When shopping for a new TV or home theater component, you may be bombarded with complicated language and terminology that can be confusing. One confusing concept is video resolution. An important video resolution term to understand is 1080p, but what does it mean?
What do 2K, 4K and 8K mean?
Digital displays consist of pixels arranged in rows or lines. 1080p refers to a display with 1,920 pixels arranged horizontally and 1,080 pixels arranged vertically.
In other words, the 1,920 pixels on an HD display are arranged in vertical rows that run left to right across the screen. The 1,080 pixels are arranged in rows or lines that run top to bottom. 1,080 (which is called the horizontal resolution) is where the 1080 part of the term 1080p comes from.
With 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen and 1,080 pixels running from top to bottom, you get a lot of pixels. When you multiply the number of pixels across (1920) and down (1080), the total is 2,073,600. This is called pixel density and is the total number of pixels displayed on the screen. In digital camera and photography terms, this is approximately 2 megapixels.
