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Is 3840 2160 a 4K resolution?
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Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 3840 × 2160 (4K UHD) with a 16:9 aspect ratio is the dominant 4K standard, whereas the movie projection industry uses 4096 × 2160 (DCI 4K).
Jan 4, 2024 · In consumer media, 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) is the dominant 4K standard, whereas the cinema industry uses the DCI 4K or native 4K standard (4096 × 2160).
- Overview
- What is 4K resolution?
- Why is it called 4K?
- Do all of those extra pixels matter?
- How close do I need to sit to a 4K screen?
- 4K vs UHD: what's the difference?
- Why should I care about 4K Ultra HD?
- My friend told me about 4K OLED. What's that?
- Is Netflix in 4K?
- Are 4K and HDR the same thing?
News
By Nick Pino, Henry St Leger
published 4 January 2022
4K resolution is now the standard for new TVs, but what actually is it?
(Image credit: Panasonic)
The TV tech term 4K describes an ultra high-definition screen resolution. You might also see this labelled as UHD, 4K or 4K UHD depending on which brand makes the TV. But they’re all talking about the same thing.
We know it's seriously upgraded our viewing experience, but what is 4K?
4K resolution, at least the way most TV companies define it, is 3840 x 2160 pixels, or 2160p. To put that in perspective, a Full HD 1080p image is only 1920 x 1080. 4K screens have about 8 million pixels, which is around four times what your current 1080p set can display.
It's called 4K because the images are around 4,000 pixels wide. And before you ask, yes, the industry named 1080 resolution after image height, but named 4K after image width. For extra added fun, you also might hear this resolution referred to as 2160p. Welcome to the future. It's confusing here.
That's where it gets sticky. We're talking about a similar jump in resolution as the one from SD (480 lines high) to HD (1080 lines high). And 4K screens are noticeably sharper than 1080p screens.
But if you're sticking with roughly the same size of television, and are used to sitting pretty close, you may not see that much of a difference – especially if you're still mostly watching HD content rather than 4K video.
Remember when Apple made a big fuss about "retina" displays a few iPhones back? "Retina" refers to screens that have sufficient resolution that at a normal viewing distance your eye can't make out individual pixels. Get far enough away from a 1080p set and, hey presto, it's a retina display!
More importantly, at that same distance, your eyeballs won't be able to squeeze any more detail out of a 4K image than a 1080 one. If you're at "retina distance" from your 1080p set now and don't plan on moving your couch closer, upgrading to 4K may not make a big difference to your experience. This chart shows how close you need to sit at any given screen size to see the difference.
Technically, "Ultra High Definition" is actually a derivation of the 4K digital cinema standard. However while your local multiplex shows images in native 4096 x 2160 4K resolution, the new Ultra HD consumer format has a slightly lower resolution of 3840 x 2160.
This is one reason why some brands prefer not to use the 4K label at all, sticking with Ultra HD or UHD instead. However, the numerical shorthand looks likely to stick.
There are many reasons why 4K should make you rethink your next TV purchase (actually, there are eleven and you can read about them here), not all of them immediately obvious.
Photographers who routinely view their work on an HD TV are seeing but a fraction of the detail inherent in their pictures when they view them at 2160p.
An Ultra HD display reveals so much more nuance and detail – the difference can be astonishing. While 3D has proved to be a faddish diversion, 4K comes without caveats. Its higher resolution images are simply better.
The higher pixel density of a 4K panel also enable you get much closer without the grid-like structure of the image itself becoming visible –this means you can comfortably watch a much larger screen from the same seating position as your current Full HD panel.
More acronyms! Isn't this fun? OLED – organic light emitting diodes – have been around for some time, but producing big screens using this technology has proven to be prohibitively expensive, something which has so far prevented OLED television from being a mainstream proposition.
It's a real shame because OLED technology can be stunning, offering vibrant colors, deep blacks and bright whites. But don't give up hope just yet. Several companies (most prominently LG) are laboring away to bring OLED to 4K televisions. They're certainly gorgeous, though pricing remains high even years after they first came to market – and it's generally accepted that they don't have the longevity of LCD screens.
OLED TVs are improving year on year, though, with reduced risk of burn-in and a new 48-inch size looking to make flagship OLED sets that little bit more affordable to average wallets.
Read more: What is OLED?
Yes – if you pay for it.
Netflix has tiered pricing plans, with 4K films and TV shows becoming available on the Premium tier. Not everything on the service will jump in resolution, though there's a decent amount of Ultra HD content available – including Dark, Star Trek: Discovery, Altered Carbon, and much more. The selection might be more limited than the amount of HD content, but it's increasing day by day.
Netflix isn't an outlier, either. Amazon has gotten into the 4K UHD streaming game by offering some of its highest-rated shows – Transparent, Mozart in the Jungle, Man in the High Castle, The Grand Tour and Mad Dogs – in Ultra HD.
You'll also find Ultra HD content on Disney Plus, Hulu, Rakuten TV, and other TV streaming services like them – everybody's doing it! Not that some services allow 4K streaming for all subscribers, such as Disney Plus, rather than Netflix's tiered model.
No. There's no shortage of acronyms in home entertainment, and it can certainly get confusing though.
HDR, or high dynamic range, essentially increases the difference between the lightest and the darkest portions of an image. Blacks get properly dark rather than milky grey, and whites get blindingly light.
This means that images have more depth to them, and you should also be able to perceive more detail in the lightest and darkest portions of the image.
Netflix was the first content provider to release HDR video in 2015, but Amazon Prime Video also offers high dynamic range content. HDR has also been included in the new Ultra HD Blu-ray standard. You can read our full explainer on High Dynamic Range here.
- Nick Pino
Jan 29, 2023 · The resolution of 4K is 4096×2160 pixels, known as 2160p. UHD, on the contrary, is 3840×2160 pixels, commonly known as 2160p. Although they have the same picture ratio of 16:9, the 4K has more pixels and delivers slightly better images.
Jun 17, 2024 · Ultra HD has a display resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, and it's used in the vast majority of modern TVs, even those advertised with an eye-catching "4K" label.
- Editor, Iphone And Video Games
Jan 12, 2023 · This 3840 x 2160 remains in the popular 16:9 aspect ratio which many consumers are now intimately familiar with. To put things in context, this resolution provides 4 times as many pixels as ‘Full HD’ (1920 x 1080 or 1080p) offers and 2.25 times as many as ‘WQHD’ (2560 x 1440 or 1440p).
Oct 13, 2023 · To answer both, technically speaking, no. UHD is often advertised as '4K' for its close resemblance. However, the standard UHD resolution is 3840x2160 pixels (4 times the full HD pixel count), slightly less than the cinematic 4K resolution.
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