AFIAK you can upload any bitrate to youtube as long as the file is <256GB.
So you could upload a crazy high bitrate file to them for a 20 min video which I suspect would be close to "raw" quality.
I don't know how many corners youtube cut on encoding though.
I suspect most of the problem is people exporting 4k at a 'web' bitrate preset (15mbit/s?), which is actually gonna get murdered on the 2nd encode more than encoding quality on youtubes side?
So you could upload a crazy high bitrate file to them for a 20 min video which I suspect would be close to "raw" quality.
I don't know how many corners youtube cut on encoding though.
I suspect most of the problem is people exporting 4k at a 'web' bitrate preset (15mbit/s?), which is actually gonna get murdered on the 2nd encode more than encoding quality on youtubes side?