If you have recently built and setup a video editing machine and want to test its performance by working with some 8K footage, then you can download some 8k videos from youtube.
I was looking for some sample 8k video clips to benchmark and test my video editing setup but could not find anything elsewhere. Finally turned to youtube. Youtube does now allow you to directly download the video file, hence we need to use 3rd party download programs to extract the video.
Install yt-dlp
yt-dlp is a program that can download youtube videos to local files in the highest available resolution. It is a continuation of the youtube-dl project which is now inactive.
On Windows there are a couple of ways to install yt-dlp. The first is by installing ubuntu inside wsl and then installing yt-dlp inside ubuntu and use it from there. Another option is to download it via python pip directly on windows. We shall explore both the methods here.
Install Ubuntu using WSL or just go to Microsoft Store and search for Ubuntu and install it. Also install the software package named "Windows Terminal". In order for Ubuntu to work properly inside windows, you would need to have Hyper-V enabled.
sudo apt update sudo apt dist-upgrade sudo apt install yt-dlp
Now you can use yt-dlp to download any youtube video in the full available resolution. The video would be downloaded inside Ubuntu root space which can be accessed from Windows Explorer left panel "Linux > Ubuntu" folder. You would have to copy out the file from there.
yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLprVF6d7Ug
Note: For yt-dlp to work you must be using Ubuntu 23.04 or later.
Python Method
Install Python 3, by download from python website: https://www.python.org/downloads/ or from Microsoft Store (search for python 3). Install Python by following the instructions of the installer program.
Next open a Windows Terminal/Powershell or command line, and run the following command
> python -m pip install -U yt-dlp
This will install yt-dlp pip package which is what we need.
Now we can invoke yt-dlp directly from any windows terminal and download a youtube file. Keep in mind that the video would be downloaded only the current working directory.
Download 8K videos from Youtube
Youtube has published quite a few 8K videos over the past years and some of these are listed below. Make sure to check their license terms as most of them are strictly for NON-commercial use only.
For most of the videos you just need to invoke the yt-dlp program with the url of the youtube video and it will automatically download the best available version of the video, which is usually the highest resolution.
You can also get a list of available codecs, resolutions of a particular video using the "-F" option. It looks like this
$ yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLprVF6d7Ug -F [youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLprVF6d7Ug [youtube] sLprVF6d7Ug: Downloading webpage [youtube] sLprVF6d7Ug: Downloading android player API JSON [info] Available formats for sLprVF6d7Ug: ID EXT RESOLUTION FPS CH │ FILESIZE TBR PROTO │ VCODEC VBR ACODEC ABR ASR MORE INFO ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── sb2 mhtml 48x27 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard sb1 mhtml 80x45 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard sb0 mhtml 160x90 1 │ mhtml │ images storyboard 599 m4a audio only 2 │ 482.99KiB 31k dash │ audio only mp4a.40.5 31k 22k ultralow, m4a_dash 600 webm audio only 2 │ 548.69KiB 35k dash │ audio only opus 35k 48k ultralow, webm_dash 139 m4a audio only 2 │ 765.04KiB 49k dash │ audio only mp4a.40.5 49k 22k low, m4a_dash 249 webm audio only 2 │ 800.20KiB 51k dash │ audio only opus 51k 48k low, webm_dash 250 webm audio only 2 │ 1.03MiB 68k dash │ audio only opus 68k 48k low, webm_dash 140 m4a audio only 2 │ 1.98MiB 130k dash │ audio only mp4a.40.2 130k 44k medium, m4a_dash 251 webm audio only 2 │ 2.05MiB 134k dash │ audio only opus 134k 48k medium, webm_dash 17 3gp 176x144 12 1 │ 1.06MiB 69k https │ mp4v.20.3 69k mp4a.40.2 0k 22k 144p 597 mp4 256x144 12 │ 443.67KiB 28k dash │ avc1.4d400b 28k video only 144p, mp4_dash 598 webm 256x144 12 │ 322.62KiB 21k dash │ vp9 21k video only 144p, webm_dash 394 mp4 256x144 24 │ 868.42KiB 55k dash │ av01.0.00M.08 55k video only 144p, mp4_dash 160 mp4 256x144 24 │ 438.61KiB 28k dash │ avc1.4d400c 28k video only 144p, mp4_dash 278 webm 256x144 24 │ 936.29KiB 60k dash │ vp9 60k video only 144p, webm_dash 395 mp4 426x240 24 │ 1.48MiB 97k dash │ av01.0.00M.08 97k video only 240p, mp4_dash 133 mp4 426x240 24 │ 955.83KiB 61k dash │ avc1.4d4015 61k video only 240p, mp4_dash 242 webm 426x240 24 │ 1.35MiB 88k dash │ vp9 88k video only 240p, webm_dash 396 mp4 640x360 24 │ 2.82MiB 184k dash │ av01.0.01M.08 184k video only 360p, mp4_dash 134 mp4 640x360 24 │ 1.74MiB 114k dash │ avc1.4d401e 114k video only 360p, mp4_dash 18 mp4 640x360 24 2 │ ~ 3.80MiB 243k https │ avc1.42001E 243k mp4a.40.2 0k 44k 360p 243 webm 640x360 24 │ 2.98MiB 195k dash │ vp9 195k video only 360p, webm_dash 397 mp4 854x480 24 │ 5.31MiB 347k dash │ av01.0.04M.08 347k video only 480p, mp4_dash 135 mp4 854x480 24 │ 2.87MiB 188k dash │ avc1.4d401e 188k video only 480p, mp4_dash 244 webm 854x480 24 │ 4.79MiB 314k dash │ vp9 314k video only 480p, webm_dash 22 mp4 1280x720 24 2 │ ~ 6.56MiB 420k https │ avc1.64001F 420k mp4a.40.2 0k 44k 720p 398 mp4 1280x720 24 │ 11.12MiB 727k dash │ av01.0.05M.08 727k video only 720p, mp4_dash 136 mp4 1280x720 24 │ 4.44MiB 291k dash │ avc1.4d401f 291k video only 720p, mp4_dash 247 webm 1280x720 24 │ 9.19MiB 601k dash │ vp9 601k video only 720p, webm_dash 399 mp4 1920x1080 24 │ 19.65MiB 1285k dash │ av01.0.08M.08 1285k video only 1080p, mp4_dash 137 mp4 1920x1080 24 │ 18.55MiB 1213k dash │ avc1.640028 1213k video only 1080p, mp4_dash 248 webm 1920x1080 24 │ 16.07MiB 1051k dash │ vp9 1051k video only 1080p, webm_dash 400 mp4 2560x1440 24 │ 60.47MiB 3955k dash │ av01.0.12M.08 3955k video only 1440p, mp4_dash 271 webm 2560x1440 24 │ 51.61MiB 3375k dash │ vp9 3375k video only 1440p, webm_dash 401 mp4 3840x2160 24 │ 119.63MiB 7824k dash │ av01.0.12M.08 7824k video only 2160p, mp4_dash 313 webm 3840x2160 24 │ 141.31MiB 9243k dash │ vp9 9243k video only 2160p, webm_dash 571 mp4 7680x4320 24 │ 272.43MiB 17819k dash │ av01.0.16M.08 17819k video only 4320p, mp4_dash $
You can choose any particular sample to download using its id. Note that different samples have different resolutions, container format (mp4 or webm), video bitrate, fps and tbr. More information about format selection can be found on the github page.
If you note, the high resolution video samples are "video only", means if you download that particular file then upon playing in vlc there would be no audio. The actual method is to download the video and audio separately and merge them. Which is what yt-dlp does. It merges the audio and video streams using ffmpeg.
When no option is specified, yt-dlp does something equivalent to the following command
$ yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLprVF6d7Ug -f bestvideo*+bestaudio/best
Channels with high resolution videos
Here are some videos and channels featuring high resolution 8k and 4k videos. There are videos with even 12k resolution, but you need a display with that sort of resolution actually view the videos in their full glory!
1. Ghost Town
Youtube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLprVF6d7Ug
This video was published way back in 2015
2. Pantagonia 8K
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChOhcHD8fBA
This video was published way back in 2015.
3. Peru in 8K
Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BrunoSaraviaPhotography
This particular channel has lots of videos in 8K resolution.
4. HAWAII in 8K Ultra HD [60FPS] Dolby Vision | Hawaii 8K HDR
Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@8khdrdolbyworld
This particular channel also publishes lots of videos in 8K resolution format.
Conclusion
For 4k Videos you can simply search youtube for "4k videos" and it will show plenty of nature scenery footage videos from various theme channels and then you can download using yt-dlp.
