Most recent TV technologies are fixed-pixel displays. This means that these TVs do not have an electron beam moving across a screen but would have millions of individual picture elements or pixels that light up to create a picture. By the very nature of their physical design, the displays are fixed since the number of pixels cannot be changed by reaiming or refocusing an electron beam like in cathode-ray tube TVs.

Resolution is determined by counting up the number of pixels from top to bottom or vice versa for the vertical resolution and across the screen from left to right or vise versa for horizontal resolution. A fixed-pixel display resolution is commonly written out as “horizontal resolution x vertical resolution”.