Archive for June 18th, 2014

Why I hate 4K displays

Well, I don’t have very high resolution displays at all (you might call them UHD displays?), but the name “4K” is really stupid – so please stop using it.

What is it 4000 of anyway? Can anyone tell me? Hint – no it doesn’t have 4000 pixels, nor 4000 scan lines or 4000 anything or event anything else that is divisible by 4000. Although the horizontal resolution is almost 4000 (actuallly 3840 pixels wide), and while Wikipedia will have you believe that is the reason for the name, it is not so.

No, the reason is so much stupider than that: the name “4K” is because “4K displays” are 4 times larger (in pixel count) than 1080p displays (1080 being about 1K). This is so stupid, because while UHD displays do indeed have 4 times the pixels of a 1080p (“1K”) display, the 1080 in the number does not relate to the number of pixels – it is the number of scan lines in the picture – of which a UHD display has only twice as much. But “2K” just doesn’t have the right ring to it… so, the branding masters made do with what they have. Sooooo stupid…