Netflix and YouTube in 4K

Even though Apple released the Apple TV 4K and began offering 4K movies on the iTunes Store back in 2017, it took until last year’s release of macOS Catalina before you could actually watch 4K movies and TV shows on your Mac.

Even then, however, that was limited to iTunes and Apple TV+ content. Other streaming services like Netflix and even YouTube left you stuck in 1080p, even if you had a 5K Retina iMac.

The good news, however, is that Big Sur finally rectifies this, adding the ability to plays shows from Netflix and other streaming services in 4K right in your browser, along with support for YouTube’s 4K codec.

That said, there is a bit of a catch here: You’ll need a T2-equipped Mac to be able to play Netflix in 4K, and this will likely apply to other streaming services as well. To be fair, that restriction isn’t really new — it also applied to iTunes and Apple TV+ content in Catalina — and it likely has something to do with the necessary 4K hardware decoders being embedded in the T2 chip.