This development may be a sign that YouTube’s engineers have run out of things to do.  Or it could just be a not-particularly-hilarious joke.  But for whatever reason, YouTube recently announced support for videos that are meant to be shown on 25-foot screens.

For those of you who don’t happen to work in movie theaters or use whole walls as televisions: that means YouTube now supports a resolution known as "4K."  And to put that in perspective, a post on the YouTube Blog confirmed, "4K is nearly four times the size of 1080p."

Which is neat from a technical perspective, at least.  It could also more than negate YouTube critics’ longstanding complaints about shoddy video quality.

It’s a bit hard to imagine who or what will be able to take advantage of the 4K option in the near future, however.  The blog post later noted, "[V]ideo cameras that shoot in 4K aren’t cheap, and projectors that show videos in 4K are typically the size of a small refrigerator.  And . . . watching these videos on YouTube will require super-fast broadband."

Ah, well.  YouTube’s put together a short playlist of 4K videos if you feel like trying to view one.