HD, 4K, UHD: What’s the difference?

It’s very easy to get bogged down in the world of resolutions. Made more popular by gamers, the terms refresh rate, resolution, 4k, UHD are casually thrown about into a confusing mash up of technical chaos.

So really what is the difference? Well first thing’s first, the terms 4K, UHD, HD are all about the amount of pixels being recorded or displayed. They have no bearing on speed and in a lot of cases quality. You can record a 4k video on your phone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be better quality than a HD video from a professional camera.

To clear things up, HD is 1920×1080 pixels. 4K is four times the amount of pixels – 3840×2160 pixels. UHD is used interchangeably with 4K and effectively means the same. However to confuse things, 4k originally came from the world of digital cinema with a resolution known as DCI 4K which is 4096×2160 pixels. This gives a slightly wider image than that of normal consumer TVs.

So 4K, UHD, for the most part are the same. HD is 4 times smaller than that but it’s not all about the amount of pixels. Everything from the camera sensor, the recording codec, the lenses, the lighting all contribute towards the overall image quality, so 4k, 6k, 8k or even 12k doesn’t automatically mean better every time.

At Crosscut we shoot in everything from HD to 6K depending upon the project and its requirements. If you have a video project you’d like to discuss, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!