What Makes an HDTV High Definition?
You keep hearing about it – new high definition DVDs, high definition camcorders, and high definition TVs. And you probably know that high definition means higher quality video, but beyond that it may all be just a bit fuzzy.
If you’re a TV and you want to be labeled as an HDTV, then you need to have one of three formats – 720p, 1080i, or 1080p, with 1080p being the best of the three. The main difference in these formats is resolution. A 720p TV will have a resolution or 1280 pixels by 720 lines. A 1080i or 1080p will have a resolution of 1920 pixels by 1080 lines.
The other factor is the letter behind the number, p and i. They refer to the way the image is built up. The p stands for progressive and the i stands for interlaced. When using an interlaced scan, only half the lines (for a 1080i, that’s 540 lines) are displayed at a time. The lines are alternated so fast (1/30th of a second) that your eyes interpret the two images to be just one. In progressive, all of the lines are displayed at the same time, which provides a smoother looking picture. (Lines are displayed every 1/60th of a second).
Now in a perfect world, we’d all have 103” 1080p plasma displays in our living rooms, however, unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world, so we have to figure out which HDTV, if any, best suits our needs.
The first question to be asking yourself is what am I going to use it for? Do you watch a lot of movies? Do you plan on getting HD channels from your cable or satellite provider? Are you willing to upgrade the rest of you A/V equipment? These are important questions because if you don’t plan on upgrading to a new DVD player (HD-DVD or Blu-ray), and you don’t want to spend the extra money on an HD box from your cable or satellite provider, then an HDTV probably isn’t for you. You can go buy a nice big screen TV and save yourself several thousand dollars in the process and still just as nice a picture from your standard television programming and standard DVDs as you would with a high definition display.
For those of you who do plan on upgrading the rest of your equipment, then an HDTV may be an investment you’ll want to consider. panasonic tc-p42c1
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