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Jetcat3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 3, 2015
757
528
Hey y'all! So I understand that the Retina MacBook's screen resolution is 2304 X 1440 pixels. If I click the 1440P option on a YouTube video, will it display that YouTube video at 2304 X 1440 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio, or will it default to 1920 X 1080 pixels? Thanks so much for any help on this!
 
By default the screen emulates a 1280x800 screen. On the Mac there is no native 2304x1440 mode without using Terminal tricks.
 
By default the screen emulates a 1280x800 screen. On the Mac there is no native 2304x1440 mode without using Terminal tricks.

Oh ok. When you select 1080P on a YouTube video will it be playing in true 1080P though?
 
I think it will believe it is on a 1280x800 display and show 720p output.

Thanks. That's weird. Doesn't the screen emulate 1280 X 800 times 2? 2560 X 1600 and then downscales that to meet the 2304 X 1440 pixel panel on the MacBook? Sorry for all of the questions, I'm just trying to understand this all.
 
Lots of bad info in this thread.

Playing back video on a retina mac is a special case, and Apple have accounted for this in their developer documentation. Applications playing back video have the option of playing the video at the video's native resolution, and upscaling or downscaling to fit the *native display of the Mac* (2304x1440 in this case).

In other words, it doesn't matter if your MacBook is running at native, scaled, or some other resolution. When you play a 1440p video, it's going to render the video natively at 1440p then scale it to fit the Macbook's *native* screen.

Note that 1440p is a 16:9 resolution and the Macbook is a 16:10 display. So a 1440p video will not fit properly on the screen without being scaled down to about 2304x1296.
 
Lots of bad info in this thread.

Playing back video on a retina mac is a special case, and Apple have accounted for this in their developer documentation. Applications playing back video have the option of playing the video at the video's native resolution, and upscaling or downscaling to fit the *native display of the Mac* (2304x1440 in this case).

In other words, it doesn't matter if your MacBook is running at native, scaled, or some other resolution. When you play a 1440p video, it's going to render the video natively at 1440p then scale it to fit the Macbook's *native* screen.

Note that 1440p is a 16:9 resolution and the Macbook is a 16:10 display. So a 1440p video will not fit properly on the screen without being scaled down to about 2304x1296.

Thanks for your information. Wouldn't the MacBook just scale the 1440P option in YouTube to 2304 X 1440? I think 2304 X 1296 is actually 16:9 aspect ratio. 2304 X 1440 is 16:10 aspect ratio.
 
Thanks for your information. Wouldn't the MacBook just scale the 1440P option in YouTube to 2304 X 1440? I think 2304 X 1296 is actually 16:9 aspect ratio. 2304 X 1440 is 16:10 aspect ratio.

No, 1440p is a 16:9 resolution. So it's a 16:9 video. You can't show a 2560 pixel wide video on a 2304 pixel wide screen without squishing it, or you can keep the correct aspect ratio and scale it to 2304x1296, which is the largest resolution which would fit on the screen without distorting the aspect ratio.
 
Playing back video on a retina mac is a special case, and Apple have accounted for this in their developer documentation. Applications playing back video have the option of playing the video at the video's native resolution, and upscaling or downscaling to fit the *native display of the Mac* (2304x1440 in this case).

Thanks for the answer, this has been bothering me for some time too. I imagine apps like VLC and QuickTime support this but would it be the same for HTML5 video on sites like YouTube or Vimeo too?
 
No, 1440p is a 16:9 resolution. So it's a 16:9 video. You can't show a 2560 pixel wide video on a 2304 pixel wide screen without squishing it, or you can keep the correct aspect ratio and scale it to 2304x1296, which is the largest resolution which would fit on the screen without distorting the aspect ratio.

Oh that makes more sense. Thank you! So what resolution would a 1080P video be in on the MacBook's display? Some scaled version of 16:9? Thanks again.
 
Oh that makes more sense. Thank you! So what resolution would a 1080P video be in on the MacBook's display? Some scaled version of 16:9? Thanks again.

I don't understand the question. A 1080p video is... 1080p!

It will of course be scaled up to fill the screen. Again, in full screen, a 16:9 1080p video would be scaled up to about 2304x1296. Pretty much *any* 16:9 video played back on a Macbook is going to be scaled to 2304x1296.

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Thanks for the answer, this has been bothering me for some time too. I imagine apps like VLC and QuickTime support this but would it be the same for HTML5 video on sites like YouTube or Vimeo too?

When most applications ask the OS for the display resolution, OS X will return the "looks like" resolution. So a word processor asks the Macbook what the display resolution is, and gets back "1200x800."

However some applications like games and video players get the physical native resolution returned.

So I don't think they need to "do" anything special to operate this way.
 
I think he's asking if it will play a 1080p video scaled up for the display or a 1440p video scaled down for the display.

I still don't understand. If you're playing a 1080p video, you're playing a 1080p video. If you're playing a 1440p video, you're playing a 1440p video. In either case, it's going to be scaled up or down to fit the width of the display.
 
I think he's asking if it will play a 1080p video scaled up for the display or a 1440p video scaled down for the display.

Exactly. I was just wondering if the display downscales and fits 1080P in a 16:9 aspect ratio, or if the display upscales the 1080P video to 2304 X 1296.
 
Exactly. I was just wondering if the display downscales and fits 1080P in a 16:9 aspect ratio, or if the display upscales the 1080P video to 2304 X 1296.

A 1440p video will be downscaled and a 1080p video will be upscaled, both to fit the width of the display.
 
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