shouldn’t 1080p and 4k have no difference if my monitor is only capable of displaying 1080p
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The 1080p video is not actually full 1080p but a compressed video where the details that is not expected to be visible on a 1080p monitor have been removed to save space.
In theory you are right however scaling algorithms and video compression are also factors. Given a high resolution source it is possible to generate 1080p video indistinguishable from 4k displayed on 1080p monitor if maximum image quality is the only requirement.
Super sampling is when you render something at a high resolution and then use an algorithm to reduce the resolution down. You tend to get a nicer picture when you super sample because your anti aliasing is better, smoothing out jagged lines by using the extra data to pick a color that is a combination of the colors around it.
Streaming services never send you the uncompressed version of a video. There is always *some* data lost in compression.
However they do send you much more data when you’re watching the 4k stream versus the 1080p stream. The more data, the better your graphics card does at scaling down to the native resolution of your monitor.
Generally the size of the video and the bandwidth of a stream is a much better indicator than the resolution.
So your 4k video likely looks better because it contains more information and thus give a clearer picture
There are many misleading comments here…
The answer is bitrate.
Bitrate is how many bits the video streams per second.
Higher bitrate means better quality (less compression), but higher network usage (which means you need a better internet connection).
For example a 20 Mbps bitrate steam requires at least a 20 Mbps download speed to not get the stream to stop every few seconds (AKA buffering).
Watching the same movie in 1080p and 4K while being uncompressed (or compressed by the same amount) will look almost the same at on a 1080p monitor.
Streaming services usually stream 1080p content at a lower bitrate to allow everyone, including people with very slow internet connections, to watch their content.
4K on the other hand usually gets a big bitrate boost (besides what’s added because of the increase in resolution) since people with slow connection can just switch to 1080p, but people who care about watching at 4K usually care about quality, hence the higher bitrate and the far superior quality.
I have a MacBook with a resolution of 2560×1600 so it’s native resolution for 16:9 videos is 1440p. On YouTube, is it better to select 4k or just use 1440p to save bandwidth?
Beside the resolution difference, 4K & 8k each use a higher bit depth for colour reproduction. This allows them to display more colours and appears more vibrant.
Jumping from 8 to 10 bit colour increases the variety of colours/shades from 16 million to over a billion and the jump from 10 to 12 bit again increases them from a little over a billion to 68 billion.
Because 1080p utube videos are nowhere near getting the most quality possible out of a 1080p resolution. If u were watching a 1080p 30gb bluray video going up to a 4k bluray on ur 1080p monitor wouldnt improve the image.
4k tends to have more color grading and post production stuff on some yt channels. The amount of pixels will not affect quality when watching 4k on a 1080p panel.
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