Digital videos and photos are made up of millions of tiny pixels, or picture elements. Resolution is expressed as the number of horizontal and vertical pixels, such as 1,920 x 1,080. The higher the numbers, the greater the detail.

Video Resolution
You’ll find the video resolution of a camcorder expressed by their vertical pixel counts, such as 1080p and 1080i (1,920 x 1,080) and 720p (1,280 x 720). Both of these HD resolutions have crisper detail than the old standard-definition video format, which is 480 pixels in height.

The “p” and “i” letters in video resolution figures describes how an image is redrawn on a screen for playback. Camcorders that use a progressive-scan video format (1080p and 720p) will record and play back full frames of video with every screen refresh. Interlaced 1080i models record and play back frames of video twice as often as 1080p or 720p camcorders, but they only display half of a video frame at a time.

Photo Resolution
The resolution of a digital camera can be determined based on its megapixel rating, which indicates the total number of pixels each model can devote to a photo. For example, a 16MP camera’s image sensor may capture pictures of up to 4,624 x 3,464 resolution, or roughly 16 million pixels.

Compared to HD video, digital photos can deliver a much greater resolution. (A frame of 1080p video is the equivalent of 2MP.) Cameras that can snap highresolution photos allow you to enlarge and/or crop images without losing sharpness of detail and ending up with a blurry or pixelated shot.