HD, 4K, 8K? TV and Camera Video Resolutions Explained
What the…? What is this, Minecraft? Hey everyone! I’m Trisha Hershberger and in today’s episode of DIY in 5 we’ll talk about video resolution and try to make sense of all those HD, 2K, 4K, 8K, etc, etc. terms. If our tips help, please don’t forget to subscribe so you won’t miss any of our upcoming episodes. Let’s start with the easy stuff. What does 1080P, 4K and all that even mean? In basic terms it’s just the number of pixels in a given area. We usually talk about it when we think of screens. Pixels themselves don’t actually have a specific size. They’re just individual illuminated components on a screen. So when we say something is 4K we’re saying that the max number of pixels that the screen supports is roughly four thousand pixels wide. Here’s a handy chart which shows you some of the most common screen resolutions. So now you might be thinking, “what about TVs which are both 4K but are different sizes? Let’s say one is 50 inches and the other is 70”? What gives?” The simple answer is the 70” TV is just showing you larger pixels and that’s ok! In some cases, it’s very ok. Now that we have a better understanding of what resolution is, let’s talk about why it could be important. We’ll start with filming. For those of you who still shoot with an actual camera, and those of us who film from our phones, you will need to set your resolution before filming. Despite what TV dramas show us, you can’t just press an ENHANCE on a keyboard and magically get more resolution. If you want to see your footage in 4K, get a camera that shoots it and make sure you’re actually filming in 4K. A number of phones and camera will default to 1080P. Now let’s discuss what most of us care about, TVs. Let’s be real, not every TV will benefit from 4K or 8K. If you go online you’ll see different calculators that say how big your TV should be before upgrading to higher resolutions. Based on our personal, very unscientific methods, we see 50” TVs as the smallest size that benefit from 4K. Any smaller than that and it’s really hard to tell that there are actually more pixels on the screen. Hu, I can kind of see the 4K…. As for 8K TVs it’s probably going to be a while before we start seeing those in stores, so we won’t worry about them yet. Now that we understand the basics, what else do we need to know? Let’s talk about content. There’s still very little 4K content available for your big shiny new TV, but it’s getting better. The good thing is, Netflix shoots almost all of their original programming in 4K so they’re an excellent source of super pixel-ey goodness. Some YouTube channels also upload in 4K but not too many at the moment. If you do want to stream any 4K content it’s recommended that you have at least a 25 megabit per second internet connection. If you’re more into physical media there’s also 4K Blu-Ray discs, but you will need a player that actually supports them. Your standard Blu-Ray player from a few years ago won’t play the new stuff. And finally, for my digital file loving friends out there just know that 4K video files are huge. So if you want to keep all those ultra-high def files on your system you’re gonna need storage space. You’ll get roughly 35 hours of footage for every terabyte of hard drive you have. So who of you has already made the 4K TV upgrade? Do you actually notice any difference? Let us know in the comments below. And, you know many phones nowadays are 4K filming machines! If you want to learn how to shoot better video on an iPhone, check out this video here. That’s all for now. I’ve got a really large screen to go watch stuff on so I gotta get back to that. That’s not true at all - that was YouTube magic.
https://youtu.be/aIygY9Kv3bA