Resolution
Also known as: frame resolution, pixel count
How many pixels a single video frame contains, quoted as two dimensions or as a class name, and the most overrated specification.
Updated
What it means
Resolution counts pixels and nothing else. It says nothing about whether a shot is sharp, well exposed or worth watching, and a soft 4K clip is worse than a crisp 1080p one in every way.
The class names are approximations. 4K video covers several different pixel counts depending on the camera and the mode, so the two exact numbers are the only unambiguous description.
What it buys is room rather than quality. A larger frame survives cropping, stabilisation and reframing, which is where the extra pixels actually earn their place in a workflow rather than on a specification sheet.
How it works in practice
Shooting above the delivery size is the useful habit. Recording 4K to deliver 1080p leaves room to crop and stabilise, and downscaling produces a cleaner result through Oversampling.
Delivery is a separate decision from capture. The highest resolution that plays reliably everywhere is lower than the highest a camera records, which is the question Device compatibility exists to settle.
Frame rate frequently matters more. A clip at a higher rate and a lower resolution is better material for slow motion than the reverse, and the camera forces a choice between the two of them.
What to watch out for
It is the number people buy on. Marketing leads with it because it is a single figure, while Bitrate, lens and sensor size decide far more about how a clip actually ends up looking.
Higher resolution raises every other requirement. Cards, disks, upload time and decoding load all grow with it, and a machine that handled 1080p comfortably frequently does not handle 4K at all.
Mixed resolutions in one timeline need a decision. Scaling differences show at a cut, so a sequence settles on one output size and everything else is resampled to reach it.
How RawClip handles it
Clips at different resolutions are handled together and the result is rendered at one size, so a mixed card needs no preparation. Shooting larger than the delivery size is what gives cropping, stabilisation and reframing room to work without softening the picture.