Another typo. The sentence “In a progressive scan, the lines are painted on the screen in sequence rather than first the odd lines and first the even lines.” should read: “In a progressive scan, the lines are painted on the screen in sequence rather than first the odd lines and THEN the even lines.”
Could somebody watch 1080p videos on an iPhone 6 that has a resolution of 1334 x 750? If so, how is this possible? Is it the phone that has to be 1080p or the video recorded in 1080p? Sorry for the confusion and thank you in advance.
Sorry, but I do not know the answer. After reading your question, however, I am intrigued to know the answer as well. I imagine Ciprian Adrian Rusen would know the answer?
You can watch 1080p videos on a smaller resolution. But, the video will be scaled down at the resolution supported by the display. You won’t see 1080p, you will see the resolution that your display offers.
Both have to be 1080p. You can stream 1080p video on a lower resolution device but you see the clip at the resolution of the device.
Alex
8 years ago
This has absolutely no affect on color at all, right? If I render out a video in both 1080p and 1080i, the only difference is how the lines come across the screen?
I have a question. If I watch a 1080p movie on 1080p TV (Or 4K movie on 4K TV), on my computer that has a 720p display, so is it run as 1080p (Or 4K) or just as 720p?
Your review is limited to the current market of LCD monitors.
10 years back, I had a high end 4:3 19″ CRT that was running at 25?? x ???? resolution. Frankly, I was seriously annoyed when I “upgraded” to a LCD monitor after the “magic smoke escaped” from the CRT. The LCD was such a huge step down in image quality and resolution from the CRT. I really wish I could go back …
Steve Green
7 years ago
I notice at the opening of the article you’re using a screen grab of a Commodore 64, and saying that it’s a CGA display. That’s incorrect. CGA was developed by IBM for PCs, whilst the C64 uses a video signal generated by the VIC-II chip.
W.J.R. Halyn
7 years ago
Well, after seeing the minor typo corrections suggested above, I am still impressed by the clarity of the overall writing, and the lack of common spelling and grammatical errors that are so common on so many sites nowadays. It was a relief to read clear, technically-oriented material that not once confused plural/possessives, misused (or abused) apostrophes, or screwed up acronyms and less-commonly-used terms. Kudos for your writing skills.
And the rest of the article had the details & technical info I was looking for.
Oh, except for one thing… you might want to add the total pixel count for each of the 5 resolutions you listed… for instance: “720p = 1280 x 720 [921,600 pixels] – is usually known as… “. I added the total pixel count (TPC) for each one, and it was interesting to note that although the resolutions step up by significant fractions, the TPC counts roughly double, and eventually quadruple, as screens get ever finer resolutions.
Martin
7 years ago
You forgot to mention one more confusing issue – pixel aspect ratio. For example, the mp4 videos from my Sony Alpha camera come in resolution 1440×1080, but they are still FullHD because the frame ratio is still 16:9. It’s just a special tag in video file that tells the player that the frames should be stretched to match 1920 horizontal pixels. This is called anamorphic pixel ratio and 1.3333 is often used in many video files. Essentially, pixels are stretched horizontally which leads to less pixels = less file or stream size = easier encoding/decoding = slightly worse quality but most people don’t really notice that they are being cheated.
It makes things confusing but clears up the cases when you see that your file information shows 1440×1080 but you see that it is played back as 1920×1080.
Jatnika
7 years ago
I wanna know what is the cause that the video can’t play on higher resolution than 1080HD? The streaming is moving and the sound is out but the picture is not moving? is it related to my system? anyway I’m watching this from my pc.
Jed118
7 years ago
You’re insinuating that the Windows startup screen looked bad “even in CGA” after describing a resolution that CGA did not support. CGA is 320x200x4 – I’ve only ever once seen Windows in CGA mode, and it was by way of Windows 3.0. While it did look awful, it was not VGA at all. Hell, I’d settle for EGA in terms of GUI usability.
James27876
7 years ago
Thank you for this tutorial! It cleared all my questions about displays.
Annette
7 years ago
This was SO helpful! I am working with images on a BrightSign player and this really helped me understand how I need to configure my widgets and zones.
memon
7 years ago
what is the maximum and usual resolution of lcd .led and plasma screen
KEONG
7 years ago
Does Monitor resolution affect the recording ?
I am try record my game play on my monitor. the graphic look fine on when i play and record it down with high quality. but when upload it to youtube i only get a 720p quality. is it because my monitor is a 1366×768?
Yes. Your recording will have the resolution of your monitor. If your monitor is not 1080p, you cannot record a gaming session at 1080p.
rebecca ray
6 years ago
My church projector is set at a 16:9 ratio. How do I make my presentations so that they will show full screen without the black bars on side or bottom?
According to what I read in the post your computer is set to a 16:9 ratio but your projectors are 16:10. I found this post while researching a solution to the same situation. Projector native resolution is 4:3 but shows a max resolution of 1920 X 1200 which is a 16:10 ratio. Projectors are Panasonic PT – EX610
Jay
6 years ago
It’s not called 4K because it’s “4 times the resolution of FHD”, it’s called 4K because DCI 4K resolution is near 4000 pixels wide, 4096 to be exact. UHD isn’t “real” 4K because it’s not quite as wide as cinema 4K, but it’s so close that TV and monitor manufactures picked up the nomenclature “4K UHD”.
Pretty basic stuff, kind of shocked a site that dubs itself “Digital Citizen” doesn’t know this…
That statements should have said “four times the pixels of FHD,” not resolution. Thanks for pointing out this mistake. We fixed it.
Midoriya
6 years ago
Great article! Can you update it to include information on 21:9 / Ultra-Wide displays?
Saeed hafezi
6 years ago
Is it right to claim that 1920*1080 system is the most common type in broadcasting in these days,I.e. year 2018????
Ananth Karuppasamy
6 years ago
You are saying the number always refers to the number of HORIZONTAL lines on the display. If so 1920×1080 defines 1920 horizontal lines and 1080 VERTICAL lines. so how we can called as 1080p?
Gary
6 years ago
Woo hoo
Noyon
6 years ago
Thank you so much. The article is very useful.
Randy Hlavaty
5 years ago
Hi there I was reading this article cuz I was curious about different resolutions in this display properties the reason I’m asking this is because a friend of mine a girlfriend ex seem like she has tweaked out my displays on my television and my devices so the people on the screen can see me such as like on YouTube and different programs I guess a lot of programs maybe on the TV and is that even possible but it sure seems like it is the way that the people react to me would like on YouTube whenever I’m watching if I do something make a certain movement or something make them laugh and different things and I just don’t know if I’m going crazy or is this if so how can I prevent this all of my devices are smart devices I have a Panasonic TV Samsung and Samsung devices so I don’t really understand what’s going on with this I would like to get it soft if it is possible for someone to do that curious to hear what you had to say on that subjectc
digafe
5 years ago
hi gentle men I was read your description given on kiosk resolutions.Thanks But I have question on resolution and orientation(landscape and portrait)
1.is there relation between resolution and orientation?
2.is there different between resolution 1920*1080 and 1080*1920?
3.please give me brief relation about resolution and orientation?
The 1920×1080 resolution is the same as 1080×1920; you just orient the screen differently. The first is for a horizontal screen, while the second is for a vertical display.
Joi
5 years ago
What is recommended screen dimension for 4k?
prathima
5 years ago
In a video is can we give both 4:3 & 16:9 Aspect ratio
Saksham
5 years ago
This was superb! Thank you for making it so clear.
anounymous
5 years ago
Very nice article
Jaheed
5 years ago
Heartfelt thanks. Abstruse things simply explained.
Glenn Byerly
5 years ago
My laptop is 1920 x 1080. The new Surface Go is 3 x 2 aspect ratio, so 1800 x 1200. How will a remote connection to my laptop from a Surface go display? Will I be able to view the entire laptop screen without scrolling in any direction?
And what happens on the 2018 iPad ($329 model), which has a higher resolution than my laptop?
You can set the remote connection app to use a display resolution that looks good on your laptop.
Amandeep Grover
5 years ago
If i have an Image of Different size or Ratio and Try to display on a screen with Different Ratio but i want it to be use Full screen rather showing Black Space what needs to be done ?
"2K" just isn't used (any longer)
5 years ago
I’ve been in the industry a long time, and unfortunately the current colloquial usage of “2K” has morphed into what FHD is (or the 1/4 “4K”).
We can blame this cluster-F on the TV industry who simply will not listen to what’s been hammered out over time for terminology.
You list “2K” as two different resolutions (2048×1080, and 2048×1536). Neither is used, particularly the former.
Where the TV and monitor industry YET AGAIN locked horns was this concept of identifying a monitor first by vertical resolutions and then switching to horizontal resolutions. Oy, did that confuse the public. What they first knew of as 1080 (vertical) was now called colloquially being called 2K (it’s 1920 across) because 4K now meant 3840 across (instead of the original 4096, just shoot me). So “2K” no longer means (it rarely did anyway) 2048 across.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. What a mess!
So at the very least, I’d suggest one of three things:
1. Punt the 2048×1080 reference. I’ve never seen it used in practice, and I don’t think it’s used unless it’s a half-driven 4096x monitor.
2. Put a strong reference in there that 2K resolutions are a source of confusion—-people are viewing it has the FHD (full HD, or just now HD) resolution of 1920×1080.
3. Pull all reference to 2K out all together and stick to 1080p. It would be like referring to the 5K monitors that show up. Oye.
Otherwise people might end up having entirely the wrong conversation with the grunts at Best Buy.
Thanks for sharing your feedback. We will definitely take it into consideration for future updates to this article. Appreciate!
Sam
5 years ago
Your explanation has been very helpful. However, Please give more in depth explanation about how the pixel density is related with the screen resolution, especially how it becomes relevant with screen resolution when making a choice of a display
Gabriel
5 years ago
I currently have a 17 inch laptop with resolution 1600 X 900.
Is a 15 inch screen with resolution 1366 x 768 about equal?
That must be the simplest and best technical explanation around!!
Lubos
5 years ago
I want to thank you. This article is easy to read, highly informative and written with excellent language skills.
There is no comparison with most of the info on Internet, you easily won. When someone will ask me my recommendation for website with info about all things digital, digitalcitizen.life is going to be my answer.
Thank you again.
Thank you very much for appreciating our work. It keeps us motivated to continue doing it. 😉
steve sonneveld
5 years ago
thanks for article -well documented and clear.
is it possible to upgrade a DVI /hdmi output from one computer windows 7 of lower resolution to a higher resolution
eg 1280×1024 to 1920×1080
I have a dvi output from a windows based ultrasound and trying to copy on usb recorder which accepts input 1080 60 hz
steve sonneveld
What do you mean? Give more context, please. How is the color on your computer?
Gabriel Bakker
4 years ago
I’m surely not the first to point this out, but all your information about CGA is wrong in this article!!!!!
Your image of parrots is EGA, which is WAY better then CGA. CGA could only do 4 colors, while EGA went up to 16 colors. There was no green or blue or Red in CGA, only Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, White, and Black.
The max resolution for CGA was 320 x 200. So the statement that the old Windows Loading screen at 640 x 480 would look ugly even on a CGA monitor is wrong too. It wouldn’t even run on a CGA monitor because CGA doesn’t support 640 x 480.
In fact, i’m pretty sure Windows 3.1 required VGA (though its possible it worked under EGA as well). But back when people used CGA monitors there was no such thing as Windows.
2K refers to a few things:
4:3 ratio is 2048×1536, usually crt
Cinema is 2048×1080
16:9 ratio is 2048×1152, usually lcd
sometimes refer to Full High Definition 1920×1080
Paul Brown
4 years ago
Actually I’ve been 40 years in Enterprise IT. My first PC (pc’s were a hobby ran parallel to my career) was a Tandy Mod I with a green phosphor screen 60 x 24 lines.
I appreciated your overview all the more because it didn’t boggle my mind. It helped me put a more coherent picture (no pun) together.
Earl T
4 years ago
What happens when you connect a Full HD video card to a monitor that handles higher resolution (1440p or 4K)? Does it render the FHD image full screen?
Milliam
4 years ago
Wow, this explanation was quite great and complete.
this really impressed me.
thank you very much
Kelly S
4 years ago
Thanks for the great article! I really appreciated all the information.
One question that I was hoping to be answered was “What Television resolution would be best used for a large monitor?” 1080p or 4K, or what?
Typo:
“A progressive display paints all the odd lines first, then all the even lines.”
Btw, I appreciate the site
Thanks Chris but I still don’t see the typo. Maybe I’m too sleepy right now. Can you point out where is the mistake?
It should read:
“An INTERLACED display paints all the odd lines first, then all the even lines.”
Thank you Chris. I updated that line. Not sure how we missed it.
You left out Ultra Wide aspect ratio 32:9
Another typo. The sentence “In a progressive scan, the lines are painted on the screen in sequence rather than first the odd lines and first the even lines.” should read: “In a progressive scan, the lines are painted on the screen in sequence rather than first the odd lines and THEN the even lines.”
Thank you.
Great article. Thanks.
I’m glad you liked the article.
Could somebody watch 1080p videos on an iPhone 6 that has a resolution of 1334 x 750? If so, how is this possible? Is it the phone that has to be 1080p or the video recorded in 1080p? Sorry for the confusion and thank you in advance.
Sorry, but I do not know the answer. After reading your question, however, I am intrigued to know the answer as well. I imagine Ciprian Adrian Rusen would know the answer?
The 1080 video is downscaled to the resolution of your phone screen.
You can watch 1080p videos on a smaller resolution. But, the video will be scaled down at the resolution supported by the display. You won’t see 1080p, you will see the resolution that your display offers.
Both have to be 1080p. You can stream 1080p video on a lower resolution device but you see the clip at the resolution of the device.
This has absolutely no affect on color at all, right? If I render out a video in both 1080p and 1080i, the only difference is how the lines come across the screen?
Yes, you are right.
Good morning everyone,
I have a question. If I watch a 1080p movie on 1080p TV (Or 4K movie on 4K TV), on my computer that has a 720p display, so is it run as 1080p (Or 4K) or just as 720p?
Thank You 🙂
It is processed by the media player at the original resolution and then rendered using your screen's resolution.
That’s good, thank you sir.
Your review is limited to the current market of LCD monitors.
10 years back, I had a high end 4:3 19″ CRT that was running at 25?? x ???? resolution. Frankly, I was seriously annoyed when I “upgraded” to a LCD monitor after the “magic smoke escaped” from the CRT. The LCD was such a huge step down in image quality and resolution from the CRT. I really wish I could go back …
I notice at the opening of the article you’re using a screen grab of a Commodore 64, and saying that it’s a CGA display. That’s incorrect. CGA was developed by IBM for PCs, whilst the C64 uses a video signal generated by the VIC-II chip.
Well, after seeing the minor typo corrections suggested above, I am still impressed by the clarity of the overall writing, and the lack of common spelling and grammatical errors that are so common on so many sites nowadays. It was a relief to read clear, technically-oriented material that not once confused plural/possessives, misused (or abused) apostrophes, or screwed up acronyms and less-commonly-used terms. Kudos for your writing skills.
And the rest of the article had the details & technical info I was looking for.
Oh, except for one thing… you might want to add the total pixel count for each of the 5 resolutions you listed… for instance: “720p = 1280 x 720 [921,600 pixels] – is usually known as… “. I added the total pixel count (TPC) for each one, and it was interesting to note that although the resolutions step up by significant fractions, the TPC counts roughly double, and eventually quadruple, as screens get ever finer resolutions.
You forgot to mention one more confusing issue – pixel aspect ratio. For example, the mp4 videos from my Sony Alpha camera come in resolution 1440×1080, but they are still FullHD because the frame ratio is still 16:9. It’s just a special tag in video file that tells the player that the frames should be stretched to match 1920 horizontal pixels. This is called anamorphic pixel ratio and 1.3333 is often used in many video files. Essentially, pixels are stretched horizontally which leads to less pixels = less file or stream size = easier encoding/decoding = slightly worse quality but most people don’t really notice that they are being cheated.
It makes things confusing but clears up the cases when you see that your file information shows 1440×1080 but you see that it is played back as 1920×1080.
I wanna know what is the cause that the video can’t play on higher resolution than 1080HD? The streaming is moving and the sound is out but the picture is not moving? is it related to my system? anyway I’m watching this from my pc.
You’re insinuating that the Windows startup screen looked bad “even in CGA” after describing a resolution that CGA did not support. CGA is 320x200x4 – I’ve only ever once seen Windows in CGA mode, and it was by way of Windows 3.0. While it did look awful, it was not VGA at all. Hell, I’d settle for EGA in terms of GUI usability.
Thank you for this tutorial! It cleared all my questions about displays.
This was SO helpful! I am working with images on a BrightSign player and this really helped me understand how I need to configure my widgets and zones.
what is the maximum and usual resolution of lcd .led and plasma screen
Does Monitor resolution affect the recording ?
I am try record my game play on my monitor. the graphic look fine on when i play and record it down with high quality. but when upload it to youtube i only get a 720p quality. is it because my monitor is a 1366×768?
Yes. Your recording will have the resolution of your monitor. If your monitor is not 1080p, you cannot record a gaming session at 1080p.
My church projector is set at a 16:9 ratio. How do I make my presentations so that they will show full screen without the black bars on side or bottom?
According to what I read in the post your computer is set to a 16:9 ratio but your projectors are 16:10. I found this post while researching a solution to the same situation. Projector native resolution is 4:3 but shows a max resolution of 1920 X 1200 which is a 16:10 ratio. Projectors are Panasonic PT – EX610
It’s not called 4K because it’s “4 times the resolution of FHD”, it’s called 4K because DCI 4K resolution is near 4000 pixels wide, 4096 to be exact. UHD isn’t “real” 4K because it’s not quite as wide as cinema 4K, but it’s so close that TV and monitor manufactures picked up the nomenclature “4K UHD”.
Pretty basic stuff, kind of shocked a site that dubs itself “Digital Citizen” doesn’t know this…
That statements should have said “four times the pixels of FHD,” not resolution. Thanks for pointing out this mistake. We fixed it.
Great article! Can you update it to include information on 21:9 / Ultra-Wide displays?
Is it right to claim that 1920*1080 system is the most common type in broadcasting in these days,I.e. year 2018????
You are saying the number always refers to the number of HORIZONTAL lines on the display. If so 1920×1080 defines 1920 horizontal lines and 1080 VERTICAL lines. so how we can called as 1080p?
Woo hoo
Thank you so much. The article is very useful.
Hi there I was reading this article cuz I was curious about different resolutions in this display properties the reason I’m asking this is because a friend of mine a girlfriend ex seem like she has tweaked out my displays on my television and my devices so the people on the screen can see me such as like on YouTube and different programs I guess a lot of programs maybe on the TV and is that even possible but it sure seems like it is the way that the people react to me would like on YouTube whenever I’m watching if I do something make a certain movement or something make them laugh and different things and I just don’t know if I’m going crazy or is this if so how can I prevent this all of my devices are smart devices I have a Panasonic TV Samsung and Samsung devices so I don’t really understand what’s going on with this I would like to get it soft if it is possible for someone to do that curious to hear what you had to say on that subjectc
hi gentle men I was read your description given on kiosk resolutions.Thanks But I have question on resolution and orientation(landscape and portrait)
1.is there relation between resolution and orientation?
2.is there different between resolution 1920*1080 and 1080*1920?
3.please give me brief relation about resolution and orientation?
The 1920×1080 resolution is the same as 1080×1920; you just orient the screen differently. The first is for a horizontal screen, while the second is for a vertical display.
What is recommended screen dimension for 4k?
In a video is can we give both 4:3 & 16:9 Aspect ratio
This was superb! Thank you for making it so clear.
Very nice article
Heartfelt thanks. Abstruse things simply explained.
My laptop is 1920 x 1080. The new Surface Go is 3 x 2 aspect ratio, so 1800 x 1200. How will a remote connection to my laptop from a Surface go display? Will I be able to view the entire laptop screen without scrolling in any direction?
And what happens on the 2018 iPad ($329 model), which has a higher resolution than my laptop?
You can set the remote connection app to use a display resolution that looks good on your laptop.
If i have an Image of Different size or Ratio and Try to display on a screen with Different Ratio but i want it to be use Full screen rather showing Black Space what needs to be done ?
I’ve been in the industry a long time, and unfortunately the current colloquial usage of “2K” has morphed into what FHD is (or the 1/4 “4K”).
We can blame this cluster-F on the TV industry who simply will not listen to what’s been hammered out over time for terminology.
You list “2K” as two different resolutions (2048×1080, and 2048×1536). Neither is used, particularly the former.
Where the TV and monitor industry YET AGAIN locked horns was this concept of identifying a monitor first by vertical resolutions and then switching to horizontal resolutions. Oy, did that confuse the public. What they first knew of as 1080 (vertical) was now called colloquially being called 2K (it’s 1920 across) because 4K now meant 3840 across (instead of the original 4096, just shoot me). So “2K” no longer means (it rarely did anyway) 2048 across.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. What a mess!
So at the very least, I’d suggest one of three things:
1. Punt the 2048×1080 reference. I’ve never seen it used in practice, and I don’t think it’s used unless it’s a half-driven 4096x monitor.
2. Put a strong reference in there that 2K resolutions are a source of confusion—-people are viewing it has the FHD (full HD, or just now HD) resolution of 1920×1080.
3. Pull all reference to 2K out all together and stick to 1080p. It would be like referring to the 5K monitors that show up. Oye.
Otherwise people might end up having entirely the wrong conversation with the grunts at Best Buy.
Otherwise, thanks for the article.
Thanks for sharing your feedback. We will definitely take it into consideration for future updates to this article. Appreciate!
Your explanation has been very helpful. However, Please give more in depth explanation about how the pixel density is related with the screen resolution, especially how it becomes relevant with screen resolution when making a choice of a display
I currently have a 17 inch laptop with resolution 1600 X 900.
Is a 15 inch screen with resolution 1366 x 768 about equal?
No it is not.
That must be the simplest and best technical explanation around!!
I want to thank you. This article is easy to read, highly informative and written with excellent language skills.
There is no comparison with most of the info on Internet, you easily won. When someone will ask me my recommendation for website with info about all things digital, digitalcitizen.life is going to be my answer.
Thank you again.
Thank you very much for appreciating our work. It keeps us motivated to continue doing it. 😉
thanks for article -well documented and clear.
is it possible to upgrade a DVI /hdmi output from one computer windows 7 of lower resolution to a higher resolution
eg 1280×1024 to 1920×1080
I have a dvi output from a windows based ultrasound and trying to copy on usb recorder which accepts input 1080 60 hz
steve sonneveld
i am trying to fix the color on computer
What do you mean? Give more context, please. How is the color on your computer?
I’m surely not the first to point this out, but all your information about CGA is wrong in this article!!!!!
Your image of parrots is EGA, which is WAY better then CGA. CGA could only do 4 colors, while EGA went up to 16 colors. There was no green or blue or Red in CGA, only Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, White, and Black.
The max resolution for CGA was 320 x 200. So the statement that the old Windows Loading screen at 640 x 480 would look ugly even on a CGA monitor is wrong too. It wouldn’t even run on a CGA monitor because CGA doesn’t support 640 x 480.
In fact, i’m pretty sure Windows 3.1 required VGA (though its possible it worked under EGA as well). But back when people used CGA monitors there was no such thing as Windows.
Thank you for the feedback Gabriel. In the coming weeks, we are going to work on improving the accuracy of this article. Appreciate!
How many “k” can the human eye see? 16k?
Not K’s. Around 2M, or 2048K.
I have 1366*768 monitor should i download 720p or 1080p movies
No need. If you have to pick between the two, pick 720p. It is enough to provide you with great clarity. 😉
A lot of CRT monitors had 2K (2048z1536) back in the day (see name).
2K refers to a few things:
4:3 ratio is 2048×1536, usually crt
Cinema is 2048×1080
16:9 ratio is 2048×1152, usually lcd
sometimes refer to Full High Definition 1920×1080
Actually I’ve been 40 years in Enterprise IT. My first PC (pc’s were a hobby ran parallel to my career) was a Tandy Mod I with a green phosphor screen 60 x 24 lines.
I appreciated your overview all the more because it didn’t boggle my mind. It helped me put a more coherent picture (no pun) together.
What happens when you connect a Full HD video card to a monitor that handles higher resolution (1440p or 4K)? Does it render the FHD image full screen?
Wow, this explanation was quite great and complete.
this really impressed me.
thank you very much
Thanks for the great article! I really appreciated all the information.
One question that I was hoping to be answered was “What Television resolution would be best used for a large monitor?” 1080p or 4K, or what?
For most people 1080p is enough.
Thank you!
Does 8k have a nickname yet like others do with Full, Quad, and Ultimate?
Ultra*
Can someone upgrade his/her screen resolution?