Beautifully put, mv.

+1 musicvid.

these sorts of questions/statements are one of the reasons i've pretty much given up bothering to read many posts. there seems to be a serious lack of research on many users part before asking questions.

It's probably just a reflection of a much younger, mainstream user base, much of which doesn't even shoot video; we bandied about the idea of a gamer forum, because of the challenges faced in capturing high-fps gameplay with cobbled freeware and then the NLE learning curve, is simply beyond the prefrontal cortex development, not to mention aspirations, of many of those users. Kind of a puppy rescue outreach is how I see Magix' emergent role in all of this.

I must say, recent attempts by the consumer tail to wag the dog named YouTube by feeding it adulterated source, are a bit far-fetched.

These things are sometimes worth doing for an ulterior motive. If the OP's theory that YouTube gives more bandwidth to a video that has a 1440p stream available then the trade off might be worth it. An upscale 1080>1440 followed by a downscale 1440>1080 might not look that bad, and better than stuttering or being forced to watch a lower-res version.

Upscaling 2 of my long videos (here's one) from 576i to 720p helped them reach a much wider audience (I think) because YouTube gave them a little red "HD" badge and, presumably, some preference in their algorithm. That was my plan anyway. The quality is pants on a big screen but they look nice on a big phone. My case is a bit more forgivable as it was a choice of up to 720p or down to 480p.

@PeterL98 If you're still reading, the new Smart Upscale FX in VP14 might marginally improve the quality.

Also I'd be interested in any evidence you have to support your bandwidth claims.

It may be a safe bet that YT does not factor bandwidth proportionally to display area and that its downscaling is qualitatively inferior to the unadulterated source.

That said, there is a case for upscaling SD to 720p for YouTube, but it is not quality, nor is it "viewer experience," which has proven to be mostly indifferent.

I had a 720p project that needed a couple of minutes of a show closer that was shot on DVCAM. In this case, it seemed appropriate to upscale the "pretty good" SD rather than downscale the majority of footage and stills which are HD resolution. It was acceptable with Lanczos scaling. Upscaling HD to 4k is absurd, ESPECIALLY IF IT IS TO BE UPLOADED OR STREAMED.

I've taken a number of adulterated sources, ranging from bobbed to bit-upconverted to dimensionally upscaled, and shown their owners that their machinations never help, and almost always hurt, through running controlled tests and mathematics that they NEVER seem capable of providing.

Upscaling HD to 4k is absurd...

Nobody proposed upscaling to 4k.

Anyway I did a little Googling and only came up with this. So my feeling is that this is probably a bogus theory and therefore upscaling 1080>1440 is not a good idea.