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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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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