Higher Resolution = Worse Video?

Question: I am thinking of getting a 15" laptop with 1080p resolution and intel graphics. Will watching full screen online video such as Hulu be worse than if the resolution was lower?

 

No difference Just get a Dual-Core Processor and you should be fine.

 

If the hulu content is 480P or 720P, then watching it on 1080P screen will lower the quality due to quality loss when scaling. However, most people won't notice the quality difference thus it can be considered the same quality.

 

This.

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I don't think it would look bad at all. My 42" 1080p LCD shows any resolution beautifully.

 

Not really. Flash video is all compressed, and no monitor is exactly 480p or 720p, so it's being scaled regardless. If anything, quality will be higher on a 1080p monitor due to pixel density.

 

Quality will be lower scaling it to a higher resolution than native because the original pixel content will be altered and the computer will have to "compromise" what it should look like when composed of a higher pixel count.

However in saying quality we are using it in the context of comparing it to the source original in its ability to be reproduced without change. If you were to use the word "quality" as a term of "perceived quality" the change would be virtually non existent.

The only way it could maintain its original pixel quality would be if the new pixel count was an exact multiple of the original so that it could have a block of 4 pixels of the same color as the original single pixel.

However today video cards do an outstanding job of scaling, you wont notice the "quality" loss when playing it. Even if you had the native resolution playing directly next to it you probably still wouldn't not feel it looks worse.

The quality loss of streaming video is by far due in largest part to the limited bandwidth that they stream it at and the format they stream it in. In doing this they cause artifacts, blockyness, color deterioration, and lots of other video no-no's but thats the nature of the beast.

So if your hooked on streaming rather than downloading its a situation you have to deal with.

 

The statement that upscaling to a higher resolution while maintaining the same aspect ratio reduces video quality is questionable. Particularly, there exist benchmarks which verify that upscaling may improve video quality (see the discussion here).

Results will depend on the quality of the scaler. But excellent scalers are out there for PCs (e.g., PowerDVD 9/10).

Lastly, I agree with previous comments that upscaling probably wouldn't make much difference in practice on a screen as small as 15".

 

Upscaling alone does not produce better quality unless the pixel count is a multiple of the source which is mostly an exception. E.g. 320x240 up scaled to 640x 480 or 1280x960. However, upscaling with video post processing does produce a bit better perceived quality. What the post processing does is enhance the color and "sharpen" the image and other visually enhancing techniques. Higher resolution is theoretically able to produce better "sharpness" thus post processed image on higher resolution monitor might look better to most people.

 

Yep! How worse is very subjective. As others have said native resolution is best. Anything scaled is a loss in absolute resolution.

Upscaled 480i is a thorn in my side. I'm spoiled, give me well shot BD over any streamed content until we all get high bandwidth fiber.

 

You might want to look into smaller resolution anyways though. That's a lot of 900wasted details. I personally think 1650x1050 or 1600x900 is the perfect resolution for 15" notebooks. Images are sharp and detailed while documents and icons don't look like tiny specs.