480p

What is 480p?

480p is video with 480 horizontal lines of pixels, drawn progressively — the "p" means every line of the frame is rendered in order. It sits at the bottom of the modern quality ladder, one step below 720p, and is what most people mean when they say standard definitionSD (Standard Definition)Standard definition — video below the HD line, in practice 480p (854×480) or smaller. The fallback tier of the resolution ladder.Open definition →.

The older sibling is 480i, where each frame is split into two interlaced half-images. Interlacing was a trick for broadcast bandwidth and is effectively gone from web video: everything you meet online today is progressive.

480p dimensions

The height is fixed at 480. The width depends on the aspect ratio of the source.

854×480 is the number you want in almost every web context. The variants exist because some encoders prefer widths that divide cleanly.

Bandwidth and data

Encoded with H.264, 480p typically needs 1–2 Mbps depending on how much motion is in the shot. That works out to roughly 450–900 MB per hour of viewing — around a quarter of what the same content costs at 1080p1080p (Full HD)Full HD at 1920×1080 — just over two million pixels. The default target for course, sales and web video.Open definition →.

A newer codecCodecThe algorithm that compresses and decompresses video — H.264, H.265 (HEVC) and AV1 are the most common in modern streaming.Open definition → changes the arithmetic: H.265 or AV1 reach the same look at roughly half the bitrateBitrateThe amount of data used per second of video. Higher bitrate means more detail and a larger file; the core lever behind streaming quality.Open definition →, though at the cost of slower encoding and narrower device support. That trade-off is worth checking before you optimise the smallest rendition in the ladder.

480p against the rest of the ladder

The step from 480p to 720p720pHigh definition at 1280×720 — 921,600 pixels per frame. The entry point to HD and the fallback rung below Full HD.Open definition → is the one viewers actually notice. Above 1080p the gains fall off unless the screen is large and close.

When 480p still earns its place

As a target resolutionResolutionThe pixel dimensions of a video frame — 480p, 720p, 1080p, 2160p (4K). Determines how sharp the picture looks on a given screen.Open definition →, 480p is mostly behind us — but as a rung in the ladder it is still doing work:

Where it fails is detail. Screen recordings — code, spreadsheets, dashboards — become unreadable at 480p, and no bitrate rescues them, because the pixels to hold the text simply are not there. For that content, 1080p is the floor rather than the ceiling.

The rung DRM forces on you

On an unprotected library 480p is a fallback: the rung a weak connection lands on before climbing back up. Switch DRMDRMEncryption of the video file plus a licence server that issues a per-session key — so a downloaded copy stays unplayable.Open definition → on and it becomes something else — a ceiling.

Widevine grades devices by where decryption happens. Hardware-backed L1Multi-DRMServing one encrypted library through Widevine, FairPlay and PlayReady at once — no single DRM system covers every browser and device.Open definition → devices play the whole ladder; L3 devices decrypt in software, and content policies commonly cap them at 480p or 540p. That grade belongs to the viewer\'s hardware, not to your settings — an older Android phone or a desktop Chrome without hardware support is L3 no matter how you encode.

So on a protected catalogue, 480p is not the floor for those viewers. It is the whole experience, on a good connection, permanently. For a course sold to a general audience that is worth knowing before a strict policy is copied from a broadcaster who was protecting a film release.

What a 480p hour costs

At 1–2 Mbps an hour of 480p moves roughly 450–900 MB. On usage-based delivery at €0.03 per GB that is about 1.5–2.5 cents per viewing hour — the cheapest rung that still carries readable speech and faces.

The saving against 720p is real but small in absolute terms: a thousand viewers watching ten hours costs roughly €135–270 at 480p against €330–540 at 720p. Worth having in the ladder; rarely worth forcing everyone onto.

Further reading

• 480p — Wikipedia — a vendor-neutral overview.
• Resolution — the full ladder, from 360p to 4K.

Written by

Denis Konnov Verified

CMO at Kinescope

Denis leads marketing and content at Kinescope, working closely with the platform's engineers. This glossary is reviewed and kept up to date by the team building Kinescope's streaming, encoding and CDN delivery infrastructure.