Chroma Subsampling is a form of what?

Chroma subsampling is a form of compression used to reduce the amount of color information in a video signal while maintaining the overall perceived quality of the image. The human eye is more sensitive to brightness (luminance) than it is to color (chrominance), which allows for the reduction of color resolution without significantly impacting the visual experience. By sampling the chroma channels at a lower resolution than the luma channel, chroma subsampling effectively decreases the amount of data needed to represent video content, enabling more efficient storage and transmission.

This technique is commonly expressed in terms of sampling ratios, such as 4:4:4 (full chroma), 4:2:2, or 4:2:0, where the first number represents the resolution of the luma channel, and the following numbers indicate the relative resolutions of the two chroma components. This method is crucial in various video formats and helps manage bandwidth requirements, especially in streaming and broadcasting scenarios.