4K or UHD: Do you know the difference and what the terms are all about? The answer is less spectacular than you think.

Once upon a time there was a plasma television that stood in good condition in its master’s living room. And they boasted that it was HD Ready. In the meantime, it probably ekes out an existence on the rubbish heap, because its plasma technology is hopelessly outdated and no one claims to be HD-ready any more. The Full HD resolution followed, which has since been replaced by 4K or UHD.

And as if that weren’t enough, 8K is the next step towards sharper images. As nice as all the abbreviations sound, they are also confusing. This is nothing more than the resolution of the image – i.e. how many pixels are in width and height on the screen. The Full HD resolution is about 1920 pixels wide and 1080 high.

4K and UHD: That’s the difference

And the cuts 4K and UHD say nothing more. 4K and UHD? That’s the same thing, a few voices will now claim. But that is not entirely correct. Many manufacturers use the terms as if they are synonymous, but that is not the truth. Strictly speaking, 4K means a resolution of 4096 x 2160 pixels. The abbreviation is also derived from the resolution: 4K stands for 4000. The letter stands for “kilo”, i.e. thousand. In English-speaking countries, the “K” is often used as an abbreviation for the number.

And that’s exactly where the term 4K comes from – more precisely from the film and cinema industry. On the other hand, manufacturers of televisions speak of UHD. This stands for Ultra High Definition and doesn’t quite come close to 4K. The abbreviation describes a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels. It has established itself in the manufacture of televisions and the resolution is exactly four times as sharp as Full HD. The table below disentangles each resolution and its associated terms.

LG OLED55CS9LA: There UHD OLED TV

An interesting representative of the UHD televisions is the LG OLED55CS9LA TV 139 cm (55 inches). It relies on OLED technology – i.e. self-illuminating iodes – and thus achieves a deeper black and great contrasts compared to LCD televisions. Of course, the TV also offers everything else that a modern television should deliver. Connect it to the Internet via WLAN and install Netflix or Amazon Prime Video on the device. You can command via Alexa or the Google Assistant without a remote control and it offers Dolby Atmos for optimal listening pleasure.

4K TVs: Does the Difference Matter?

There are no televisions on the market with a resolution of 4096 x 2160 pixels. The format is more at home in cinemas. But that doesn’t matter, because Blue Rays also have a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels and the human eye can hardly tell the difference between 4096 and 3840. By the way: If a higher-resolution image is fed in, most modern televisions downscale the image to the native resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels.

Note: This article was first published in March 2021.

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