why do 4k video look “more clean” than videos in 1080p, on the same exact monitor.
(maybe it’s just mine, i have an asus monitor)
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I assume you mean on a 1080p monitor?
If so, 4K “downscaled” to 1080p has 2 benefits: bitrate and chroka.
4K streaming has a higher data rate than 1080p (thru the same platform), and that data allows for less compression (grouping nearby pixels into having the same color and/or brightness). Here is [Apple Trailers vs YouTube](https://imgur.com/gallery/9nCFU) for some movie trailers (and keep in mind uploading these screenshots also goes thru compression.
Chroma is how much color.light info is stored. The best is 4:4:4, but most all platforms use 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 (many cameras don’t even shoot in 4:4:4). By playing a 4K video on a 1080p monitor, it is a 1:4 scale, so each 2×2 grid of original pixels now makes 1 new pixel, allowing for 4:4:4, giving even better color/light precision.
I assume you mean on a 1080p monitor?
If so, 4K “downscaled” to 1080p has 2 benefits: bitrate and chroka.
4K streaming has a higher data rate than 1080p (thru the same platform), and that data allows for less compression (grouping nearby pixels into having the same color and/or brightness). Here is [Apple Trailers vs YouTube](https://imgur.com/gallery/9nCFU) for some movie trailers (and keep in mind uploading these screenshots also goes thru compression.
Chroma is how much color.light info is stored. The best is 4:4:4, but most all platforms use 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 (many cameras don’t even shoot in 4:4:4). By playing a 4K video on a 1080p monitor, it is a 1:4 scale, so each 2×2 grid of original pixels now makes 1 new pixel, allowing for 4:4:4, giving even better color/light precision.
The resolution you’re seeing (on the same monitor) will be the same, BUT, on common streaming platforms such as YouTube and Netflix, streaming in 4K supplies a higher bitrate.
This means, in simple terms, you’ll have fewer compression artifacts, and get a much more “pure” video stream.
The resolution you’re seeing (on the same monitor) will be the same, BUT, on common streaming platforms such as YouTube and Netflix, streaming in 4K supplies a higher bitrate.
This means, in simple terms, you’ll have fewer compression artifacts, and get a much more “pure” video stream.
I assume you mean on a 1080p monitor?
If so, 4K “downscaled” to 1080p has 2 benefits: bitrate and chroka.
4K streaming has a higher data rate than 1080p (thru the same platform), and that data allows for less compression (grouping nearby pixels into having the same color and/or brightness). Here is [Apple Trailers vs YouTube](https://imgur.com/gallery/9nCFU) for some movie trailers (and keep in mind uploading these screenshots also goes thru compression.
Chroma is how much color.light info is stored. The best is 4:4:4, but most all platforms use 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 (many cameras don’t even shoot in 4:4:4). By playing a 4K video on a 1080p monitor, it is a 1:4 scale, so each 2×2 grid of original pixels now makes 1 new pixel, allowing for 4:4:4, giving even better color/light precision.
Depending on the source, higher bitrate video may use a different codec. For example H264 is only a standard in TV broadcasts to 1080p, then they switch to H265 for 4k. This gives it a generational quality boost in the video codec. Some hardware video players, even if capable of 4k, can’t play H264 above 1080p.
If that’s not the situation (eg: youtube), it’s still typical to give higher bitrates to 4k than to 1080p. It turns out video bitrate is a major defining factor in image quality, and just generally more bits is better for image quality even when the resolution changes alongside it.
And finally, digital video is compressed in one special way. Rather than sending the image as Red, Green and Blue layers, it’s sent as a brightness layer, and 2 colour layers. It’s sorta like how in photoshop and other image editing tools you can select a colour as hue, saturation and luminosity, but not quite the same. The twist is, the 2 colour layers are actually half-width and half-height of the actual image size – the brightness layer is full resolution. This means that in any 2×2 group of pixels (aligned on the main 2×2 grid) are all the same basic colour, and only vary in brightness from black to a nice bright red, orange, yellow, green, etc.
This means when you take a 4k image and compress it, you get 1080p resolution colour layers. This can provide that very small subtle quality improvement because it gives each 1080p scaled pixel its own unique colour.
The resolution you’re seeing (on the same monitor) will be the same, BUT, on common streaming platforms such as YouTube and Netflix, streaming in 4K supplies a higher bitrate.
This means, in simple terms, you’ll have fewer compression artifacts, and get a much more “pure” video stream.
Depending on the source, higher bitrate video may use a different codec. For example H264 is only a standard in TV broadcasts to 1080p, then they switch to H265 for 4k. This gives it a generational quality boost in the video codec. Some hardware video players, even if capable of 4k, can’t play H264 above 1080p.
If that’s not the situation (eg: youtube), it’s still typical to give higher bitrates to 4k than to 1080p. It turns out video bitrate is a major defining factor in image quality, and just generally more bits is better for image quality even when the resolution changes alongside it.
And finally, digital video is compressed in one special way. Rather than sending the image as Red, Green and Blue layers, it’s sent as a brightness layer, and 2 colour layers. It’s sorta like how in photoshop and other image editing tools you can select a colour as hue, saturation and luminosity, but not quite the same. The twist is, the 2 colour layers are actually half-width and half-height of the actual image size – the brightness layer is full resolution. This means that in any 2×2 group of pixels (aligned on the main 2×2 grid) are all the same basic colour, and only vary in brightness from black to a nice bright red, orange, yellow, green, etc.
This means when you take a 4k image and compress it, you get 1080p resolution colour layers. This can provide that very small subtle quality improvement because it gives each 1080p scaled pixel its own unique colour.
Depending on the source, higher bitrate video may use a different codec. For example H264 is only a standard in TV broadcasts to 1080p, then they switch to H265 for 4k. This gives it a generational quality boost in the video codec. Some hardware video players, even if capable of 4k, can’t play H264 above 1080p.
If that’s not the situation (eg: youtube), it’s still typical to give higher bitrates to 4k than to 1080p. It turns out video bitrate is a major defining factor in image quality, and just generally more bits is better for image quality even when the resolution changes alongside it.
And finally, digital video is compressed in one special way. Rather than sending the image as Red, Green and Blue layers, it’s sent as a brightness layer, and 2 colour layers. It’s sorta like how in photoshop and other image editing tools you can select a colour as hue, saturation and luminosity, but not quite the same. The twist is, the 2 colour layers are actually half-width and half-height of the actual image size – the brightness layer is full resolution. This means that in any 2×2 group of pixels (aligned on the main 2×2 grid) are all the same basic colour, and only vary in brightness from black to a nice bright red, orange, yellow, green, etc.
This means when you take a 4k image and compress it, you get 1080p resolution colour layers. This can provide that very small subtle quality improvement because it gives each 1080p scaled pixel its own unique colour.
All video data is sent using lossy compression
When you ask the streaming service for the 1080p file they send you the one that looks pretty good when uncompressed and shown at 1080p. It throws away a lot of data but keeps enough that it looks pretty close. Maybe the blue sky doesn’t smoothly transition and is a bit blocky but on your average 1080p screen you’re unlikely to see it
A 4k screen will show you more data, the pixels are smaller and there’s a lot more so you’re expecting to see finer detail. To support this the streaming service sends you the file that is expected to look pretty good on a 4k screen. Its still thrown out a ton of data but it has also sent you 2-10x more data than it would have for the 1080p video.
The end result is that the more data you have the more detail was saved in the compression process and the better the video you watch will look, but unless there’s a need the standard 1080p compression is usually “good enough” and since its wayyy smaller its preferred
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