Why Does 4K Gaming Look Better Even on a 1080p TV?

Games running in 4K still manage to look better on older televisions. How? The short answer is simple, but the explanation is a bit more complicated.
Thumb Credit: Wei Wang

[jarrettwilliams]

Awesome thanks for the explanation, now I don't feel as bad for not wanting to buy a 4k monitor.

[Charsept]

I'm still good with 1080p. Will be for years. I grew up watching Pokemon after school through fuzzy antennae reception. I'm not picky, lol.

[peoplez]

The simple answer is this: Downsampling an image will always look better than an image created at the downsampled resolution. When you're downsampling 4K to 1080p, you're literally taking 4 pixels, averaging them into 1 pixel. Pixels are just blocks of color. More sampling equals more accuracy in the pixels color, which means shapes made by groups of colored pixels, are simply more accurate, which translates to better picture quality.

[crescentmoon]

When 8k comes everybody would be like omg 4K is so blurry

[fallenangel]

The man’s face at 3:32 really describes how I look right now

[DarkViperus]

"there's no better way to explain it", lol -> Basically, 1080p is bullshit, and so is 4K, but when you use 4K footage and turn it into 1080p, you get what 1080p should've been in its full glory.

More complex explanation: 1080p doesn't use all the information the camera captures. Cameras save to file every 4th pixel in full color and for the first 3 pixels they reuse the colors from the full color one. Instead of being outraged, we now have 4K which does the same thing. This was done to save up bandwidth by 50% because engineers couldn't figure out how to use 1080p properly with the hardware at hand. So they made a clever workaround. "It's technically 1080p" :D

However, 4K has 4x more pixels than 1080p. So, if we take every 4th pixel from a 4K footage, and put it into a 1080p video, we can create a 1080p footage in which every pixel has full color.

1080p can be considered as fake advertising, and so can 4K. 1080p is 1920x1080 but 3/4 pixels don't have all the color information. 4K is 3840x2160 but 3/4 pixels don't have all the color information.

4K should be called "True 1080", but with the competition in the industry, everybody makes stuff up, and nobody even cares.

[YavinPrime]

My wife and I got a 4k TV last summer during one of Best Buy's sales. I actually can see the difference for the first time since upgrading in general from SD to HD and I'll say that even some TV shows and Movies have a "soap opera" kind of feel to them... as if they look "too good" lol. I know it's a strange thing to complain about but some of our TV shows and movies look almost too crisp to where you can tell they're filming on a stage/set.

[nenjutsu]

Only thing i got here was Nicholas Cage

[Crytica.]

I have a 4k screen. BUT this video is not in 4k... But it's about 4k...
What even is life anymore?

[XxHALOxX]

I already knew it looked better, but didn't know why. As a stupid human being, I thank you for simplifying it so much for my small brain.

[NicB-Creations]

That was really informative and confirms what I already perceived with my own eyes. I knew about the pixel averaging (downsampling) from 4k to 1080pbut not that the Cb Cr channels where only 480p on a 1080p signal. Pretty interesting stuff.

[dominicscreativefilms]

You have no idea how happy I am you uploaded this. Me and my friend where debating how the xbox one x can make games look 4k on a 1080p and I was losing that debate, but this video might just help me win. Thanks.

[Fndlord]

So basically, 4K looks good on a 1080p because of higher compressed bit-rate. Even if you aren't taking full advantage of it, it still comes out looking better because the edges on pixels look more defined and better rounded. Its technically like putting good gas into your car. Visually it looks stunning because you are putting higher quality pixels on your screen, although you still aren't taking full advantage of it, (i.e.) putting performance gas into a race car vs. putting performance gas into a regular car. Unless I understood poorly xD..

[evelynbeuthin]

I love these techsplanation videos that you guys put out. It makes all of this much more understandable and accessible. Thank you for making them!

[chiffmonkey]

Because it's basically 4x Anti-Aliasing.

Saved you 6 minutes.

[foiledits]

meanwhile i watch this video at 240p...

[ijustsawthat]

Now I know the names of all the stuff that I don't know about 4k. Time to dig deeper. Thanks falcon!

[omkarshinde]

I'm watching this video cause I have 1080p tv and I don't wanna feel regret buying PS5 for 1080p tv (50inch)

[KyleTO]

I'm on 1080 and im really happy. Yes my PS5 games still look amazing. Saving up for a used 1080p OLED.
We're not ready for true 4K video yet, so little videos are available in 4K and it just eats the bandwidth. No 4k video discs are available either.

[ScorpionTomb]

I'm glad to see a video that explains more about 4k working with a tv.