Facebook's video could finally catch up to YouTube

For all its investment in video, Facebook is still very much behind many other platforms in one important way: 4K.

That may be sloooowly starting to change as the social network is finally beginning to experiment with 4K video uploads -- more than seven years after YouTube first began testing 4K.

Up until now, Facebook has only supported 4K video for live 360 videos -- itself a relatively recent development. But the social network hasn't supported the format for normal video uploads or livestreaming.

That may finally be starting to change: the company is starting to test 4K video support by giving a small group of profiles and pages the ability to upload 4K videos at 2160p resolution -- the same standard as 4K Ultra HD sets, as TechCrunch reports.

Facebook won't say if or when it plans to expand the upload support to more accounts, but the current test should be a promising sign to content creators even if it's coming much later than many would have liked.

Part of the delay could be due to Facebook's desire to balance its continued investment in video and original programming while maintaining the performance of its apps and website. Video, especially 4K, is costly and resource intensive, and could slow things down for many users, particularly those with slower connections.

Still, the current tests suggests that Facebook is, at least, making an attempt to finally bring its video into 2017.