Most of us think that 1080p is the highest resolution so far, but a new resolution, “4k“ is emerging as a new standard for the digital film and computer graphics industry and will soon overcome the 1080p standard.
What Does 4K Mean?
So, what exactly does this “4k” mean? 4k means four thousand pixels across the screen or more precisely horizontally. In a 1080p (i.e. 1920 x 1080) resolution the horizontal pixels are 1920 or approximately 2k, similarly, a 4k video will have something near 4000 pixels.
4k is often termed as double 1080p but it’s not entirely true if we double the 1080p high-definition television standard in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions we get Quad Full High Definition (QFHD), at 3840 x 2160 pixels.
In July 2010 YouTube allowed its registered user to upload videos in a resolution greater than 1080p and thus began the streaming of videos at a resolution of up to 4096 x 2304 (in the 16:9 aspect ratio) to 4096 x 3072 (4:3).
In the digital film, the pixel resolution varies by aspect ratio. The Dalsa Origin system (introduced in 2006) records images at a resolution of 4096 x 2048 and the Red One (introduced in 2007) records images at 4096 x 2304, both of these are examples of 4k recording devices in digital film.
The shooting and production cost of 4k videos is relatively higher than other resolutions so these videos are extremely limited, however, youtube said that they won’t miss any chance of streaming the highest resolution video.
Example of 4k Video
The video below is shot by a 4k camera, in order to view it in 4k click on “Watch on Youtube” and then, click on “Original“ from the resolution menu once you are viewing it on YouTube.
NOTE: Streaming of 4k video on YouTube requires a high-speed broadband connection.
Watch other 4k videos on Youtube
In June 2015, YouTube started supporting 8k videos which have 7680×4320 pixels for a total of around 33 million pixels.
Watch other 8k videos on Youtube
My MacBook [the late 2008 plastic model] is 1280 by 800 resolution, while “full 1080p HD” is 1920 by 1080 resolution. My display is older, it is compared to 720p HD, or 1280 by 720 res. Also, both 720p and 1080p, as well as my display, use a 16:10 aspect ratio to cover the screen. My iPad, which is the third generation, has a 2048×1536, 50% more pixels than 1080p, but only a 4:3 aspect ratio. The reasoning behind this is simply because the iPad has a much smaller screen and would not benefit from the higher ratio.