YouTube no longer considers 720p as high-definition...

[Pemalite]

Mr Puggsly said:

curl-6 said:

Due to compression, 720p on youtube looks like about 540p in a video game.

And hell, I'm still able to play Wii games in 480p and enjoy them, so 720p is a walk in the park by comparison.

720p is more than triple the pixel count of 480p. Even to the average person that transition was obvious. And again, that's the point. 720p was lumped in with the transition to HD TVs which was a massive leap over 480p in picture quality.

The 720p YouTube does looks bad on a large screen. That's why they removed it from their HD filter. On my phone though, the disparity between 720p and 1080p is less significant.

480P or 854x480 is 409,920 pixels.
720P or 1280x720 is 921,600 pixels.

If we keep both the same aspect ratios of 16:9 that is. 720P is just over twice the pixels of 480P.

16:9 480P was used on the WiiU gamepad and is used in many cheap low-end projectors and was even common in phones for a time.

Either-way... It places an importance of listing a whole resolution rather than "arbitrary" numbers like 480P if you are referring to anything other than 16:9 ratios.