5K resolution is horizontal resolution of about 5,000 pixels. The most common 5K resolution is 5120 × 2880, which has an aspect ratio of 16:9 and is about 14.7 million pixels (just over seven times as many pixels as 1080p Full HD). This resolution is typically used in computer monitors, and is not a standard format in digital television and digital cinematography, which feature 4K resolutions and 8K resolutions.
Contents
- First Camera with 5K Video Capture
- First TV with a 5K Resolution
- First Monitor with a 5K Resolution
- Display Interface and Graphics Card Support
- References
In comparison to 4K UHD (3840 × 2160), the 16:9 5K resolution of 5120 × 2880 offers 1,280 extra columns and 720 extra lines of display area, an increase of 33.33% in each dimension. This additional display area can allow 4K content to be displayed at native resolution without filling the entire screen, which means that additional software such as video editing suite toolbars will be available without having to downscale the content previews.
As of 2016, the world uses 1080p as the mainstream HD standard. However, there is a rapid increase in media content being released in 4K and even 5K resolution. Online streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Video launched videos in 4K resolution in 2014 and are actively expanding their collection of videos in 4K resolution. As 4K content becomes more common, the usefulness of 5K displays in editing and content creation may lead to a higher demand in the future.
First Camera with 5K Video Capture
On April 14, 2008, Red Digital Cinema Camera Company launched one of the first cameras capable of video capture at 5K resolutions. RED EPIC uses the Mysterium X sensor which has a resolution of 5120 × 2700 and can capture at a framerate of up to 100 fps. Cameras with 5K resolution are used occasionally for recording films in digital cinematography.
Some photographic still cameras such as DSLRs can exceed 5K resolution when capturing still images, but not when capturing video. For example, the Canon EOS 6D announced in September 2012 has a maximum resolution of 5472 × 3648 pixels (around 20 megapixels in a 3:2 aspect ratio) which is used for high resolution still images, but it can only capture video at a maximum of 1920 × 1080.
First TV with a 5K Resolution
Samsung first demonstrated its 105 inch UN105S9W curved OLED TV at CES 2014. While Samsung lists the UN105S9W as a 4K UHD TV, it actually has native resolution of 5120 × 2160 (a 64:27 or ≈21:9 aspect ratio) which classifies it as a 5K display due to the horizontal pixel count of ≈5,000.
First Monitor with a 5K Resolution
On September 5, 2014, Dell unveiled the first monitor with a 5K resolution, the UltraSharp UP2715K. This monitor featured a 27 inch 5120 × 2880 display, giving it a pixel density of around 218 px/in. The monitor only supported DisplayPort version 1.2, which is limited to 5120 × 2880 at 30 Hz. To work around this, the UP2715K implemented a system by which the bandwidth of two DisplayPort connections could be combined to achieve 60 Hz, using a picture-by-picture mode to virtually treat the display as two smaller 2560 × 2880 monitors side-by-side and driving each half with a separate DisplayPort connection.
Display Interface and Graphics Card Support
In order to fully utilize a display with a 5K resolution, the source and display both require support for advanced connection interfaces, since traditional interfaces such as VGA or DVI don't provide adequate bandwidth for 5K resolutions at acceptable framerates. The earliest interface to support 5120 × 2880 at 30 Hz or above was DisplayPort version 1.2, which supported the resolution at 30 Hz with 24 bit/px or 30 bit/px color depth. DisplayPort 1.2 was first implemented in the AMD Radeon HD 6970 and other graphics cards of its generation. NVIDIA introduced DisplayPort 1.2 support with the GeForce GTX 680. The GeForce GTX 980 launched in late 2014, introducing support for HDMI 2.0 which supports 5120 × 2880 at 30 Hz with 24 bit/px or 30 bit/px color depth. The GeForce GTX 1080 launched in mid 2016 and was the first graphics card to introduce support for DisplayPort 1.3 and 1.4, which are capable of 5120 × 2880 at 60 Hz with 24 bit/px color depth. It was followed shortly by the AMD RX 480, which introduced support for HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.3/1.4 on the AMD side.
Although 5K 60 Hz over a single cable was only made possible in 2016 with the launch of the GeForce 1000 series and Radeon RX 400 series, monitors which predate DisplayPort 1.3 such as the Dell UP2715K offer the ability to run at 5K 60 Hz by using two DisplayPort 1.2 connections concurrently in a picture-by-picture mode. The Apple Retina 5K iMac released in 2014 used a custom internal interface to drive its display panel at 60 Hz.