4K monitors and 1080p resolution?

[MtSeldon]

I was arguiging with a friend over 4k resolution. I claimed that you can use a 4k monitor , as a 1080p monitor too, and it would be as good as a native 1080p monitor . Because all 4k monitor have to do is ,to map 4 pixels to 1 pixels colour data. No resizing is necessary.

He claimed that lcd monitors only work at native resolutions ,and if we try a 4k monitor at 1080p, it would be all blurry.

Which one is true?

 

[bystander36]

While in theory that should work, the monitor has to downscale that resolution in that manner, and I do not believe most do. I believe it is rare at this point.

That said, a lot of people like SSAA, FXAA, SMAA and downsampling. All of which "blur" the screen to different degrees. If the monitor's downscaling is done well, it can look good, if it doesn't then you are left with using your GPU's drivers to downscale, you may find it looks bad.

 

[bystander36]

Oh yeah, one more thought for you. All these 4K TV's are still taking in 1080p and 720p content as broadcast/satellite/cable/blueray are all limited to those resolutions. You can see for yourself what looks best by going to Best Buy and see how they look. Just realize that text will likely not look very good, but a good upscaler on the TV may make organic stuff look better.

 

[KingFatty]

It will be up to each particular manufacturer as to what kind of upsampling they provide, when converting a 1080p signal to 4K.

You are correct that a simple 1 to 4 upscaling would be possible, with no resizing and no additional "blur" to where it would be the same as a 1080p, just using 4 pixels on the display to show 1 pixel of the 1080p input.

However, some displays may not provide this option. I think that would be a bad move. Consider current 1080p TVs. They have fancy smoothing algorithms already, but you still have the option to turn off the fancy stuff to get a straight output and avoid lag caused by the fancy stuff.

I think for a 4K display, people will be interested in buying a display that has the option to do naked scaling without fancy interpolation, to provide the fastest response time. Like gamers etc. So I think it will be an option on all 4K TVs.

 

[toyota]

if it was true that 1080 always looked good on 4k then we would not even have to discuss it. does 960x540 look good on a 1080 screen? nope. does 1280x720 look good on a 1440 screen? nope. I have never seen this 1/4 claim ever pan out. just people claiming in theory that it "should" look good is all I have ever seen.

 

[MtSeldon]

if it was true that 1080 always looked good on 4k then we would not even have to discuss it. does 960x540 look good on a 1080 screen? nope. does 1280x720 look good on a 1440 screen? nope. I have never seen this 1/4 claim ever pan out. just people claiming in theory that it "should" look good is all I have ever seen.

I don't know actually. If the upscale is implented right, i don't see a reason why it shouldn't . Probably , until 4k, it wasn't worth for companies to work on it.

4k monitors are just starting the fill the shelves, we may see some detailed test in the very near future.

 

[bystander36]

Like it has been mentioned, it is up to the monitor's upscaling method. 4k displays are more likely to support this type of conversion, but that doesn't mean they will.

910x540 will obviously never get this attention, as it is not a resolution sold and not even selectable in most games.

 

[x3sphere]

if it was true that 1080 always looked good on 4k then we would not even have to discuss it. does 960x540 look good on a 1080 screen? nope. does 1280x720 look good on a 1440 screen? nope. I have never seen this 1/4 claim ever pan out. just people claiming in theory that it "should" look good is all I have ever seen.

The difference is, 960x560 is too low of a resolution for a 24" + panel to begin with.

 

[blackened23]

if it was true that 1080 always looked good on 4k then we would not even have to discuss it. does 960x540 look good on a 1080 screen? nope. does 1280x720 look good on a 1440 screen? nope. I have never seen this 1/4 claim ever pan out. just people claiming in theory that it "should" look good is all I have ever seen.

The scaling is done differently on some 4k screens. I've seen a super big screen 4k UHDTV in person and 1080p actually looked amazing on it. It looked better than actual 1080p on other HDTVs, it was gorgeous even up close a couple of feet away. I don't know what the technical explanation is, per se, but some 4k panels have different scaling which can actually make 1080p appear somewhat close to native 1080p. Basically, 4k panels are exactly 1080p times two so this helps. Whereas, any prior resolution halved was an off kilter resolution that wasn't even applicable. Half of 1080p wasn't 720p. Neither is 480p. So what is possible at 4k > 1080p, wasn't possible with 1080p > 720 or 480p. It's exactly 4x the pixels.

It does vary per panel though. PCPer actually discussed this IIRC (i'll have to double check - it was either linus or PCPer) and they noted the same thing. I think it was the samsung 4k monitor where they noted exceptional 1080p scaling...............I will look for the source later when I get a chance. I know the Samsung UHDTV had some sort of special scaling hardware that was specifically designed for 1080p. Now certainly not all panels will have this, but I can assure you, it did look great in person. I guess the real question is, which PC panels have this same technology. The answer to that, I don't know. I'm guessing like all other things, most PC panels will omit it. Again, i'm not sure.

 

[toyota]

The difference is, 960x560 is too low of a resolution for a 24" + panel to begin with.

no the difference is that 960x540 looks worse than the next resolution above it so the 1/4 pixel scaling claim does not work out. in other words the lower you go below native resolution the worse it looks and nothing magical happens at the 1/4 pixels resolution along the way on any monitor I have seen. maybe for some tvs this is true but not a single person has shown me a pc monitor actually doing that.

 

[MtSeldon]

no the difference is that 960x540 looks worse than the next resolution above it so the 1/4 pixel scaling claim does not work out. in other words the lower you go below native resolution the worse it looks and nothing magical happens at the 1/4 pixels resolution along the way on any monitor I have seen. maybe for some tvs this is true but not a single person has shown me a pc monitor actually doing that.

Nothing magical happens ,but something special happens at 1/4 pixel scaling. monitor no longer has to do approximation , but just maps the 4 pixel to 1.

 

[toyota]

Nothing magical happens ,but something special happens at 1/4 pixel scaling. monitor no longer has to do approximation , but just maps the 4 pixel to 1.

I have never seen that happen with a monitor. every person here can run their resolution at 1/4 and it will look like **** compared to native res. and again the lower you run, the worse it looks so NOTHING happens at 1/4 on a monitor. 1600x900 will be better looking on a 2560x1440 screen than 1280x720 will be.

 

[MtSeldon]

it may have not been implented on current monitors properly , because there was no need for it. But at 4k , 1/4 scaling makes sense, and probably that it will be done right this time.

We will have to wait and see.

 

[bystander36]

The likelihood is that 4k monitors will have terrible upscaling, as they are meant for PC's, and display manufacturers do not think us PC users care about scaling.

It is far more likely that 4k TV's will have good upscaling, as they are selling it to TV enthusiasts who will be putting in 720p and 1080p content and it will be required for it to upscale well for their displays to sell.

 

[KingFatty]

the lower you run, the worse it looks so NOTHING happens at 1/4 on a monitor. 1600x900 will be better looking on a 2560x1440 screen than 1280x720 will be.

But I'm more interested in the following: does a 1280x720 image look different on a 2560x1440 display vs a 1280x720 display?

That might yield some good results. Anyone have both types of displays and can put them side-by-side for comparison?

Or zoom in on the 1440p display to see if it can do a 1:4 mapping when showing the 720p image?

 

[Mondozei]

But I'm more interested in the following: does a 1280x720 image look different on a 2560x1440 display vs a 1280x720 display?

That might yield some good results. Anyone have both types of displays and can put them side-by-side for comparison?

Or zoom in on the 1440p display to see if it can do a 1:4 mapping when showing the 720p image?

I agree, this is what needs to be done. However, we also need the specific monitor. As previously stated, each monitor is different in this area.

We should have something to base our opinions on, instead of just mindlessly ranting like toyota without any facts/sources backing us up other than anecdotal "I have not seen..."

 

[TrulyUncouth]

I have never seen that happen with a monitor. every person here can run their resolution at 1/4 and it will look like **** compared to native res. and again the lower you run, the worse it looks so NOTHING happens at 1/4 on a monitor. 1600x900 will be better looking on a 2560x1440 screen than 1280x720 will be.

That is not what people are saying. Noone has said 720 would look better on 1440p than 900p on the same monitor. People are saying 720p can scale to a perfect 4:1 ratio of pixels. They are saying if we had a 20" 720p next to a 20" 1440p and both displayed a 720p image, could we tell the difference?

You are changing the entire question as you answer it and then taking the tone that others are idiots for even asking the question.

 

[toyota]

That is not what people are saying. Noone has said 720 would look better on 1440p than 900p on the same monitor. People are saying 720p can scale to a perfect 4:1 ratio of pixels. They are saying if we had a 20" 720p next to a 20" 1440p and both displayed a 720p image, could we tell the difference?

You are changing the entire question as you answer it and then taking the tone that others are idiots for even asking the question.

no that IS what some people have been saying ever since 4k started getting talked about. I see it over and over people saying that 1080 will look about as good on a 4k monitor as 4k will as its 1/4 the pixels. I have said over and over that the lower the res the worse it will look on any monitor. do we really need to go back through the previous thread on this?

 

[AkumaX]

wait a couple more days, when a bunch of us start getting the 4k samsung in our hands

 

[TrulyUncouth]

no that IS what some people have been saying ever since 4k started getting talked about. I see it over and over people saying that 1080 will look about as good on a 4k monitor as 4k will as its 1/4 the pixels. I have said over and over that the lower the res the worse it will look on any monitor. do we really need to go back through the previous thread on this?

I have not seen that anywhere in this forum, let alone in this thread... Care to point it out? I think you may be misreading what these people are saying. I think people are just excited because for once in recent monitor history we have a res that even when cut in 1/4th is equal to most modern monitors.

 

[toyota]

I have not seen that anywhere in this forum, let alone in this thread... Care to point it out? I think you may be misreading what these people are saying. I think people are just excited because for once in recent monitor history we have a res that even when cut in 1/4th is equal to most modern monitors.

you have to be kidding me. that has been the very thing I argue about every time someone brings up this topic. it gets said by some that because its 1/4 the pixels it wont look bad. in fact some people act as if it will look as good as native. how many times have I said the lower the res the worse it will look? 1/4 does NOT change that at all on any monitor I am aware of. even you wanted to argue this in the other thread but not one person has shown a monitor that has this magically perfect 1/4 scaling. I am not saying it cant happen, I am saying SHOW ME.

 

[Lonyo]

you have to be kidding me. that has been the very thing I argue about every time someone brings up this topic. it gets said by some that because its 1/4 the pixels it wont look bad. in fact some people act as if it will look as good as native. how many times have I said the lower the res the worse it will look? 1/4 does NOT change that at all on any monitor I am aware of. even you wanted to argue this in the other thread but not one person has shown a monitor that has this magically perfect 1/4 scaling. I am not saying it cant happen, I am saying SHOW ME.

No. They are saying 1080p on a 4k monitor should look exactly the same as 1080p on a 1080p monitor because the pixel mapping can be done consistently, only it would be 4:1 instead of 1:1, so there should be no blurring as pixels should be able to map properly.

NO ONE is saying 1080p on a 4k monitor looks as good as 4k on a 4k monitor.
They are saying that 1080p on a 4k monitor should look the same as 1080p on a 1080p monitor.

It is NOT about a lower resolution looking as good or better. It is about the CONTENT with a fixed resolution looking the same no matter what the display resolution, when it can map with 100% accuracy, eliminating potential blurring that would occur with non-multiple resolutions (e.g. 720p on a 1080p monitor would look worse than 720p on a 1440p monitor because it doesn't map precisely).

Your post seems to be talking about two different things. One is lower res not looking as good, and then you talk about no monitor having perfect scaling.

That's fine, but the two things are entirely unrelated, and the first has absolutely nothing to do with this thread. This thread is only about the second, which is basically... do any 4k monitors work properly with 4:1 pixel mapping for 1080p.

 

[Gloomy]

The thing that people are forgetting is that higher resolutions resolve more detail. That's why it's called resolution.

So while it's true a 4:1 ratio will let you avoid scaling artifacts, it's still 4x less detail than native resolution.

900p vs 720p on a 1440p display though, I'd take the 720 and use antialiasing enough to match 900p's performance.

 

[blackened23]

you have to be kidding me. that has been the very thing I argue about every time someone brings up this topic. it gets said by some that because its 1/4 the pixels it wont look bad. in fact some people act as if it will look as good as native. how many times have I said the lower the res the worse it will look? 1/4 does NOT change that at all on any monitor I am aware of. even you wanted to argue this in the other thread but not one person has shown a monitor that has this magically perfect 1/4 scaling. I am not saying it cant happen, I am saying SHOW ME.

Toyota, I guess you just need to see it in person. Go to best buy or something and look for some of the UHDTVs running 1080p content. I don't know how to explain it's different, but it is. Whether all panels have this feature for scaling, I don't know, but it is very convincing in real world use. I dare say it looks similar to native 1080p.

The real question is whether this will be supported and used on PC 4k monitors. I don't know. Now in theory I would agree with you that scaling generally looks terrible; look, we ALL know this. We've all used LCDs and IPS panels for years just like you, and we know that scaling generally sucks. But like I said, there's something different with scaling on some 4k panels. I'll search around for a technical explanation later, but seeing it in person - I was quite surprised at how good it was. Personally for me it put me at ease for buying a big screen 4k UHDTV in the coming years, because 1080p content will look great on it. I'm not buying one immediately of course (too expensive) but when the time comes, I won't second guess the purchase.

Hopefully we'll get more reviews on these PC 4k panels to see if they support something similar. Now the bigger concern with 4k panels right now, to me, is getting IZGO and IPS 4k panels at more reasonable price points. And GPU horsepower for 4k at more reasonable price points. (as opposed to 2x 290x or 2x 780ti) I understand the 4k TN panels are going to be cheap, but it's TN. I don't know. I've seen some TN panels that look fantastic and according to Linus, the Samsung TN 4k panel is significantly better than standard TN's. We'll see I guess. I'm not strictly anti-TN, but I would like to see more reviews on these things.

 

[Skurge]

Yeah,

As soon as I get my 4K monitor in a few days. I will let you guys know how it scales.