Can someone the actual meaning of 780p vs 1080p and how frame rates play into all of this? Are there other factors that play into quality as well?
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Digital images are made up of many tiny dots called pixels (short for “picture elements”).
A 1080p image measures 1080 pixels vertically whereas a 720p image measures 720 pixels vertically.
In the context of computer screens and movies, this typically means measurements of 1920×1080 pixels and 1280×720 pixels respectively.
Video is essentially a series of images displayed in rapid succession. The “frame rate” is a measure of how many images are shown per second. The more images, the smoother the motion looks. For most purposes, 60 frames per second looks pretty smooth whereas something like 10 or 15 would look very clunky.
Then, compression is also a factor that affects quality. “Raw” images and video take up a ridiculous amount of storage space, so they’re typically “compressed” to make them take up a more reasonable amount of space. Compression uses complex math and computations to on the image/video to make its filesize smaller. But the more you compress a file, the more detail you lose. The image/video’s *resolution* will still be the same, but some details will get garbled.
I’ve included an image from the TV show House Of The Dragon as an example.
* [**720p** high definition, with mild compression](https://i.imgur.com/bWMeVXP.jpeg)
* [A measly **180p** (not 1080… 180!) version blown back up to 720p. You can see there’s a lot less detail.](https://i.imgur.com/SO14Nga.jpeg)
* [**720p** again, but **with heavy JPEG compression** this time. It’s still “sharp”, but there is a ton of detail that has been garbled by the compression.](https://i.imgur.com/a3Qu34x.jpeg)
Digital images are made up of many tiny dots called pixels (short for “picture elements”).
A 1080p image measures 1080 pixels vertically whereas a 720p image measures 720 pixels vertically.
In the context of computer screens and movies, this typically means measurements of 1920×1080 pixels and 1280×720 pixels respectively.
Video is essentially a series of images displayed in rapid succession. The “frame rate” is a measure of how many images are shown per second. The more images, the smoother the motion looks. For most purposes, 60 frames per second looks pretty smooth whereas something like 10 or 15 would look very clunky.
Then, compression is also a factor that affects quality. “Raw” images and video take up a ridiculous amount of storage space, so they’re typically “compressed” to make them take up a more reasonable amount of space. Compression uses complex math and computations to on the image/video to make its filesize smaller. But the more you compress a file, the more detail you lose. The image/video’s *resolution* will still be the same, but some details will get garbled.
I’ve included an image from the TV show House Of The Dragon as an example.
* [**720p** high definition, with mild compression](https://i.imgur.com/bWMeVXP.jpeg)
* [A measly **180p** (not 1080… 180!) version blown back up to 720p. You can see there’s a lot less detail.](https://i.imgur.com/SO14Nga.jpeg)
* [**720p** again, but **with heavy JPEG compression** this time. It’s still “sharp”, but there is a ton of detail that has been garbled by the compression.](https://i.imgur.com/a3Qu34x.jpeg)
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