What Do 2K, 4K, and 8K Mean?
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- Опубліковано 3 лип 2023
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Terms like “2K” and “4K” can be very misleading when it comes to which TV or monitor to buy.
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The most confusing thing when 4K first became a term is the main HD resolutions at the time 720p/1080p referred to the vertical resolution. Then along came 4K and suddenly they're referring to the horizontal resolution.
Exactly. They should have just carried on with 1440p, 2160p etc.
@@lateralus6512 yeah but they cant trick or lie to us as easily if they do that.
@@companyoflosers The TV industry is so dirty with their naming schemes. Going back to the 720/1080 era, they branded it "HD" and "FullHD", and in the mainstream people just called it high definition TVs. God knows how many people got tricked when switching to their first high def tv, not knowing the difference.
@@lateralus6512 the marketing kinda makes sense because 1080p to 2160px makes the product sound worse to the average consumer than it actually is because they doesn't understand that implicitly we are also doubling horizontal resolution to give you a 4 times better picture rather than a 2 times better picture.
I can very well imagine if you had a 2160p display competing against a 4K display the 4K one would outsell the 2160p just because consumers would erroneously assume that they are a measure of the same thing.
Its just bad marketing to go through the effort of quadrupling resolution only for the average person to only think its 2 times better
@@lateralus6512 But then that would confuse people when the ultrawides hit the market, since 2560x1080 and 1920x1080 are two *very* different resolutions, but would both be referred to as "1080P" by that standard.
Marketing teams realized that bigger number sounds better so they _very quietly_ started using horizontal dimension instead of vertical.
Except not quietly at all. Big and bold.
Well, at least it is slightly more representative than SD, HD, Full HD and Ultra HD.
@@foufoufun Yes, it sounds like they tried to help the laymen, but at the end, nothing changed - they'll still have to ask someone for advice on the differences and what traps to avoid, as seen in the video. 🤷♂👍
I'm surprised the 4096x2160 wasn't mentioned. For a bit I recorded CoD from playing off my 4K tv and it was set to 4096x2160 (I didn't realize this) so when uploaded into Davinci, I set it to 4k(3840x2160 default) and always had a small yet noticeable black bar on the top and bottom so I'd "stretch" to fill it in before rendering. I later found out my mistakes and set the tv to 3840x2160 and this made all the sense to me and also made things easier. For those wondering, Cinema 4K is usually 4096 while consumer standard 4K is generally referred to as 3840.
DCI 2K was mentioned which is 2048x1080, that concept just carries over to 4K by doubling both numbers.
@@thoringer_ Ah, thankyou. That makes sense. I was still looking for the 4096 from personal and totally not biased reasons 😅
3840 is invented latter to accommodate wide screens content by movie industry.
4096 is used first in pc monitor (from 4x the size of full hd/ 2048x1080p monitor)
Hence the confusion began, the movie maker keep pushing wide standards using 2k, 4k, 5k, jargon to sell tv & monitor.
4096*2160 is what 4K originally meant. Then it became a convenient way to hype up the home video resolution 3840*2160p.
@@winnieid2727 it's the opposite. The cinema 4K standard is 4096 x 2160. The consumer "4K" standard is 3840 x 2160 and is called Ultra HD.
The cinema standard is wider, which shows in the black bars at the top and bottom. Just like in this video.
In game dev/computer graphics, when someone says 2K, 4K, or 8K, they refer to the how big the texture is. For example, an 8K texture means it is 8192x8192, 4K means 4096x4096. Which I think that makes more sense than whatever the hell TV and monitor manufactures are doing.
ah yes 8k textures: AKA the thing ruining game file optimization
Well they're just numbers so yes, obviously, you *do* need to know whether we're talking pixels on a screen, pixels on a texture, bytes, price or...
It's not just TV manufacturers. Actually phone manufacturers are MUCH worse and so are people that think they know stuff about these phones. Xiaomi actively advertises screens with 3088x1440p as "2K" despite it literally being 3K. And "tech people" call the iPhone screens "1080p" even tho it's (for example) 2532x1170 - literally 1170p or 2.5K.
@@Raja995mh33 I feel like using "K" in generally is nonsense. We should just state the resolution. Or the PPI. Probably both!
the k's can be misleading as this case 2k = 2^11, 4k = 2^12, 8k 2^13
then looking down in the replies, the inconsistent use of the horizontal pixels or vertical pixels
People just need to stop referring to 1440p as 2K, that's the only thing i can think of that bothers me
I really hate that too. 4K is 2160p. Just divide that in half and it should be obvious that 2K is 1080p (1920 pixels wide)
1440p is 2560 pixels wide and should be 2.5K
@@ddnava96I thought 2K was just 720p x2
Same here.
And it gets even more stupid when companies like Xiaomi actively advertise a screen on a phone with 3088 x 1440p as "2K". It's literally 3K.
Same
@@solid477 HD is not 720p.
HD (or to be more specific "Full HD") is 1080p
720p is so called "HD ready", was a temporary standard introduced to fill the gap between HD and older standards and devices (eg. NTSC 720x480 or PAL 720x576). And it stayed with us way too long.
Glad you covered my frustrations with ""2K"" monitors. I'm so mad people refer to 1440 as 2K.
2K is closer to 1920x1080 !!!
I once told people in a PC group to stop calling 1440p "2K," that 1080p was closer to 2K. I said, "If anything, 1440p is like 2.5K," but people just got mad at me. Hilarious.
My only thought when seeing this videos was: will he mention 2K and 2.5K
@@Tomiply Closer to 2.6K, actually. :P
@@TheRealSkeletor actually 8/3k (i worked it out)
Me tooooo
2K, 4K and 8K is more for marketing than anything else. All depends on how they count the pixels either horizontally or vertically.
The K replaced P purely for marketing reasons, since a screen's width is bigger than its height, switching to measuring width makes the numbers bigger.
Also it lets you market ultrawide as even bigger than they are.
A 4k ultrawide is nothing else than simple 1080p
@@hubertnnn "A 4k ultrawide is nothing else than simple 1080p"
???
Common ultrawides are 2560x1080, 3440x1440, and 5120x1440
Which one are you even talking about?
I recently upgraded my GPU and started to play on 1440p instead of 1080p, on equal video settings, the difference is quite visible.
@@hubertnnn The K and the p/i mean wildly different things though... i is interlaced, i.e. the screen would draw lines 1,3,5,7,9... and then 2,4,6,8,10... etc where as p meant progressive so it would draw 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8...
@@Octopussy1999 I went from a 1080 monitor to an UHD 4K gaming monitor. The difference was night and day.
I'm actually a projectionist for a movie theater. That DCI standard the studios share are typically referred to as scope and flat resolutions. Flat being much taller while scope is shorter and more cinematic. Also never knew what the DCI stood for so I learned something!😅
I'm so glad I found this vid. It gets very annoying when 2k more often than not refers to 2560x1440 instead of 1920x1080 despite the latter being significantly closer, even worse when considering actually some brands advertise their 1440p as 2.5k
People who claim 1440p is 2k are wrong
That transition to the sponsor was flawless!
Wouldn't it be nice if we just used HD = 720P, FHD = 1080P, QHD = 1440P, and UHD = 2160P, and just be done with it? And if it's ultrawide, or any other odd shape, then just type out the entire resolution, or use W in the front for wide, and UW for ultrawide. Very easy to comprehend. Also provide full resolution in small type on product boxes/details. Easy peasy!
The problem is that it wont let advertisers confuse consumers into buying stuff
Bigger number makes it easier for the manufacturer to convince you to pay more for no reason.
4:10 "you dont wanna order 4k screen only to realize it wont fit on the desk"
Riley definitely jinxed someone
I think we should use megapixels for screens like we do for cameras. Also, the kind of resolution that actually matters is pixel density measured in pixels per inch. That's why 8K TVs are usually ginormous, their panel has the same pixel density as that of a 4K screen, it's just bigger.
We do not need to use megapixels, already widely accepted ppi is enough for that kind of measurement
even pixel density is nothing without distance
No, that would be terrible
And 8K TVs are NOT usually 4x the size of 4K screens, that would be insane
@@potatorigs2155 True, but I didn't want to get into something like pixels per arc minute on a Techquickie video.
@@IgorLeontYes PPI is way more useful than whatever 'k' resolution they have. But marketing teams will need to give it a catchy name like Apple 'Retina display'.
USB 3.X Gen Y
HDMI Cables with "2.1" features
2K/4K/8K
How did we end up in a place where so much of the tech marketing that should otherwise be straight-forward lacks clarity? Maybe it's just me, but I don't remember it being like this at the start of the last decade.
We let the standards be designed by marketeers and lawyers instead of engineers.
Nothing compared to the endless pronouns people want others to say today. 🙄
If it weren't for the shirt change, I might not have noticed the transition to the sponsor spot. Riley's doing a good job of matching tone and cadence, and editor Marcus was on the ball!
Thanks so much for this video, ive been telling people for years that 2K SHOULD mean 1920x1080. And they just go "but this monitor says 2k and its 2560x1440"
Because many people (that funny enough say they know stuff about tech) think that "2K" means "2 times" because 1440p is roughly twice the amount of pixels of your standard 1080p screen. That's how this terrible and confusing (for some) naming thing started.
My biggest pet peeve is people calling 1440p 2k.
@@chartreuse1356 the biggest pain is depending on the resolution, people switching from refering to the amount of pixels wide to the amount of pixels tall
(though amount of pixals tall is probably the better one to use as how wide screens are can change but the height usually stays the same
When will people learn that 2k is a cinema format?
@@Raja995mh33 They would also be wrong for thinking it's roughly twice the amount as it's only roughly 1.7 times and in this context that distinction matters.
Everyone should just say how many pixels there are vertically! The extra couple of digits doesn't matter considering how long TV and monitor names are nowadays...
And if the screen isn't 16:9?
@@toxicturkeyy if it’s an ultrawide or super ultrawide it would still work
1440p is at best 2.5k. It is not 2k - that's just marketing lies.
YAAAAHOOOO! FINALLY A TALK ABOUT K AND HOW 1440p IS NOT 2K BUT RATHER 2.5K! That felt so good to get off my chest. I hope big display manufactures learn from this.
2:05 that’s the smoothest Segway to the sponsor.
2:06, the better transision to the sponsor, have noticed nothing in the song, I was jsut surprise of the color of the T-shirt, GJ the editor for this !!!
2:54 Linus on the window wallpaper is pure art
3:44 the auto generated caption track gave me a heart attack by interpreting iMacs as IMAX.
Good thing you didn't mention VR, where "4K" is completely meaningless.
Is it 4K per eye or 4K shared? Is in one panel or 2 separate panels? Is it the horizontal resolution of or the approximate diagonal resolution?
I hate the term 2k because it usually refers to 1440p but 1080p is closer to 2k than 1440p is.
I love these videos when I’m bored. Thanks guys.
DUDE that audio transition to the sponsor was perfect!
Has anyone petitioned for, lobbied for, or introduced legislation to make it criminal to refer to 2560×1440p as _"2k"_ ? With capital punishment sentencing standard attached?
How about at least an indisputable symptom of terminal illness eligible for summary euthanasia?
Asking for a friend
It was never confusing to anyone in the theater video world. The DCI established very clear standards well before the terms ever hit the home consumer market. Marketing people ruined that clarity by oversimplifying the terms, but it doesn't matter to anyone except the director, editor, and DCP distributor.
You definitely have my sub. This content is next level. For me cannafarm ltd was the turning point. Please keep doing what you do and keep being you, love it.
Good and important video. People has problem with nomenclature and even worse - they use incorrect acronyms intentionally!
There seems to be even more regional variants of 2K since there is one for Australia, Boston, China, Czech and Marin.
Furthermore there also seems to be different 2Ks for Games, Sports and "Play" (even they all sound pretty much the same)
😂😂😂
There is no agreement about what the K means? Dude. It LITERALLY means Kilo. And that means thousand.
the thing about 2K is so annoying because even people that say they know stuff about technology doesn't know that 1440p is not 2K and NEVER was. But some stupid people just thought that 2K means "2 times". And then they started calling 2560x1440p "2K" because it's roughly twice the amount of pixels of 1920x1080.
That was a smooth transition Riley 😂 almost didn’t notice that your shirt changed color 😂
All you need to know is the PPI, pixels per square inch. For monitor above 180ppi is good, for cell phones above 350ppi.
You can have 2K monitor with 240ppi it would display better picture than a 8k with 114ppi.
180ppi for a monitor? Wtf. 😂 Not even a 4k 27inch monitor is 180ppi. I would say 91ppi or higher for a monitor is good (24inch 1080 or 32inch 1440). A 50inch 4k tv is 88ppi. Unless you sit like 12 inches away from your monitor, than sure. 😂
I think vertical pixel count plus aspect ratio plus screen height should give the best impression, the rest being equal, of the screen’s resolution.
Thanks for the vid. It's definitely needed to clear out the muddy water of marketing. Probably should just periodically re-tweet it, to clue people in? I could probably watch it 3 months from now.. & be like "This seems familiar but new".. heh.
For resolution we should be talking about pixel density or pixels per inch (ppi)
The 'K' system is not a quick indicator of how 'crisp' a display will be because it depends on a multitude of factors such as screen size and pixel density and ultimately the image quality will only be as good as the lowest denominator. You can have a huge '4K' TV that looks garbage because it's showing an image smaller than 4K that gets stretched and pixelated... or at the other end of the scale a small laptop screen pushing a 4K image that looks super sharp.
0:41 2K is 2000 pixels because 1080 x 1.85 = 2000. American movie widescreen has a 16,65/9 ratio instead of 16/9.
PS: I personally prefer 16/10 because it is very close to the golden ratio of 1.618.
(On my best old man voice): Back in my day, 1600p was the normal highest resolution, then came 1080p and they called that much lower resolution High Def! Yeah right! Now that most cinematic movies are shot in 21:9, no TV or disc player manufacturer makes either sized at that ratio for those who nearly only watch movies! Guess I'm stuck with monitors for life
So basically, do the same thing you do with USB standards: skip the marketing labels and read the technical specifications.
That T-shirt transition at 2:00 is amazing. How does Riley do it... 😂
I prefer the letter-based nomenclature and wish that was the way things were marketed.
HD - 1280x720p [.92 megapixels]
FHD - 1920x1080p [2.1 megapixels]
QHD - 2560x1440p (quad-HD literally means 4x HD or 720p) [3.7 megapixels]
UHD - 3840x2160p (ultra-HD is 4x full-HD) [8.3 megapixels]
For something to be considered a certain class of display, it needs to have the correct amount of pixels tall, not wide. That "4k" Xperia is a 1440p+ so QHD+, not UHD.
This would be a great thing for Labs to nail down, if its going to be the one stop shop for tech, them set a standard and perhaps the manufacturers will follow it, and if not then it will at least help all of us
FINALLY someone talked about this
3:53 Can't believe you used some random model as the visual stand in for "very sexy" when Dennis is RIGHT THERE
If you don't want sellers trying to rip you off this is really good information thank you Riley! :)
Thanks for confirming to me why I shouldn't bother with this, and should focus on the 1080p monitor that can run 60fps or higher.
Would love an LTT compare video of all ultrawide screens and have a group there pick a favorite
One thing people always get wrong is they say 4k is 4 times the resolution of 1080p and it ISN'T it is 4 time the PIXEL COUNT but only DOUBLE the resolution, and that is because Resolution is how well a screen can RESOLVE and image using pixel and sin 4k is Double the with and double the hieght that make it 2 times the resoulution
DAMN that shirt change transition was SMOOOOOTH AF!
I still can't believe "ultra widescreen" is actually a thing
I use to say that as a joke when widescreen videos played with widescreen boarders on my widescreen TV
2560x1440 monitors are often called QHD, which stands for Quad HD. Since the resolution is 4 times as large as 1280x720, also known as HD Ready or 720p.
almost all "720p" lcds are 1366x768 so they badly upscale 720p
That cut to the sponsor segment was smooth as frik.
I always thought that 1080p was 1k and 2160p was 2k and 4320p 4k and so on. But I now know I was wrong.
1440p is not 2k, its either 2.5k or 3k, since its above 2500 pixels wide, so you should round up.
Actually originally 2K was used for any screen that was 2000 pixels or wider. The problem is that people assumed this also meant FHD is 2K when its not 2000 pixels wide or wider. That was the original definition of 2K.
I work in IT. I never tell my coworkers I never understood this. 😂😂😂😂 now they will never know
As of right now, 2K means you need 2K dollars to be able to play games at that resolution. Same for 4K. You need 4K buckz. 8K you ask? Yeah, just the video card alone is 2500 here >_> Thats what those numbers mean sadly...
You have done a great job on conflating consumer and professional marketing terms for your viewers, which 99.9999% are interested in the consumer side. It is simple. Ir refers to a close approximation to the horizontal resolution only.
2:04, that was smooth.
My tablet got advertised with 2.5k, because it has a resolution of 2560 x 1600.
Well it is 2.5k pixels across, and a bit!
"4K" refers to horizontal resolutions of around 4,000 pixels. The "K" stands for "kilo" (thousand). As things stand, the majority of 4K displays come with 3840 x 2160 pixel (4K UHDTV) resolution, which is exactly four times the pixel count of full HD displays (1920 x 1080 pixels).
What are the 3840 and 1920 numbers. The vertical numbers?
3:58 I've had to do that all my life. The qn32ls03tb is the only 1080p QLED IN EXISTENCE! Finding lower end stuff with modern features is tough. It's difficult to find a 1080p Displayport Freesync monitor, and 900p Freesync screens are HDMI only. The Quadro RTX 4000-8000 are the only gpus that allow Windows 8 to use Turing Nvenc. Ancient VSX AVRs decode WMA Pro 7.1 audio from Xbox 360s. These niche things are what I search for. I can't buy modern luxury when real luxury is tied to rarity, it makes me feel like a collector, buying rare things to use or brag with. If only we kept making these niche things they wouldn't BE so rare. I can't even buy a 480p HDMI plasma TV anymore.
The seamless-ness of the sponsor read!!!
I already knew most of this, I just wanted to listen to Riley’s beautiful voice
I've been dying on this hill for so long... thank you.
Thank you for your research. I find your videos are well done. RIght now Im keeping an eye on Cannafarm ltd
This is how I do the maths:
1080px x 2K = 2,160px
1080px x 4K = 4,320px
1080px x 8K = 8,640px
You could have a 1080p TV from when that was king, "upgrade" a "2K" TV, and literally end up with less pixels than you had.
You nailed it in the first few seconds, it's all nonsense marketing talk that "4K must be 2X better than 2K!"
Thanks for shedding some light on this. Ive always argued that 2k is 1080p but their smart ass always thinks it is 1440p lmao.
Reminds me of a Max0r video where he customized his MGR:R game to 4000x60 pixels. Thing looked like an animated hotdog lmao.
I know what it means: way too much money for something that only a few people who sit too close to their 120" TVs will notice. The rest who sit a proper distance away can't tell the difference between 1080p and 4K in spite of claiming that they can.
So really we should just use the horizontal pixel count, an x, and the vertical pixel count. It’s only 9 characters and there’s no confusion. That’s how it was back in the day and everyone understood it.
3:54 Is this a sneaky ad for _Tiny 4K_ ?
that segue was so clean
I feel sorry for people on cropped displays who don't get to see all the cute animations on the edges of these videos.
"Unless you're talking about Special K."
So close, but misses the key "supermarket vs. back alley" distinction.
As long as it isn't 3K, we're fine
I really really hate that people use 2K for 1440p, it should be used for 1080p or not used at all. Just say 1440p..
This trend to simplify calling the numbers actually ended up complicating it. Maybe we should show the raw numbers back again for a change.
Can we do a video explain Type C and what are types of display signal protocol they can carry? Have a Mac Mini, Steam Deck, Switch, all three of them seems to carry different types display protocol.
Can the next video about how pen tablet or pen display work? like the pressure sensitivity and the pen works.
Resolution should always be measured vertically, never horizontally.
The K should be standardized at multiples of 1080 along the vertical
thanak for this video . now dont ever have to feel bad about calling 1920x1080 2K
Thanks!
Pixel count isn't everything. Pixel response time, color accuracy, pixel density, frame rate, ghosting, dot pitch (pixel gap), not having a dead pixel, and the ability to drive such hardware are also just as important for the balance of the overall display. If the 80" 8K display output (specifically, 4320p) is run as a 30 FPS, 50ms response time with 300 nits brightness, no HDR, 43% DCIP and easily ghosts with the Nvidia GTX 970, then there's a serious balance issue. I'd much rather have a smaller, much more balanced display with the appropriate sized hardware and enjoy enough immersion with the media rather than a large display just for the sake of it being large.
4K was actually defined before tvs came out with it. It was co opted with the lower resolution 3840. Hence why tvs are uhd not 4k
A 32:9 4k ultrawide is 3840x1080, making it both 1080p and 4k
Pixel density wise, it's 1080,. It's essentially two 1920x1080 panels glued together.
@@MilkD2 or a 4k screen with the top half cut off. Pixel density depends on screen size and viewing distance.
i refuse to use the "k" definitions. not to say they make more or less sense than the 'p' ones, just that the 'p' ones are what we have and it seems deliberately misleading to change it up like 2k is basically 1080p, they just switched to using the bigger number to sell things more i guess?
0:13 I'd argue there's room for confusion there too depending on how young the person you're talking to is
Any time someone says 2K, I just continue talking about FullHD with them at this point. Some get mad, others think I'm a pedantic asshole, which is not necessarily untrue.
E.g: "You need a better graphics card to play at higher resolutions like 2K" "Nah, 1080p (closest thing to 2K) doesn't require all that much power, maybe you're thinking of 1440p?"
I just like clarity in my tech jargon, and since 2K most definitely is not 2560x1440 and people want it to be, I'd prefer if nobody used the label at all. Unfortunately, that won't happen, so I'll just be an annoying asshole.
thank you for uploading this whole video?
Really begs the question why we don't use PPI to quickly and easily convey pixel density rather than stating roughly the horizontal pixel count. Oh right, to mislead customers into thinking they're getting a better deal than tbey are.
I saw my first 8k tv at Micro Center. I can’t wait for 10k,12k and 16k tv’s to show up
Just happy to see Dennis lol
That's well said
Pixel density is what matters most when it comes to resolution on any modern display. In my opinion, and in general, anyway. You don't want to see pixels/screen-door at your preferred viewing distance.
The actual resolution matters for gaming, since it determines how hard it is for your gpu to run the games at native res. Pixel density is important too though.
The only mainstream product I know of that advertises pixel density instead of resolution is the Amazon Kindle E-Readers. They don't even tell you the Kindle device's resolution. Just the pixel density. (Although you can find this information if one looks hard enough.) But pixel density is all that really matters for how sharp the display will appear to the human eye with any product's recommended viewing distance.
Cellphone and tablet manufacturers have found that with screens smaller than 10" inches, most people view their devices on average from 12 inches from their faces. So any display of 10" inches or smaller with at least a PPI density of 286 or higher, will appear with what Apple coins as "Retina" to the human eye.
Hence why the most sharply printed books are printed at a dot-per-inch resolution of 300. And Kindles are also at 300 PPI. (For at least the newest generation of Kindles), Just above that 286 mark.