[vitus]

I mean, yes, but nobody streams RAW video in practice, and I can't imagine any users or service providers who'd be happy with that level of inefficiency. In general, it's safe to assume some reasonable compression (which, yes, is likely lossy).

[ta1243]

It's quite possible for one broadcasters 480p30 to be a higher bitrate than another broadcasters 720p60

I remember watching the last season of Game of Thrones on one streaming provider, which topped out about 3.5mbit but claimed it was "1080p".

Give me a 15mbit 640x480 over 3.5mbit of 1920x1080 for that type of material any day.

[vitus]

> It's quite possible for one broadcasters 480p30 to be a higher bitrate than another broadcasters 720p60

Yes, I don't think anyone's disputing that.

> I remember watching the last season of Game of Thrones on one streaming provider, which topped out about 3.5mbit but claimed it was "1080p".

Why the scare quotes? That's a perfectly reasonable bitrate using modern compression like H.265, especially for a TV show that's filmed at 24 fps.