One of the big complaints about YouTube TV has been its video quality of 720p on most shows and games. The truth is YouTube TV shows the same quality video that cable TV does as cable channels often only broadcast in 720p for most content. In the early days of HD TVs, many TVs were only 720p now though most HD TVs are 1080p.
The good news is YouTube TV is working on upscaling many sporting events from 720p to 1080p. In an August 2022 update from the YouTube TV Team on Reddit they announced that some improvements to video quality would be coming.
Here is what YouTube TV announced:
Video Quality: We continue to invest in improved feeds and bitrate improvements. Many users with eligible 4K compatible devices that support VP9 codecs are now seeing higher quality 1080p content with more device coverage and improvements on the way this fall.
Separately, NFL Sunday Ticket games will have distinct source feeds broadcast in 1080p (a mix of native and upscaled) compared to 720p local broadcasts. We’re working with our partners to bring more 1080p HDR and 4K games to you in the future.
Sadly even most sporting events are still in 720p but YouTube has started to use upscaling to improve the quality of its videos to full 1080p HD. For other programs, sadly it is up to the networks to improve the quality of their broadcasts.
The good news is this issue is not exclusive to YouTube TV cable TV also can only show what the networks offer. It would be great to have everything in 4K or 1080p HD but first networks need to start producing all of their content at that higher level of quality. Until that happens YouTube TV’s only option is to upscale the content.