What is 360p?

360p is a standard definition (SD) video resolution with 480x360 pixels when the video is in a 4:3 aspect ratio and 640x360 pixels when the video is at a 16:9 aspect ratio. This resolution is commonly used for streaming videos in a bandwidth and data-constrained environment or on smaller mobile screen sizes.

The number '360' represents the count of vertical lines in the video. This number is usually representative of the video quality. Video resolutions such as 480p or 720p, with more vertical lines, have higher visual quality.

The letter 'p' in this representation of video resolution denotes 'progressive scan'. Progressive scan is one of the two ways in which videos are displayed, the other being interlaced scan (represented by the letter 'i' in the video resolution notation, like 480i). In this type of scan, both the even and odd scan lines in a video frame, from the top to the bottom, are displayed simultaneously on the screen, providing a smoother and clearer image compared to interlaced scanning.

While 360p is not the highest quality video resolution, it helps deliver a buffer-free video streaming experience because of its low data requirements.

Try Imagekit's Video API to deliver videos at 360p or for adaptive bitrate streaming that automatically adapts the video resolution to the viewer's network speed.

Some Examples of Applications of 360p Video Resolution

Sharing informational content: Online courses, instructional videos, or even news videos, where the focus of the video is on delivering information rather than high visual quality, can use 360p video resolution for delivery content.

360p for viewing content on mobile: Smartphones and tablets have smaller screens where the lower resolution of a video is less noticeable. Also, hundreds of videos can be loaded on many websites and social media platforms in a single browsing session. Starting a video at a low resolution like 360p helps conserve data and improve the start time for video streaming.

360p for low bandwidth areas: In regions with slower internet speeds, 360p allows viewers to stream content without excessive buffering, ensuring a smoother viewing experience. This is also noticeable when you watch videos on streaming services like YouTube, and the player downgrades the video quality by switching to 360p resolution, which requires lesser bandwidth to continue streaming the video (using the technique of Adaptive Bitrate Streaming).

For low-latency streaming requirements: In scenarios such as a web conference, an event broadcast, or a gaming stream, where the timeliness of the video delivery is the most important, reducing the video resolution to 360p reduces the amount of data to be loaded and therefore improves the streaming experience.

Advantages and Limitations of 360p

Advantages of 360p Video Resolution

Better streaming on low-bandwidth scenarios: Because of the smaller video size needed to load videos, 360p videos also require less bandwidth to stream. For example, it would take less data download to play 1 second of a 360p video, compared to 1 second of a 1080p video. This makes it suitable for users on a slower internet connection.
Lesser data usage when streaming: As mentioned earlier, 360p videos consume less data when loading on mobile. This makes it ideal for users with limited data or costly data plans looking to conserve data usage while streaming video on mobile.
Lesser storage requirement: Videos with 360p resolution also take up less space in local or cloud storage, making them efficient for archiving low-quality variants of videos.

Limitations of 360p Video Resolution

Poor visual quality: The lower resolution of 360p video results in less sharp and detailed visuals on screens. This poor resolution makes it unsuitable for viewing on larger screens. For example, you would notice it if you watched a sport like tennis on an HD TV. With the tennis video streaming at 360p, spotting the ball many times is impossible.
Not suitable for modern-day use: The low-resolution 360p video is not ideal for professional or high-quality video production where higher resolutions like 1080p, or now even 4K, are preferred. Most customers now have devices and Wi-Fi speeds that can support viewing of higher resolution content, and therefore, they do not like getting 360p SD video resolution.

360p vs Other Video Resolutions

Below is a list of some other video resolutions. All of these resolutions are better than 360p in terms of visual quality. We are considering a video aspect ratio 16:9 when reporting the video dimensions below.

480p: These videos have a resolution of 854x480 pixels. It is slightly better than 360p regarding video quality and maintains a reasonable data usage level.
720p (HD): With a frame resolution of 1280x720 pixels, 720p video resolution offers significantly better video quality. It is commonly referred to as high-definition or HD resolution in streaming. Given the improvement in screen quality and network speeds, it is one of the more common video resolutions for viewing content today.
1080p (Full HD): At 1920x1080 pixels of frame size, 1080p provides high-definition clarity suitable for professional content and high-quality streaming. Most modern televisions and content on online streaming services like Netflix or YouTube are now available in 1080p Full HD resolution, and it is likely that you view videos in this resolution every day.
4K (Ultra HD): With a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels, 4K delivers exceptional clarity and detail, with a life-like immersive video experience. While not much content is currently available in 4K resolution, and the video sizes are massive with this resolution, it still provides an exceptional viewing experience on supported large screens.

Conclusion

360p is one of the lower video resolutions. While it does not provide great video quality, and most modern recording and display devices can support much higher resolutions, 360p is still used on smaller devices like mobile phones or in cases where the bandwidth is limited, and data usage needs to be minimized. It also helps provide a buffer-free video viewing experience by downgrading the video resolution from 720p to 1080p when the viewer's internet speed drops.

You can try Imagekit's Video API to deliver videos at 360p or for adaptive bitrate streaming that automatically adapts the video resolution to the viewer's network speed.