SCREEN RESOLUTION AND ASPECT RATIO

What is screen resolution?

What about the numbers: 720p, 1080p, 1440p, 4K and 8K?

When high-definition TVs became the norm, manufacturers developed a shorthand to explain their display resolution. The most common numbers you will see are 720p, 1080p and 2160p or 4K. As we’ve seen, the "p" and "i" tell you whether it’s a progressive-scan or interlaced-scan display. And these shorthand numbers are sometimes used to describe computer monitors as well, even though in general a monitor is capable of a higher-definition display than a TV. The number always refers to the number of horizontal lines on the display.

Here’s how the shorthand translates:

720p = 1280 x 720 - is usually known as HD or “HD Ready” resolution

1080p = 1920 x 1080 - is usually known as FHD or “Full HD” resolution

1440p = 2560 x 1440 - commonly known as QHD or Quad HD resolution, and typically seen on gaming monitors and on high-end smartphones. 1440p is four times the resolution of 720p HD or “HD ready”.

2160p = 3840 x 2160 - commonly known as 4K, UHD or Ultra HD resolution. It’s a very large display resolution and it’s found on high-end TVs and monitors. 2160p is called 4K because it offers four times the pixels of 1080p FHD or “Full HD”.

4320p = 7680 x 4320 - is known as 8K and it offers 16 times more pixels than the regular 1080p FHD or “Full HD” resolution. Although you’re not going to see TVs or computer monitors with this resolution too soon, you can test whether your computer can render such a large amount of data. 

What is the Aspect Ratio?

At the beginning we mentioned the term aspect ratio. This was originally used in motion pictures, indicating how wide the picture was in relation to its height. Movies were originally in 4:3 aspect ratio, and this carried over into television and early computer displays. Motion picture aspect ratio changed much more quickly to a wider screen, which meant that when movies were shown on TV they had to be cropped or the image manipulated in other ways to fit the TV screen.

As display technology improved, TV and monitor manufacturers began to move toward widescreen displays as well. Originally "widescreen" referred to anything wider than the common 4:3 display, but it quickly came to mean a 16:10 ratio and later 16:9. Nowadays, nearly all computer monitors and TVs are only available in widescreen, and TV broadcasts and web pages have adapted to match.

Until 2010, 16:10 was the most popular aspect ratio for widescreen computer displays. But with the rise in popularity of high definition televisions, which were using high definition resolutions such as 720p and 1080p and made this terms synonyms with high-definition, 16:9 has become the high-definition standard aspect ratio.Today, finding 16:10 displays is almost impossible.

Depending on the aspect ratio of your display, you are able to use only resolutions that are specific to its width and height. Some of the most common resolutions that can be used for each aspect ratio are the following:

4:3 aspect ratio resolutions: 640×480, 800×600, 960×720, 1024×768, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1440×1080 , 1600×1200, 1856×1392, 1920×1440, and 2048×1536.

16:10 aspect ratio resolutions: - 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200 and 2560×1600.

16:9 aspect ratio resolutions: 1024×576, 1152×648, 1280×720, 1366×768, 1600×900, 1920×1080, 2560×1440 and 3840×2160.