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SvennoJ on 02 November 2014
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Pemalite said:


Actually, if you're going to correct someone, try to correct them correctly.
2k is *not* officially 1080P. It is: 2048 x 1152 or 2048 × 1556. (full-aperture)
However, if you look at the industry trend, 2k is mostly referenced towards 2560x1440 as it's a nice clean quad-druple of 720P which allows for clean scaling and monitor/tv manufacturers heck even phone/tablets are advertising 2560x1440 as 2k.

Converesly 4k is supposed to be 4096 x 2160, rather than the 3840 x 2160 standard the industry has settle for, because it allows for better scaling of 1920x1080 content due to it retaining the same aspect ratio as it's quad-druple the 1080P's resolution.

The more you know.

I didn't want to go too much into detail, now I will :)
From the movie Industry 2K and 4K signify the horizontal resolution, indeed 2048 and 4096. 2K is either 2048x858 scope or 1998x1080 flat for digital cinema. (2048x1556 is a camera resolution) I've never heard of 2K being used for 2560x1440 display resolution, that's 2.5K But now I get what you mean with quad HD, quad 720p, 1440p. Yep that's possible next gen.

Marketing takes a run with these terms anyway, 2160p sounds too difficult, 4K sounds 4 times better. Full HD is a stupid term too, and now we get quad full HD or UHDTV. What are they going to make up for 8K, super hi-vision for now.

1920x1080 originated from the 80's analog 5:3 1125 line MUSE format. 1080 was the safe display area (minus the scan return) for digital tv, and 16:9 was agreed upon as the desired aspect ratio to fit with most movies. (However movies are in 1.85:1 1998x1080, but 1998 can't be divided by 16) DCI went with 2048, I assume because of digital camera specs. Yet why use 1080 and not 1152, easier to crop to blu-ray I guess. Since film was mostly shot anamorphically the horizontal resolution took priority anyway. Always fun when standards are made, and then miss eachother by an inch...

Another interesting fact, PAL movies used to waste less of your time, they all ran 4% faster to display the 24fps at 25hz without any stutter. The resulting difference in pitch was too small to be distracting. It was better then the 3:2 pulldown crap for NTSC.