Record in 1080p60 upload in 4K60 on Youtube, will it lose quality?

[RaresBoulder]

So I want to start a new Let's Play Youtube Channel and I was wondering if I record in 1080p60 and render in 4K60 will the video quality decrease?
I read on other forums too that if I record in 1080p and upload in 4K the video will look bad, but I also saw that people say it's a good think to render 1080p videos in 4K because then youtube will unlock some codec that will make the video look better.
I want to ask you guys, if I record Let's Play videos in 1080p60 with a bitrate of 25000kbps and render it in 1080p60 the video will look good on youtube, or if I record 1080p60 videos with a higher bitrate like 85000kbps and upload it in 4K60 will look worse?
I want to start a new channel and I want it to be perfect and not to change resolutions all the time.

 

[AaronD]

If your original source is 1080, then you're not adding anything useful by upscaling it to 4k. But like you say, there are reports of YouTube not squashing it further that way, and so it looks better. And there are also complaints from people who get excited when YouTube tells them it's 4k...and they can tell it's only 1080 because someone did that.

Personally, I've seen some awesome 1080 content on YouTube, that was shot well and preserved well through the editing process, and YouTube's 1080 system handled it well too. So it *is* possible, with no need for trickery. You just need to know what you're doing, and what the pitfalls are at every step of the process...