通用非即插即用监视器分辨率
Stare at a list of monitor resolutions long enough and you might notice a pattern: many of the vertical resolutions, especially those of gaming or multimedia displays, are multiples of 360 (720, 1080, 1440, etc.) But why exactly is this the case? Is it arbitrary or is there something more at work?
凝视监视器分辨率足够长的列表，您可能会注意到一种模式：许多垂直分辨率，尤其是游戏或多媒体显示器的垂直分辨率都是360(720、1080、1440等)的倍数。案件？ 它是任意的还是有更多工作要做？
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.
今天的“问答”环节由SuperUser提供，它是Stack Exchange的一个分支，该社区是由社区驱动的Q＆A网站分组。
问题 (The Question)
SuperUser reader Trojandestroy recently noticed something about his display interface and needs answers:
超级用户阅读器Trojandestroy最近注意到了有关他的显示界面的一些问题，需要回答：
YouTube recently added 1440p functionality, and for the first time I realized that all (most?) vertical resolutions are multiples of 360.
YouTube最近添加了1440p功能，并且我第一次意识到所有(大多数？)垂直分辨率都是360的倍数。
Is this just because the smallest common resolution is 480×360, and it’s convenient to use multiples? (Not doubting that multiples are convenient.) And/or was that the first viewable/conveniently sized resolution, so hardware (TVs, monitors, etc) grew with 360 in mind?
这仅仅是因为最小的通用分辨率是480×360，并且使用倍数很方便吗？ (毫无疑问，倍数是方便的。)并且/或者是第一个可视/方便大小的分辨率，因此硬件(电视，显示器等)在考虑360时就增长了吗？
Taking it further, why not have a square resolution? Or something else unusual? (Assuming it’s usual enough that it’s viewable). Is it merely a pleasing-the-eye situation?
更进一步，为什么没有平方分辨率呢？ 还是其他异常？ (假设它足够通常，因此可见)。 这仅仅是令人赏心悦目的情况吗？
So why have the display be a multiple of 360?
那么，为什么显示为360的倍数？
答案 (The Answer)
SuperUser contributor User26129 offers us not just an answer as to why the numerical pattern exists but a history of screen design in the process:
SuperUser提供者User26129不仅为我们提供了关于为什么存在数字模式的答案，而且还为我们提供了过程中屏幕设计的历史记录：
Alright, there are a couple of questions and a lot of factors here. Resolutions are a really interesting field of psychooptics meeting marketing.
好了，这里有几个问题和很多因素。 解决方案是心理医学会议营销中一个非常有趣的领域。
First of all, why are the vertical resolutions on youtube multiples of 360. This is of course just arbitrary, there is no real reason this is the case. The reason is that resolution here is not the limiting factor for Youtube videos – bandwidth is. Youtube has to re-encode every video that is uploaded a couple of times, and tries to use as little re-encoding formats/bitrates/resolutions as possible to cover all the different use cases. For low-res mobile devices they have 360×240, for higher res mobile there’s 480p, and for the computer crowd there is 360p for 2xISDN/multiuser landlines, 720p for DSL and 1080p for higher speed internet. For a while there were some other codecs than h.264, but these are slowly being phased out with h.264 having essentially ‘won’ the format war and all computers being outfitted with hardware codecs for this.
首先，为什么YouTube的360垂直分辨率是360的倍数。这当然是任意的，没有真正的原因。 原因是这里的分辨率不是YouTube视频的限制因素，而是带宽。 YouTube必须重新编码几次上传的每个视频，并尝试使用尽可能少的重新编码格式/比特率/分辨率来覆盖所有不同的用例。 对于低分辨率的移动设备，它们的分辨率为360×240，对于高分辨率的移动设备，分辨率为480p，对于计算机人群，对于2xISDN /多用户固定电话，分辨率为360p；对于DSL，则为720p；对于高速互联网，则为1080p。 一段时间以来，除了h.264之外，还有其他一些编解码器，但是随着h.264本质上“赢得”了格式战争，并且所有计算机都为此配备了硬件编解码器，它们正在逐步被淘汰。
Now, there is some interesting psychooptics going on as well. As I said: resolution isn’t everything. 720p with really strong compression can and will look worse than 240p at a very high bitrate. But on the other side of the spectrum: throwing more bits at a certain resolution doesn’t magically make it better beyond some point. There is an optimum here, which of course depends on both resolution and codec. In general: the optimal bitrate is actually proportional to the resolution.
现在，还有一些有趣的心理光学正在发生。 就像我说的那样：分辨率不是全部。 在非常高的比特率下，具有真正强大压缩能力的720p可能会比240p差。 但另一方面，以一定的分辨率抛出更多的比特并不能使它变得更好。 这里有一个最佳选择，当然这取决于分辨率和编解码器。 通常，最佳比特率实际上与分辨率成正比。
So the next question is: what kind of resolution steps make sense? Apparently, people need about a 2x increase in resolution to really see (and prefer) a marked difference. Anything less than that and many people will simply not bother with the higher bitrates, they’d rather use their bandwidth for other stuff. This has been researched quite a long time ago and is the big reason why we went from 720×576 (415kpix) to 1280×720 (922kpix), and then again from 1280×720 to 1920×1080 (2MP). Stuff in between is not a viable optimization target. And again, 1440P is about 3.7MP, another ~2x increase over HD. You will see a difference there. 4K is the next step after that.
因此，下一个问题是：什么样的解决步骤有意义？ 显然，人们需要将分辨率提高大约2倍才能真正看到(并喜欢)明显的差异。 少于此的东西，很多人根本不会为更高的比特率而烦恼，他们宁愿将自己的带宽用于其他东西。 对此进行了很长时间的研究，这是为什么我们从720×576(415kpix)变为1280×720(922kpix)，然后又从1280×720变为1920×1080(2MP)的重要原因。 两者之间的填充不是可行的优化目标。 同样，1440P约为3.7MP，比HD高出约2倍。 您会在那看到不同。 4K是此后的下一步。
Next up is that magical number of 360 vertical pixels. Actually, the magic number is 120 or 128. All resolutions are some kind of multiple of 120 pixels nowadays, back in the day they used to be multiples of 128. This is something that just grew out of LCD panel industry. LCD panels use what are called line drivers, little chips that sit on the sides of your LCD screen that control how bright each subpixel is. Because historically, for reasons I don’t really know for sure, probably memory constraints, these multiple-of-128 or multiple-of-120 resolutions already existed, the industry standard line drivers became drivers with 360 line outputs (1 per subpixel). If you would tear down your 1920×1080 screen, I would be putting money on there being 16 line drivers on the top/bottom and 9 on one of the sides. Oh hey, that’s 16:9. Guess how obvious that resolution choice was back when 16:9 was ‘invented’.
接下来是360垂直像素的神奇数量。 实际上，魔术数是120或128。如今，所有分辨率都是120像素的某种倍数，而在过去，它们曾经是128的倍数。这是LCD面板行业刚刚发展起来的。 LCD面板使用所谓的线路驱动器，即位于LCD屏幕侧面的小芯片，用于控制每个子像素的亮度。 因为历史上，由于我不确定的原因(可能是内存限制)，可能已经存在这些128或120的分辨率，因此行业标准的行驱动器成为具有360行输出(每个子像素1个)的驱动器。 如果您要拆除1920×1080的屏幕，那我会把钱花在顶部/底部有16个线路驱动器，而侧面之一有9个线路驱动器。 噢，那是16：9。 猜想当“发明” 16：9时，分辨率选择又有多明显。
Then there’s the issue of aspect ratio. This is really a completely different field of psychology, but it boils down to: historically, people have believed and measured that we have a sort of wide-screen view of the world. Naturally, people believed that the most natural representation of data on a screen would be in a wide-screen view, and this is where the great anamorphic revolution of the ’60s came from when films were shot in ever wider aspect ratios.
然后是长宽比的问题。 这确实是一个完全不同的心理学领域，但是可以归结为：从历史上看，人们已经相信并衡量了我们对世界的某种宽屏视图。 人们自然地认为，屏幕上最自然的数据表示是在宽屏视图中进行的，这就是60年代以更大的纵横比拍摄电影时发生的巨大变形。
Since then, this kind of knowledge has been refined and mostly debunked. Yes, we do have a wide-angle view, but the area where we can actually see sharply – the center of our vision – is fairly round. Slightly elliptical and squashed, but not really more than about 4:3 or 3:2. So for detailed viewing, for instance for reading text on a screen, you can utilize most of your detail vision by employing an almost-square screen, a bit like the screens up to the mid-2000s.
从那时起，这种知识就得到了完善，并且几乎被揭穿了。 是的，我们确实有一个广角视图，但实际上可以清晰看到的区域-我们的视觉中心-相当圆。 略呈椭圆形并被压扁，但实际上不超过4：3或3：2。 因此，对于详细查看，例如在屏幕上阅读文本，您可以通过使用几乎方形的屏幕来利用大部分的详细视觉效果，该屏幕有点像直到2000年代中期的屏幕。
However, again this is not how marketing took it. Computers in ye olden days were used mostly for productivity and detailed work, but as they commoditized and as the computer as media consumption device evolved, people didn’t necessarily use their computer for work most of the time. They used it to watch media content: movies, television series and photos. And for that kind of viewing, you get the most ‘immersion factor’ if the screen fills as much of your vision (including your peripheral vision) as possible. Which means widescreen.
但是，这又不是行销的方式。 过去的计算机主要用于生产力和详细的工作，但是随着它们的商品化以及随着媒体消费设备的发展，人们不一定会在大多数时间使用计算机来工作。 他们用它来观看媒体内容：电影，电视连续剧和照片。 对于这种观看方式，如果屏幕尽可能多地覆盖您的视力(包括周围的视力)，您将获得最大的“沉浸因子”。 这意味着宽屏。
But there’s more marketing still. When detail work was still an important factor, people cared about resolution. As many pixels as possible on the screen. SGI was selling almost-4K CRTs! The most optimal way to get the maximum amount of pixels out of a glass substrate is to cut it as square as possible. 1:1 or 4:3 screens have the most pixels per diagonal inch. But with displays becoming more consumery, inch-size became more important, not amount of pixels. And this is a completely different optimization target. To get the most diagonal inches out of a substrate, you want to make the screen as wide as possible. First we got 16:10, then 16:9 and there have been moderately successful panel manufacturers making 22:9 and 2:1 screens (like Philips). Even though pixel density and absolute resolution went down for a couple of years, inch-sizes went up and that’s what sold. Why buy a 19″ 1280×1024 when you can buy a 21″ 1366×768? Eh…
但是还有更多的营销。 当细节工作仍然是重要因素时，人们会关心分辨率。 屏幕上尽可能多的像素。 SGI卖了将近4K的CRT！ 从玻璃基板中获取最大像素量的最佳方法是将其尽可能地切成正方形。 1：1或4：3的屏幕每对角英寸像素最多。 但是随着显示器的日益消费化，英寸尺寸变得越来越重要，而不是像素数量。 这是一个完全不同的优化目标。 为了使基板的对角线长度最大，您需要使屏幕尽可能宽。 首先我们得到了16:10，然后是16：9，并且已经有相当成功的面板制造商制造了22：9和2：1的屏幕(例如Philips)。 尽管像素密度和绝对分辨率下降了几年，但英寸尺寸却上升了，这就是销量。 当您可以购买21英寸1366×768的显示器时，为什么还要购买19英寸1280×1024的显示器呢？ 嗯
I think that about covers all the major aspects here. There’s more of course; bandwidth limits of HDMI, DVI, DP and of course VGA played a role, and if you go back to the pre-2000s, graphics memory, in-computer bandwdith and simply the limits of commercially available RAMDACs played an important role. But for today’s considerations, this is about all you need to know.
我认为这里涵盖了所有主要方面。 当然还有更多； HDMI，DVI，DP以及VGA的带宽限制起了重要作用，如果回到2000年代以前，图形内存，计算机内带宽以及市售RAMDAC的限制就起了重要作用。 但是出于今天的考虑，这就是您需要了解的所有内容。
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通用非即插即用监视器分辨率