Expect to see music videos from the likes of Janet Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Lady Gaga to get a visual quality bump over at YouTube. Universal Music Group and YouTube have partnered to bring up to 1,000 videos from standard definition to HD by the end of 2020. The HD videos will take the place of the original versions both on YouTube and YouTube Music. These will maintain the same URLs, view counts, and likes as before. One way to know if the video has been remastered is you’ll see a #Remastered label or “Remastered in HD!” in the description. A lot of these videos weren’t shot in HD, but remastering will make these videos noticeably clearer.
As The Verge points out, let’s hope other labels follow suit and help preserve their archives. A recent New York Times report detailed how the 2008 Universal fire burned through original master tapes of classic albums.