Why is 4K * 16 = 16K and not 64K?

[Merkey]

Hi, so after linus posted a video of 16K desk pc, I wondered why 16 4K monitors arent 64K in total. Again earlier, he did 8K gaming, which was 4 * 4K monitors (so shouldn't it be 16K)? Am I just stupid or is it really labeled wrong?

[LienusLateTips]

I thought it was weird too.

[DXMember]

It should really be 15K though, cuz math ain't work like what u do

it's 3840 x 4 horizontal which is liek 15 360

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, DXMember said:

It should really be 15K though, cuz math ain't work like what u do

it's 3840 x 4 horizontal which is liek 15 360

true 4k Is 4096x2160

[Daniel Z.]

5 minutes ago, JDE said:

I thought it was weird too.

 

6 minutes ago, Merkey said:

Hi, so after linus posted a video of 16K desk pc, I wondered why 16 4K monitors arent 64K in total. Again earlier, he did 8K gaming, which was 4 * 4K monitors (so shouldn't it be 16K)? Am I just stupid or is it really labeled wrong?

the k stands for thousands of horisontal pixels. 1080p is 2k, 1440 is like 2.5k and 3840 is called 4k but geeks call 4096 true 4k.

[Daniel Z.]

6 minutes ago, JDE said:

I thought it was weird too.

i thought they had a video about this

[DXMember]

1 minute ago, Daniel Z. said:

 

the k stands for thousands of horisontal pixels. 1080p is 2k, 1440 is like 2.5k and 3840 is called 4k but geeks call 4096 true 4k.

no, 1080p is 1K and if you take four of them you get 4K and if you take 64 of them you get 64K lelellelelelelelel

also two of your listed resolutions are for vertical

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Daniel Z. said:

i thought they had a video about this

They do, failing that wikipedia has a very  easy to follow article on it.

 

Just now, DXMember said:

no, 1080p is 1K and if you take four of them you get 4K and if you take 64 of them you get 64K lelellelelelelelel

also two of your listed resolutions are for vertical

 

The naming convention changed from vertical resolution to horizontal.  It is not about total area, just the number of pixels across the screen.  1080p has 1920 pixels across thus it is 2K.

[TheKDub]

16 minutes ago, Merkey said:

Hi, so after linus posted a video of 16K desk pc, I wondered why 16 4K monitors arent 64K in total. Again earlier, he did 8K gaming, which was 4 * 4K monitors (so shouldn't it be 16K)? Am I just stupid or is it really labeled wrong?

 

3840x2160 = 4K, the 4K part comes from the 3,840 being roughly 4,000 pixels.

 

3840*4 = 15360 (4 horizontal)
2160*4 = 8640 (4 vertical)
4*4 = 16 (aka 16 4k monitors)
15360x8640 = 16K

 

If they went off the actual pixel count, 4K would be around 8.3M instead. (8,294,400)

[DXMember]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

They do, failing that wikipedia has a very  easy to follow article on it.

 

 

The naming convention changed from vertical resolution to horizontal.  It is not about total area, just the number of pixels across the screen.  1080p has 1920 pixels across thus it is 2K.

true 2K would need to have 2000 horizontal minimum

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, DXMember said:

true 2K would need to have 2000 horizontal minimum

As far as I know there is no DCI for 1080p, so under the new naming scheme people will just round the 1920 to 2K and call it a day.

[DXMember]

10 minutes ago, mr moose said:

As far as I know there is no DCI for 1080p, so under the new naming scheme people will just round the 1920 to 2K and call it a day.

and if you take 256 4K monitors would you round 61 440 to 64K and call it a day?

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, DXMember said:

and if you take 256 4K monitors would you round 61 440 to 64K and call it a day?

No, I'd still be trying to work out how far away I'd need to be to enjoy the view. 

[DXMember]

Just now, mr moose said:

No, I'd still be trying to work out how far away I'd need to be to enjoy the view. 

u'd need to be inside it for full immersion but that's not the point

the point is that "K" nomenclature is stupid AF, just stick to HD, FHD, QHD and UHD for now

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, DXMember said:

u'd need to be inside it for full immersion but that's not the point

the point is that "K" nomenclature is stupid AF, just stick to HD, FHD, QHD and UHD for now

the nomenclature actually represents a number that can't be manipulated by marketing, at the very least to call a screen #K means it's horizontal resolution has to be closer to that number than any other.  All the other letters mean nothing.

[LAwLz]

50 minutes ago, Merkey said:

Hi, so after linus posted a video of 16K desk pc, I wondered why 16 4K monitors arent 64K in total. Again earlier, he did 8K gaming, which was 4 * 4K monitors (so shouldn't it be 16K)? Am I just stupid or is it really labeled wrong?

Because the "4K" number only measures in one direction.

4K to 8K is not just making the display twice as long. It also needs to become twice as tall in order to maintain the same aspect ratio.

 

Think of it this way. 1920x1080 is "2K" (and if you disagree with that then you also must disagree that 3820x2160 is 4K), but you would not say someone who has two 1080p monitors would be using 4K, right? That's because 4K is twice as tall, and twice as wide as 1080p. One 4K monitor will have the same number of pixels as four 1080p monitors, because it is doubled both vertically and horizontally.

 

10 minutes ago, mr moose said:

the nomenclature actually represents a number that can't be manipulated by marketing, at the very least to call a screen #K means it's horizontal resolution has to be closer to that number than any other.  All the other letters mean nothing.

Pretty sure marketing has already manipulated. I mean, "4K" does not even have 4000 or more vertical pixels.

 

As for the letters meaning nothing, they are actually strict definitions created by the CTA.

UHD is defined as being a 16:9 or wider display with a minimum resolution of 3840x2160.

 

Because of all this marketing bullshit I think it's best to just type out the actual resolution. That way there is no confusion.

[mr moose]

50 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Because the "4K" number only measures in one direction.

4K to 8K is not just making the display twice as long. It also needs to become twice as tall in order to maintain the same aspect ratio.

 

Think of it this way. 1920x1080 is "2K" (and if you disagree with that then you also must disagree that 3820x2160 is 4K), but you would not say someone who has two 1080p monitors would be using 4K, right? That's because 4K is twice as tall, and twice as wide as 1080p. One 4K monitor will have the same number of pixels as four 1080p monitors, because it is doubled both vertically and horizontally.

 

Pretty sure marketing has already manipulated. I mean, "4K" does not even have 4000 or more vertical pixels.

 

As for the letters meaning nothing, they are actually strict definitions created by the CTA.

UHD is defined as being a 16:9 or wider display with a minimum resolution of 3840x2160.

 

Because of all this marketing bullshit I think it's best to just type out the actual resolution. That way there is no confusion.

I did say " at the very least to call a screen #K means it's horizontal resolution has to be closer to that number than any other. "  I am sure most consumer law would uphold (it certainly would in Australia) that the K clearly denominates thousands by internationally recognized standards. Arguing that 4 thousand pixels means something closer to 3 thousand is a lot harder than arguing UHD means a number.  Even though there are many standards used internationally about the definition of "UHD", these do not always transfer into consumer law the same way hard numbers do.

 

The bit in bold is definitely the way to go.  It used to shit me (and still does sometimes) that I have to go searching around a box in a store to find out if they mean 1080p or 720p or something else when they say "UHD TV"  because usually what they mean is they have a scaler that can accept 4K a signal  and scale it down to the 1080p of the screen.   

 

EDIT: much easier to say, if a tv is marketed as having 4K pixels, then it has to have 4000 pixels, either vertically, horizontally or in total.  No other way to interpret that under consumer law.  Where as HD, UHD, USHD, SHD, JHD , KCKDE, and Fully sick super HD can be interpreted/argued many different ways.

[Daniel Z.]

1 hour ago, DXMember said:

u'd need to be inside it for full immersion but that's not the point

the point is that "K" nomenclature is stupid AF, just stick to HD, FHD, QHD and UHD for now

no, numbers ftw like 1080p or 1440p or 2160p.

[minibois]

The K refers to the (approximate) horizontal pixels. Like 4K is roughly 4000 horizontal pixels.

16 times 4K makes a 4*4 grid, which means the horizontal amount of pixels is (very roughly, these numbers don't make sense after 4K really) 16K.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Minibois said:

The K refers to the (approximate) horizontal pixels. Like 4K is roughly 4000 horizontal pixels.

16 times 4K makes a 4*4 grid, which means the horizontal amount of pixels is (very roughly, these numbers don't make sense after 4K really) 16K.

This pretty much, the numbers actually make sense for 8k as well but not for 16k (if you take 3840x2160 as 4k). If they had used DCI format screens it would be closer (although eventually it would err on the side of excess)

[Levi Lapsley]

6 hours ago, DXMember said:

no, 1080p is 1K and if you take four of them you get 4K and if you take 64 of them you get 64K lelellelelelelelel

also two of your listed resolutions are for vertical

1080p = 1920 x 1080. the 1920 is what makes it 2K

[Sniperfox47]

7 hours ago, Daniel Z. said:

no, numbers ftw like 1080p or 1440p or 2160p.

Except 720, 1080, 1440, 2160, and 4320 doesn't tell you the aspect ratio. Could be a standard 16:9, could be a 4:3 set to a standard 16:9 width, or could be an ultrawide made with a cropped higher res panel. HD, FHD, WQHD, 4kUHD, and 8kUHD does tell you aspect ratio. It tells you these displays are 16:9, since these are standardized resolution names.

[turnt marshfellow]

9 hours ago, Daniel Z. said:

 

the k stands for thousands of horisontal pixels. 1080p is 2k, 1440 is like 2.5k and 3840 is called 4k but geeks call 4096 true 4k.

the k stands for 1000 the whole number stands for horizontal pixels

[DXMember]

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

the nomenclature actually represents a number that can't be manipulated by marketing, at the very least to call a screen #K means it's horizontal resolution has to be closer to that number than any other.  All the other letters mean nothing.

nah, HD is pretty strictly defined as 1280 x 720, FHD is pretty strictly defined as 1920 x 1080, and QHD which stands for Quad-HD also comes up as a quadrupled HD which becomes 2560 x 1440 and the UHD which is actually 3840 x 2160 (and has nothing to do with 4K which refers to 4096 x 2160)

 

The letters mean everything:

[AshleyAshes]

*looks up from her job in the film industry, where she and everyone else sloppily uses '4K' to refer to refer to a range of resolutions that are roughly in the range of each other and smiles while seeing nerds argue over 'True 4K' to convince each other that they are 'knowledgable'*