YouTube to showcase 4K video streaming at CES YouTube will demonstrate 'Ultra HD' video streaming at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week, according to reports. Ultra HD - also known as 4K because it has nearly 4,000 horizontal pixels - has been touted "the next big thing" in consumer electronics. Many current movie cameras already film above 4K resolutions, and other electronics manufacturers including Sony, LG and Toshiba have all launched Ultra HD TVs, several with giant screens. According to a report by tech news site GigaOM, YouTube will use CES to show off Ultra HD streaming based on VP9, a new royalty-free video codec that Google has been developing as an alternative to the H.265 codec that many other 4K implementations use. The advantage of VP9, according to Francisco Varela, global director of platform partnerships at YouTube, is that it can deliver higher resolutions at a bit-rate that isn't beyong your connection, and reduce the amount of data needed to stream regular HD videos by about half - potentially reducing buffering. "By 2015, you'll be surprised every time you see that spinning wheel," Varela told GigaOM. VP9 already has the support of 19 hardware partners, including chip manufacturers ARM, Intel, Broadcom and Marvell as well as consumer electronics compainies like Samsung, Sharp and Toshiba. However, Varela hinted that YouTube could also support H.265 in the future, claiming that this "isn't a war of the video codecs." YouTube's announcement comes after Netflix revealed that some viewers will be able to watch House of Cards season 2 at full 4K resolution when the new episodes air later this year. The company recently posted a selection of short videos intended to demonstrate its Ultra HD capabilities.