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Native 720p Vs Upscaled 1080p: A Practical Review of the Advantages and Disadvantages



As 4k TVs are the norm, native 4k content is also easy to find on most streaming apps like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video. Physical video sources, like Blu-ray players and gaming consoles, are starting to support a 4k resolution as well, but they were limited to 1080p for a long time. Regular Blu-ray discs are 1080p, and there are now 4k Ultra HD Blu-ray discs as well, but it's an entirely new format and requires you to upgrade your Blu-ray player and purchase new 4k Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. The original Xbox One and PS4 were limited to 1080p, and then the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X/S, followed by the PS5 and Xbox Series X, were each released with 4k support.




Native 720p Vs Upscaled 1080p




The two photos above illustrate an identical image at different native resolutions, which means the image's resolution and the TV's resolution are exactly the same. The first photo is a 4k image displayed on the Hisense H9G, and the second is a 1080p image displayed on the TCL 3 Series 2019.


Native 4k content is very popular, especially on streaming apps, but some of what you watch may still be lower-resolution content upscaled to UHD, which will look different from native 4k. To present lower-resolution material on a 4k TV, the TV has to perform a process called upscaling. This process increases the pixel count of a lower-resolution image, allowing a picture meant for a screen with fewer pixels to fit a screen with many more. However, it doesn't increase the detail of the image since the signal has the same amount of information. Above you can see the difference between a 1080p resolution on the 4k Hisense and on the 1080p TCL.


In the United States, there are two standard resolutions for cable TV broadcasts: 720p and 1080i. Much like 1080p, the number refers to the vertical resolution of the screen, 720 and 1080 pixels. The letter refers to either progressive scan or interlaced scan. Every TV sold today uses progressive scan, but they're also compatible with a 1080i signal.


Hey everyone Im trying to figure out if Halo Reach looks better upscaled to 1080p or at its native 720p. Ive heard that upscaling has less jaggies but blander textures and native is the opposite (jaggies but better textures)


The upscaling process helps a 4K TV fill up its digital canvas when showing low-resolution content. When 1080p content is not upscaled to 4K on a 4K television, it will occupy only one-fourth of the screen (since 4K is four times the size of Full HD).


With the combination of these methods and some color and contrast effects thrown in for good measure, your 4K television produces visuals that do not look very different from a native 4K image, and they are certainly better than native 1080p content.


Some 4K TVs do a splendid job in that pursuit, and quite a few leave a bit to desire. But at the end of it all, or irrespective of how different 4K TVs go about the processing, visuals upscaled to 4K generally look better than HD or 1080p content.


if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined')ez_ad_units.push([[728,90],'planethifi_com-box-3','ezslot_2',189,'0','0']);__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-planethifi_com-box-3-0');Currently, the objective of the upscale from 720p to 1080p is to enjoy an improved bitrate encoding (4) on YouTube videos (5). This enhancement improves the user experience in the aforementioned platform (6) and for others as well (3). The same can be said about the improvement in bitrate encoding when upscaling from 1080p to 1440p (2), or the enhancements from 1440p upwards (1)


if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined')ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'planethifi_com-banner-1','ezslot_3',191,'0','0']);__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-planethifi_com-banner-1-0');YouTube has equivalences defined between video format and bitrates. In the case of footage in 720p, it is convenient an upscale 720p to 1080p because the bitrate is capped at 9.5 Mbps with 720p and at 15 Mbps with 1080p.


if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined')ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'planethifi_com-leader-1','ezslot_7',193,'0','0']);__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-planethifi_com-leader-1-0');Upscale 720p to 1080p format will not add more information to the new format because it will not have more information than the one available in the native 720p digital asset.


If you watch a video recorded in 720p in a 1080p display, such as the Pioneer Kuro TV, the quality will not be improved. All TVs and monitors are able to adapt to the native format of the video, but this does not improve the quality of the original 720p.


Our home theater aficionados want to know everything about video definitions and configurations. So we studied 720p, how to scale it to 1080p the right way, and compared 1080p with 1440p and demonstrated why 1440p is not always better. Likewise, we had the urge to compare 1440k with 4K and try to find out how much are we gaining with the change.


But here's the catch: AMD FSR and Nvidia DLSS go about things in dramatically different ways. Nvidia's DLSS uses fancy pants AI and so-called 'deep learning' (hence the name Deep Learning Super Sampling). This uses industrial levels of compute power to analyse a given game, learn how best to upscale that game's specific visual content, and then use dedicated AI hardware in Nvidia GPUs (those Tensor cores) to algorithmically apply these learnings to create upscaled output to rival true native rendering for clarity and detail.


On the downside, it lacks the magic of DLSS, which at its best can look almost indistinguishable from native resolution. Put another way, you know that softening and blurring of image quality you get when running non-native resolutions? That conventional upscaling, when you're running, say 1080p on a 1440p panel or 1440p on a 4K monitor?


In this first iteration of FSR, four quality modes are offered: Performance, Balanced, Quality and Ultra Quality. At any given output resolution, each level pertains to a particular input resolution from which the output is scaled. When running at an output resolution of 4K, for instance, Performance mode begins with an input resolution of 1080p, which is then processed and upscaled to 4K.


It is with FidelityFX Super Resolution, albeit only just when running at the top Ultra Quality setting. That makes sense given that Ultra involves a very high and close-to-native input resolution. But even in Performance mode, FSR is definitely a touch sharper than simply scaling 1080p all the way up to 4K.


The final piece of the puzzle is performance. AMD reckons on up to 2.4x boosts in performance at 4K. We achieved around 2x in Godfall, so it's a plausible claim. But those gains will of course apply to Performance mode, which involves upscaling from 1080p. You would never, ever confuse FSR in Performance mode for native 4K gaming, not even close.


Yet if anime is sold on Blu-Ray, it is (usually) in a 1080p format. One can assume that it is upscaled from its original mastering resolution, or perhaps even a lower resolution than the master. (Ex. mastered at 900p, resized to 720p for distribution to TV networks, then those 720p versions are upscaled to 1080p for the Blu-Ray.)


My second example will be a frame from Makoto Shinkai's Kotonoha no Niwa or "The Garden of Words". The movie is not only beautifully drawn and animated but also produced at FullHD resolution. We will now upscale the image to 4k using a bilinear resizer and reverse the scaling afterwards. The untouched source frame Source.BilinearResize(3840,2160) Source.BilinearResize(3840,2160).Debilinear(1920,1080) This time the images are even more similar, because no artifacts were added after upscaling. As you can see, using inverse kernels to reverse scaling is quite effective and will usually restore the original image accurately. This is desirable, as it allows the encoder to apply a reverse scaling algorithm to release in 720p, significantly decreasing the release's filesize. The 720p video will be upscaled by the leecher's video player, potentially using high quality scaling methods like the ones implemented in MadVR. Releasing in native resolution will therefore not just save space, but may even improve the image quality on the consumer's end.


Unfortunately there are only few ways of determining the native resolution. The main source is anibin, a japanese blog that analyzes anime to find its native resolution. In order to find an anime, you have to get the original title from MyAnimeList, AniSearch, AniDB, or any other source that has Kanji/Kana titles. Non Non Biyori Repeat's japanese title is "のんのんびより りぴーと", and if you copy-paste it into the search bar on anibin, you should be getting this result. Even if you don't understand japanese, the numbers should speak for themselves. In this case the resolution is 1504x846. This is above 720p but below 1080p, so you have multiple options. In this case I would recommend encoding in 1080p or using a regular resizer (like Spline36) if you need a 720p version. In some cases even scaling back to anibin's resolution does not get rid of the ringing, either because the studio didn't use a bilinear resizer or the analysis was incorrect due to artifacts caused by TV compression, so I wouldn't bother messing with the native resolution. It's not like you were gonna release in 846p, right? Edit: Apparently there are people out there who genuinely believe releasing a 873p video is a valid option. This is not wrong from an objective standpoint, but you should never forget that a majority of the leechers does not understand encoding and is likely to ignore your release, because "Only an idiot would release in 8xxp".


DLSS stands for deep learning super sampling. It's a type of video rendering technique that looks to boost framerates by rendering frames at a lower resolution than displayed and using deep learning, a type of AI, to upscale the frames so that they look as sharp as expected at the native resolution. For example, with DLSS, a game's frames could be rendered at 1080p resolution, making higher framerates more attainable, then upscaled and output at 4K resolution, bringing sharper image quality over 1080p. 2ff7e9595c


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