Confused on what 1080p means

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Z

zyzz

Honorable
Mar 9, 2012
180
0
10,680
Ok I made that topic about "HD" graphic cards a while ago. So basically the HD didn't mean high definition, it was just a marketing name.

But now I see people on forums talking about playing games in 1080p.

You buy a game like Counter-Strike, this isn't a high definition game?

Whenever I think of the word High Definition I think of a TV and watching a National Geographic show filmed in HD quality.

What does 1080p exactly mean when we are talking about computer resolutions and games?

1920x1080... 1080 = 1080p? How does that mean high definition?

Does that mean 1280x720 is high definition as well?

So no other monitor resolution can be high definition.

Yet I can watch a show like Breaking Bad filmed in HD on my computer, at my native resolution of 1680x1050, which is NOT high definition?

 
Sort by date Sort by votes
There are different "HD" levels. 1280x720 is 720p, this is considered to be HD. To be "Full HD" however, it needs to be 1920x1080, which is 1080p. Basically, 1920x1080 is the threshold for "Full HD" Anything above that such as 2560x1440 or 4K is considered to be beyond Full HD.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You can play games with low textures in 1080p and you will still be playing in full HD but you will notice a lack of high res textures compare to a game like say BF3.

You can play BF3 in 1680x1050 with ultra settings but you will not be playing at full HD nor HD but you still still have those high res textures.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
the P stands for progressive scan as opposed to I for Interlaced you want P which produces a full image every frame as opposed to I which shows half the old and half the new each frame.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
okay but no games are created in HD. A game is a... game. Good graphics today, but it's not the same as being filmed with an HD camera.

Do all resolutions work like this then?

800x600 = 600p or is it 600i?

1680x1050 = 1050p?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
so what about 1920x1200. 1200 = 1200p?

Those are the 2 most popular monitor resolutions now, or am I wrong?

1200p is better than 1080p, but I never see anyone talking about that.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
p/i scans are used for television. All computer monitors use progressive scan. Also, HD thing is used for marketing in TV: old CRT TVs used to have resolutions of 720x576, and used interlacing. The new TVs, that came out some years ago, offered 1280x720 resolutions, and they called it HD-ready, because the resolution was twice as large. However, soon after, TVs with 1920x1080 resolution showed up. They called it full HD, because it's again had more than 2 times pixels than HD-ready format. These new TVs also started supporting progressive scan, which was unavailable before because of analogue signal bandwidth limitations.

However, in computers, this term isn't/shouldn't be used. Computer displays are defined by resolution, which varies a lot on different monitors. You can't really say "game is made in HD". All recent (10 years?) games support resolution changing, so even if it doesn't natively support your resolution, you can most certainly mod it somehow so it does.

Also, HD has nothing to do with quality. It just means that the thing that is shown is rendered/filmed at given "HD" resolution. For all it can be, it can be shot with a mobile phone which has crappy camera, but it supports high resolution. It will still be considered HD, even though the image will be hardly viewable.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Dude, 1920x1200 is a 16:10 aspect ratio display. The 1920x1080 being 16:9 aspect ratio. 16:9 aspect ration being the most used and cheaper because it's older and being a standard.

If by better you mean more pixels then yes but I can't grasp your concern.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Did someone say something offensive?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I just don't get it.

I read a topic the other day. Some guy was choosing between a 120hz monitor or a 1200p HD screen.

What does HD have to do with computers. You can watch HD movies on your computer, you could watch them 800x600 it doesn't matter.

There are no HD games.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
1080p means 1920x1080 resolution. So when people save "1080p" in reference to a monitor they are talking about 1920x1080 resolution.

"HD" is simply a marketing term that is associated with 1080p. The old "HD" standard was 720p or 1280x720 resolution. But that was before 1080p was introduced for TVs. Nowadays when people say "HD" they are referring to 1920x1080 resolution. Sometime people (or ads) say "Full HD" for 1080p since it is the newer HD resolution standard.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


tvs have stretched videos(i.e what you do when you fullscreen youtube videos) no matter how big the tv is. what decides tv quality is the quality of the footage going through the wires are, and if your tv can display HD in the first place. iirc standard tv is 360/480i that is stretched to fit screen
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

You need to accept that Full HD moniker and that people use it to say 1920x1080/1080p. There's no way of fighting the media on it. When you hear/see someone using Full HD/HD/1080p, you'll know they're referring to 1920x1080 and accept it. It's just a moniker, it's just something easier to say for mainstream people who don't quite grasp technology. Hell even we don't might grasp all the *** companies (TV companies) are coming out with and let's not go into how they lie to the consumer with that same marketing bs. In the end it may be a form to cause confusion and pretend to introduce some new technology when it's just marketing bs to make people pay a premium for something they don't understand.

You'll have a hard time trying to teach people memorize some random numbers instead of Full HD.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom