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Comment by threatofrain | Hacker News Reader

IMO GiB and gigabit are deliberately consumer-confusing terms with an even clearer standard definition.

Same with 4K, prior to it the number was used to describe the height of the screen (480, 720, 1080) but then 4K describes the width which confuses people into thinking it has 4x the resolution of 1080 when it’s really 2160 (double the resolution.)

Double the linear resolution. 4x the pixels.

HD ~= 1080p ~= 1K. 4 x 1080p ~= 4K.

But 4K isn’t 4x 1080 (as a description of height) it is 2x

Yes they went from counting interlaced vertical lines to progressive lines, to the number of 1080P pixels. The 4 in 4K refers to the number increase in pixel count.

The challenge there was combining code systems. 4K as a standard had been used for a relatively long time in digital cinema and editing, and I believe the long-dimension standard was chosen based on telecine processes for scanning film for digital editing and effects. Consumer tech wasn't anywhere near those sorts of resolutions for a very long time, and the 480/720/1080 definition was based on TV broadcasts displayed with CRT scanlines. Then consumer display density rose to the point that it became relevant, and 4K was the preexisting professional name for digital displays in that resolution. It's complicated, but I don't think the choice was intended to confuse.

4K is the successor to 2K. It's not deliberately misleading. Every resolution has had several names:

• 480p/480i, SD

• 720p/720i, HD

• 1080p/1080i, full HD, 2K*

• 2160p, ultra HD, 4K*

* actually refers to several resolutions with different aspect ratios, but roughly the same pixel count

But 4K is 4x the 1080 / FullHD. It's twice as wide, and twice as tall, it's four 1080 screens glued together.

But definitely there is nothing 4000 about it, it's 3840 by 2160, about 8.3 megapixels.

Both powers of 1000 and 1024 are common in computing depending on the context (no it is not just a hard drive thing). Surely it is only reasonable that the non-SI quantities get their own prefix to distinguish them from the SI quantities?

I see consumer confusion as based on our ability to guess whether there's going to be a mismatch between communication and understanding, and despite technical correctness. Admittedly that example is pretty marginal, so I added a better one.

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