive a verification code through a text message on a mobile phone or an automated voice call.
4. Once you’ve verified your account, you can upload videos that are longer than 15 minutes long.

Upload iOS 4K to YouTube on Mac with best format and settings

The iOS devices recorded 3840×2160 4K video at 30fps in MP4 or MOV format with H.264 or MPEG-4 compression codec. If you encounter any uploading issue due to the format or settings incompatible issues, you can turn to help from Pavtube iMedia Converter for Mac (review), which not only facilitates you to wrap iOS 4K H.264 MOV to YouTube best favorable H.264 MP4 format, but also gives you the chance to flexibly adjust other uploading profile parameters to out YouTube compatible uploading settings including audio codec, resolution, bit rate, frame rate, channels, sample rate, etc listed above.

Trim/Split/iOS 4K video

If the iOS 4K video is longer than 15 minutes, you can shorten the video length with the trimming function to cut off unwanted parts from the video. If the iOS 4K video is over than 20GB, you can split the large file into small segments by file size, count or length.

How to Smoothly Upload iOS 4K Video to YouTube on Mac with Best Quality?

Step 1: Load iOS 4K video into the program.

Start the program on your computer, click “File” menu and select “Add Video/Audio” or “Add from folder” to import iOS 4K video into the program.

Step 2: Output Youtube best uploading format.

Click “Format” bar, from its drop-down options, choose YouTube best compatible uploading format from “Common Video” > “H.264 High Profile Video(*.mp4)”.

Step 3: Tweak encoding settings for YouTube upload.

Click “Hit “Settings” to open the “Profile Settings” window, here you can adjust the output video codec, resolution, bit rate, frame rate and audio codec, bit rate, sample rate and channels to let them fit them YouTube.

Step 4: Trim/Split iOS 4K video.

Trim video length

In the video editor window, choose the “Trim” tab and this tab is selected by default when the editing window appears. You can use the trim function to cut off unwanted parts from start and end. You can either drag pointers on the process bar or set exact time point in Start and End boxes to set to reduce video length to no more than 15 minutes for YouTube uploading.

Split large file into small pieces

Click the split button on the file list to launch the Video Split window. Ticking “Enable” option, you can split the iOS 4K file by file count, time length, or file size.

Step 5: Start the conversion process.

After all settings are done, click right-bottom “Convert” button to begin to convert iOS 4K video to YouTube best uploading formats and settings.

When the conversion is completed, you can smoothly upload and share iPad Pro/iPhone 6S/6S Plus/7/7 Plus recorded 4K video on YouTube with best quality.

Further Reading:
MP4 to YouTube – Convert unsupported MP4 to YouTube Supported MP4 Video 
How to Convert Video to YouTube Supported Video Formats on Mac
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