For Beginners: Pixels, Resolutions & Televisions

At Custom Audio Video, we pride ourselves on not only providing our clients with the best products and services, but also educating them so they understand exactly what they want and need. To keep with our passion of education, we periodically publish a series of posts designed to provide entry-level information on various products and services. This particular post will highlight pixels, resolutions & televisions.

If you have recently looked into buying a new television, then you know that pixels and resolutions are very important in regards to the quality of a television. Television companies are highlighting things like 720p, 1080p, and now there is even 4k resolution. All of this tech jargon can be extremely confusing, so much so that even some of the most intense tech buffs often get confused about the technical aspects of televisions.

So what exactly is all of this technical jargon referring to? Well, a pixel is considered the tiniest unit of a digital picture, and these pixels are combined together on a square grid (ex. A television screen) and the number of pixels that fit on the screen are considered to be the television’s resolution.

So, for example, a 720p television refers to a screen that contains the dimension of 1280 x 720 pixels. When these numbers are multiplied together, the sum tells you the details of digital images that can be seen on that particular screen. As you may have guessed, the more details that a screen has, the sharper the picture will be.

It is important to note that the “p” in “720p” doesn’t refer to pixels. Confusing, I know, but the “p” actually refers to progressive-scan, the way that a high-definition image is sent to your screen. Progressive-scan is relatively new, having recently replaced the old-fashioned interlace scan that would separate a picture into two segments of a television screen (this was the main cause of the occasional flickering that is often noticeable on older television sets).

But if you think picture quality has reached its peak with progressive-scan then you are in for a surprise. 4k resolution is the latest invention in the television world and projects four times as many pixels as a 1080p screen!

Although it is interesting to write about television specifics, the best way to make sense of pixels and resolutions is to see them in person. So feel free to stop by our showroom and speak with one of our audio-video professionals today!

Example Source: http://mentalfloss.com/article/59951/what-exactly-pixel-and-why-it-important-my-tv