The numbers are not entirely random. The numbers represent the number of pixels a screen has in a certain dimension. 1080p stands for 1080pixels vertically. The following number represents a ratio of 1.78 to 1. (16:9)

720x1.78=1280.

1080*1.78=1920

2160*1.78 = 3840. Thats 4k as in about 4000 pixels vertically

It represents the aspect ratio of 16:9 For example a TV standard with 100 pixels would be 100x178.

And a TV 8k standard will be 4320*1.78 unless TV manufacturers decide for a new aspect ratio like 2:1 instead of 16:9 in the future. There is other technical reasoning behind those numbers. Its probably a mix of old conventions and technicalites that formed the exact number of pixels.

so those conventions are the reason why they don'tdo

1000*1.78

2000*1.78

4000*1.78

What you're talking about is 8K and it is such a ridiculous detail you would need a tv qith 50 yards of diagonal to trully enjoy it.

So because you don't understand basic terms for TV resolutions, they must be scamming you?

Well there is definetly some kind of reasoning behind the crude resolution numbers SvennoJ might be able to shed some light on it he seems to know alot about this kind of stuff

i never had to look past 1920x1200 last time

2K and 4K evolved for digital cinema, while 1080p and 720p came from TV-sets. As now most TVs have 1080p the makers look for new stuff to differentiate and looked towards cinema. As 4K is already established, they took that name.

1080p came from the 1152i 50hz analog HD standard. 1080 lines is the useable picture content of the interlaced analog signal, after cutting away the overscan area. Analog tv uses overscan to give the electron gun time to return to the top of the screen. The headroom was also used to hide extra information, like closed captioning and TeleText. And yes the 1920 simply comes from the 16:9 convention.

The 1152i standard was a cost effective interconnection standard for 50hz CRT HD tvs, which allowed them to run at 31.25 khz horizontal frequency.

In the beginning of HDTV broadcast you would still get extra information in the picture in the form of alternating black and white rectangles at the top of the sccreen. On 4:3 broadcasts you would also see a blue line on the left of the screen, remnant from priming the electron gun for CRT tvs. Nowadays the extra information is hidden away again outside the picture content. But because of that 1080p sets still use overscan (not all anymore) to get rid of the edge information. You should disable overscan for video games and blu-ray by chooosing native or dot by dot format for 1080p. (Most tv's are smart enough to do that automatically for RGB sources, only relevant if you force the console to output a tv signal, and for blu-ray)

Unfortunately 4K / UltraHD is just a pipe dream currently, and 8K is just a plain pr stunt. We are still in Phase 1 of UltraHD which means subsampled 10bit colors due to bandwidth limitations (or in simpler words: currently there is no point in buying a 4k tv).

Yeah.... it will not be until the next gen before that is even close to being fully supported. They claim the new gen systems can in the future, but I am skeptical since 1080p 60fps is still a challenge it seems.