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This Week's Article
I am somewhat of an early adopter of HDTV. Over the three years that I have owned an HDTV set I have learned that the picture is better, my wallet is thinner and the HDTV alphabet soup is rather thick. With the price of HDTV sets falling I thought I would spend some time discussing the basic HDTV terminology.
In high definition or HD there are three basic resolutions: 720p, 1080i and 1080p. The number in those resolutions (720 & 1080) represents the number of vertical lines of resolution in the image. Extracting that out, each line represents a vertical pixel and with the 16 x 9 aspect ratio of HD, you get images of 1280 x 720 and 1920 x 1080. In comparison standard TV is only 480i or 640 x 480.
The letter used in resolution stands for how the image is drawn on screen. The 'i' in 1080i stands for interlace. With interlace, every time the screen refreshes, usually ever 1/60 second, only every other line is redrawn. While this saves bandwidth when transmitting, it leads to lower quality image especially when dealing with text and fast moving images. At the other end of the spectrum is the 'p' of 720p and 1080p. The 'p' stands for progressive scan. With progressive scan the entire image is drawn every time the screen refreshes making a cleaner image.
Today it is common to find HDTV broadcasts in either 720p or 1080i. The 1080p resolution is found in the new high definition DVD formats of HD DVD and Blu-ray. To get a quick idea of what these different sizes mean, check out the HD movie trailers up at Apple.
Finally, once you buy an HDTV you need to use the correct cables to deliver the HD signal to your TV. In order from lowest quality to best the recommended cable formats are component, DVI and HDMI. I will not go into too much detail about each one but the cable you choose should first depend on what inputs and outputs you have available. HDMI and DVI are the best (pure digital) but component is still a very good choice. Ideally you should buy a TV with one or two HDMI ports as it appears to be the connection of choice by the industry due to its support of HDCP DRM.
It is my hope this is a good starting point for those of you interested in HDTV. Due to space I left out a lot of information but I hope I gave enough sources so you can do your own research. One site I did not reference but found useful when researching my HDTV purchase was the AVS forum.
-Matt
