Whats the deal with "1080p on phones"?

[ThatConfusedMofo]

I'm not understanding this 1080p on phones business, isn't 1080p 1920 x 1080? Now theres phones comming out claiming they play 1080p videos yet the screen's resolution is far less than 1920 x 1080. Can someone please explain this to me.

 

[buwish]

It doesn't have so much to do with the size of the screen, but rather how many vertical and horizontal pixel lines they can cram into a given screen. So, a 720p screen will have 720 vertical and horizontal lines (each way), hence why you get high definition. 1080p is the same way.

 

[ThatConfusedMofo]

Okay understandable, but for example people claim the iPhone 4 supports 1080p, yet its screen is only 960 x 640. I assume it just resizes the video to fit the 960 x 640 screen right?

If that is true that means the phone doesn't support "real" 1080p playback, correct?

 

[buwish]

Correct. The resize is done by the hardware, i.e. compression. So basically, smart phone tech is has advanced to the point where a given phone can "handle" a 1080p video in the sense that it is converted to the screen size, yet looks ultra sharp and clear.

 

[ThatConfusedMofo]

Best answer selected by ThatConfusedMofo.

 

[ThatConfusedMofo]

Thanks's for clearing that up...phones these days!