Graphics, pixels, resolution, the whole nine yards?

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How do I know whether the device im using to render a video, is rendering it in 4K? I’m not familiar with the nomenclature, but by device I’m talking about anything capable of generating video, such as a camera (which records video), or a ps5 (which generates a video or graphics?)

What do I need to have / do to be able to view a 4K video in the “best way” possible (im not sure how to frame this exactly – I want to watch a 4K video in 4K, perhaps?)

If im viewing this video on an external monitor, what changes?

If the monitor is 4K, does that suffice? What cabling will I need, if at all?

In: Technology

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is a massive rabbit hole, explaining everything would not be fit for casual reading.

You’ll want to develop a mental model for what a display is. It’s a grid of pixels, I’m sure you got that. Let’s add some more properties to the mix:

– the number and geometry of pixels (resolution, subpixel layout): pixels are made up of even smaller subunits called subpixels. modern OLED displays will have unconventional subpixels, some will have an extra white one in addition to the typical red-green-blue ones, while others will have a triangular layout. this impacts color performance and text clarity.

– these pixels will need to refresh to change (refresh rate, response times): typical is 60 Hz, more commonly you see 120, 240 and 480 these days. unlike the plasma days, these are real, you can record them in slowmo if you don’t believe it.

– those pixels will need to look right (colorspace, color accuracy): gotta be the right color. colors are standardized, if they can reproduce them well-enough, they pass. on a TV, select Filmmaker mode. on a monitor, should be fine out of the box, but check reviews.

Unfortunately, what you feed these displays with is likely never going to be true 4K content. Cameras usually perform computational tricks to make the image better than it is straight out from the sensor. Your PS5 is usually not able to render 4K frames natively in time, so developers cheat a bit, render at a lower resolution then just blow it up. You’re not given the tools to determine this easily, but again, you can check reviews.

There is so much more to this. The bottom line is that you need a 4K display of some sort and an HDMI or DisplayPort cable to connect to it (or in some cases, USB-C is fine). That said, you can play back 4K content on a lower resolution screen to, it just gets downsampled. Since most content (i.e. not games) is lossy compressed, this is usually a perceptual boost to image quality rather than a negative.

External monitors should be fine if they match this spec, provided they’re not connecting wirelessly. If they do, you’ll likely see compression artifacts, and get a blurrier image.

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