
Now, its importance with smaller text is undeniable, but what about with movies? 4:2:0 subsampling has been an industry standard for a long time now, and it isn't without reason. It's also important to note that subsampling on a PC requires using the YCbCr/YUV format as RGB does not support it. It usually makes standard text look fuzzy and reduces its clarity. While this pattern showcases an extreme case, similar side effects are visible in normal usage as well. While 4:2:2 fares better than 4:2:0, it still isn't what most would consider acceptable.

The text is all muddled together, and a lot of it is completely unreadable. Samsung UN55JU7100 4k 60Hz outside PC modeĪs you can see, the lack of detail is clearly apparent in the bottom two rows.

Because of bandwidth limitations from internet speeds and HDMI, this makes for much more efficient use of current systems. In the YUV format, luma is only 1/3rd of the signal, so reducing the amount of chroma data helps a lot. This allows you to maintain picture clarity while effectively reducing the file size up to 50%. What chroma subsampling does is reduce the amount of color information in the signal to allow more luminance data instead. Color information, chrominance, or simply chroma is important as well, but has less visual impact. For example, a black and white image will not look less detailed than a color picture. Luminance, or luma for short, defines most of the picture since contrast is what forms the shapes that you see on the screen. This reduces bandwidth without significantly affecting picture quality.Ī video signal is split into two different aspects: luminance information and color information. What is Chroma Subsampling?Ĭhroma subsampling is a type of compression that reduces the color information in a signal in favor of luminance data.

After all, what good is a display that has no way to transfer the signal from the player to the device? One of the easiest ways to transfer more data is to compress the image, which allows for more information to be sent through the cable than it could normally support.

As displays have gotten more advanced, supporting ever higher resolutions and faster refresh rates, one of the biggest limiting factors in their development has been the available bandwidth of the cables that connect our devices.
