Max MAX video is not 720p its 640p and thats not HD

[Chameleon]

If anyone is interested, check out MediaInfo when you download a MAX video. It's not 720pHD; it's 640p SD.

[bricks]

Are the black bars at the top and bottom cut off by any chance in the video?

[KidJoe]

If anyone is interested, check out MediaInfo when you download a MAX video. It's not 720pHD; it's 640p SD.

What title? What resolution does MediaInfo show?

I have seen some "odd" resolutions. for example 1600x666 when downloading Twister recently (I selected H265 SDR 1080p). While that is not 720p, 1600x900 (aka 900p) is considered HD+ by monitor makers. And seeing as Twister was shot as 2.4:1 aspect ratio, and this file contains no top/bottom black bars.

1600x666 is at 2.4:1 aspect ratio, so it is HD+ -> Just a step above 720p HD, but again not very common resolution.

I have NOT yet tried playing this file back on a Roku, FireTV or the like. So I don't know if they will handle this odd resolution correctly.

EDIT: For Twister, I did select 1080p, during download I got the "DRM Encryption" it will be downloaded as 720p message. So I expected a proper 720p download (in this case 1280 x 532 which is 720p at 2.4:1 aspect ratio).

While it might not technically be considered a bug that I selected 1080p, it couldn't download it because of DRM, so StreamFab downloaded "the next best resolution", and even though HD+ may be a real resolution and available for download, due to the potential impacts of play back, I'd rather have standard resolutions of 480p/540p/720p/1080p/4K be downloaded when what I select isn't possible, not something in between like 900p.

[Chameleon]

Posted by KidJoe
What title? What resolution does MediaInfo show?

Take a look at House of the Dragon for instance.
HD videos have a minimum resolution of 1280x720 pixels, commonly known as 720p, but can also have a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, also known as 1080p. This increased pixel count results in clearer and more detailed images and videos.

[CocoJambo]

Strange things are happening with max resolutions lately

[Chameleon]

HD videos have a minimum resolution of 720p pixels.

[KidJoe]

Take a look at House of the Dragon for instance.
HD videos have a minimum resolution of 1280x720 pixels, commonly known as 720p, but can also have a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, also known as 1080p. This increased pixel count results in clearer and more detailed images and videos.

1080p is considered FHD, 720p is considered HD. Yes. But you are not considering aspect ratio, which can bring about letter boxing or pillar bars.

720p videos with an aspect ratio of 16x9 or 1.78:1 are 1280x720p. 1080p videos with an aspect ratio of 16x9 or 1.78:1 are 1920x1080. When you have a 720p or 1080p video file, where the image is 16x9 or they have added black bars to fill it out to 16x9, yes you'll see 1280x720 for 720p and 1920x1080 for 1080p.

Because aspect ratios vary by content, you could see the following for 720p:

1280 x 692 which is 1.85:1
1280 x 544 which is 2.35:1
1280 x 524 which is 2.4:1
960 x 720 is 4x3 or 1.33:1 (think old school TV shows)

For 1080p you'll see....
1920 x 1038 (sometimes 1040) is 1.81:1
1920 x 816 is 2.35:1
1920 x 800 is 2.4:1
1440 x 1080 is 4x3 or 1.33:1 (think old school TV shows)

Of course for 720p or 1080p having an aspect ratio that isn't 16x9 means you'll have black bars top and bottom, or on the left and right, when watching on current wide screen TV's, unless the TV's "zoom" features are used to stretch the picture to fit the screen.

For example, when I watch this particular episode of House of the Dragon on my Sony 43" 4K TV, using my FireTV stick and the Max app, I do have slim black bars above and below the picture. Its not a 16x9 image.

Your MediaInfo shot is even telling you its a 2.0:1 aspect ratio as Max hasn't included the black bars in the image to pad it out to 1280x720.



1280 x 640 is 720p at 2.0:1 aspect ratio (no black bars included to make it 16x9). It is not 640p.

As further example, watch The Dark Night Rises on Max. its shot at 2.4:1 so I'm sure you'll see black bars top and bottom. Then download it using StreamFab. It should download at 4K since its older. While 4K is 3840x2160 when 16x9 or 1.78:1 aspect, The Dark Night 4K downloads at 3840x1600 because its 4K at 2.4:1 aspect.

[AGuyWithAComputer]

SD is 640 x 480 at an aspect ratio of 4:3.

[Dog]

KidJoe pretty much nailed it. For a pedantic level explanation read on (this will also explain why 1280x640 is actually both HD *and* 640p)...

HD, and the other acronyms for various levels of resolution, are not defined by the vertical number of pixels - they're more accurately defined by the width: HD (1280 wide) / FHD (full HD, 1920 wide) / QHD (quad HD, a totally inaccurate descriptor, 2160 wide) / UDH (ultra HD, 3940 wide) / 8K UHD (8K ultra HD, 7880 wide).

The confusion started with the original descriptions for HD (1280) and FHD (1920). They were defined as 1280x720 and 1920x1080, which is based on a 16:9 ratio between width and height since that's the ratio that new TVs were being sold with. Most new movies, however, use a wider (not taller) aspect ratio. It doesn't make sense to encode HD or FHD movies with more horizontal pixels than the number that define the spec since any HD or FHD TV would then have to downsize the picture to properly fit the width of the picture. So, if they are a wider aspect ratio, the number of vertical pixels is reduced so the width can match the width supported by the 'spec' without any resizing (be it HD, FHD, UDH, etc.).

The mistake marketers made when coming up with the descriptions for HD and FHD was with using the height instead of the width - however, this was done partially due to the scanning techniques used at the time. Early HD and FHD displays and media used interlacing (720i & 1080i) which only drew half the lines of a frame at once, with a line being the full width of the frame but only 1 pixel tall. This was possibly due to the transition from video tape to digital. On video tape, each frame was actually divided into two half-frames, with each being called a field - and, of course, 2 fields made an entire frame - this is why pausing video tape often showed two half-frames (the bottom half of one frame on top with the top half of another frame at the bottom) with a bar separating them. Eventually, with video tape going away, progressive scanning (which was capable of displaying all the lines at once - an entire frame) replaced interlaced tech, relegating 720i and 1080i to be forgotten by most - no loss there. Hello 720p and 1080p.

When 4K came out, the original mistake in numerical nomenclature was fixed and the numbers used to describe 'definition' were switched to be based on width. In the middle of this transition is QDH - often referred to as 2K (because it's just over 2K pixels wide - 2160x1440) when 1920x1080 is actually true 2K (just divide 3940, the width of 4K, by 2 and you'll get the result of 1920). QHD is also referred to as 1440 or 1440p since it is 1440 pixels tall - really helpful, right? Which brings up the other point that can confuse people - the terms 2K and 4K don't make complete sense when the common use of 2K means 2160 (just *over* 2,000) and 4K means 3940 (just *under* 4,000). Again, *real* 2K is actually 1,920, which is also just *under* 2,000, but it was already designated as FHD - I guess changing its designation to 2K was determined to be more confusing than inaccurately naming 2160 wide as 2K - after all, QHD needed a numerical designation, and 1440 was based on height, which is what the industry was trying to get away from.

As confusing as this can be, describing 3940 wide as 4K and 7880 wide as 8K is a big improvement since it's less likely to lead to the kind of confusion that Chameleon was dealing with. Well...except for the fact that there is a second 4K resolution that is 4096 wide, and also called 4K, but it is not typically considered 'standard', for whatever that's worth.

If you want to see really, truly confusing (and frankly completely inept) 'standards' definitions, take a look at the requirements and allowances for HDMI 2.1, USB 3.1 and USB 3.2. As if consumers didn't need more unnecessarily complicated sets of specs to wade through...

[Dog]

A quick correction, and a mea culpa since I can no longer edit the previous post.

The correction: Roughly the 4th paragraph... "In the middle of this transition is QDH..." - that should be QHD, not QDH - apologies for any confusion caused.

Mea culpa: Apologies for getting so deep into the weeds on this, and for any mistakes I made. I find this stuff fascinating - it's why I spent half my career in IT and the other half in TV/Video/Film production.

[Dog]

Apologies for this 3rd post (in a row no less). I wanted to make an important correction.

This has been bothering me since I posted, and I finally realized *what* was bothering me. QHD is 2560 wide, not 2160 wide. 2160 is the height of UHD at a 16:9 aspect ratio (3840x2160).

Further QHD is NOT inaccurately named as I said in my original post - this is a mistake I've been making for some time, and it wasn't until I realized I had stated the incorrect width for QHD that I realized I've always been wrong in stating that QHD is inaccurately named.

As many do, I often use HD and FHD interchangeably, referring to 1920 wide as HD when that's actually FHD. If you double FHD, you get 3840 (the width of UHD), which is clearly more than 2560 - and thinking of FHD as HD repeatedly leads me to thinking that 2560 wide shouldn't be called QHD. However, if you double 1280 (you know, actual HD, not FHD), you get 2560, which is the width of QHD. Why is it "quad" HD rather than "double" HD? Because you don't just double the width - you have to also double the height to maintain the aspect ratio, resulting in a total image size is actually 4x the original, not just 2x. Thus QHD.

OK, I'm really done this time. Apologies for any confusion. I'll go back to lurking.