Not today. Our encoding ladder tops out at 1080p, so however you export and upload a 4K file, the highest rendition we produce from it is 1080p. There’s no upload setting, bitrate, or account option that changes that — if you’re checking the manifest for a 2160p entry, it isn’t there.
Why your 4K upload still isn’t wasted
You can absolutely keep uploading your 4K masters, and it’s often the best thing to do. We encode from whatever you give us, and a clean high-resolution source produces a better-looking 1080p than a source that’s already been compressed once. The extra resolution doesn’t cost you storage either — we don’t keep your original file after encoding, only the delivery renditions. How much storage does a video use? covers what actually counts against your plan.
If you want the best result our ladder can give you, upload at 1080p or higher with a generous bitrate — around 4 Mbps or more for 1080p — so the top rendition has good material to work from. What bitrates do you encode in? has the background on why we handle the rest for you.
Is 4K coming?
It’s something we want to add, and it isn’t a small change: raising the ceiling means changing how we encode every video, not flipping a switch on your account. We don’t have a date we’d ask you to plan around, and we’d rather say that than give you one we might miss.
If 4K matters to your project, email support@swarmify.com and ask to be added to the list — we’ll tell you when it’s ready to test.
One thing to do now, so you’re ready later
Keep your 4K masters somewhere you control. Because we store delivery encodings rather than your original file, videos you’d want in 4K one day will need the 4K source uploaded again once the higher renditions exist. If the master is still on your own drive or in your own cloud storage, that’s a re-upload. If it isn’t, it’s a re-shoot. Video backup best practices walks through the habits worth having.
Keywords: 4K, 2160p, UHD, ultra HD, max resolution, 1080p, encoding ladder, top rendition, m3u8, HLS, quality levels, roadmap, high resolution upload, re-upload, masters