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to p or not to p

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on November 12, 2006 at 21:06:07

In Reply to: Broadcast Resolution Standard for HD posted by Audio Snob on November 12, 2006 at 09:12:01:

Current television (SD) is about 480 interlaced lines. If you are able to view High Definition broadcasts on a High Definition display, you will either see 720 progressive lines (1280x720) or 1080 interlaced lines (1920x1080). Progressive is usually better for fast moving material (like sports) and interlaced material better shows the detail in subjects like houses and gardens (think HGTV). These examples don't hold true for every HD venue, but tend to be the norm more often than not.

As an aside, channels showing 1080i normally skimp in the horizontal resolution department. Instead of 1920, you normally get something in the neighborhood of 1400 lines (ie; 1920x1080 drops to 1400x1080). And, of course, what you end up seeing depends on the native resolution of the display you are watching. Sending a 1080i signal to a 720p display results in a conversion of the 1080i signal to 720p and vice versa. Some displays do this correctly and some don't (which results in a loss of resolution, picture quality, etc).

Broadcast will not get into 1080p anytime soon. However, you may see cable and satellite in the next 5 years push toward 1080p material. It's easier for these venues than OTA (Over The Air aka free HD) because they can offer STBs (Set Top Boxes) that have advanced chips to decode codecs more efficient than MPEG2. It's basically a bandwidth issue for everyone. A more advanced codec (VC-1 or H264 aka MPEG4 AP) requires less bandwidth for the same material, which puts 1080p in reach of cable and satellite. OTA will be supporting MPEG2 for quite a while, due to all of the built-in MPEG2 HD tuners in today's HD televisions.

Movie channels that send HD signals usually are giving you 1080p. However, they are sent in the 1080i format -- the film signal is converted from 1080p24 to 1080i60 (24 frames per second to 60 fields [half frames] per second). A progressive display can put the interlaced signal back together to show it progressively and the result is a 1080p60 signal.

Back to your blonde question: she will be pushing 1080p, it just won't happen for quite a while. However, that only pertains to broadcast/OTA High Definition. Cable/Satellite will be reaching for 1080p in a few years and 1080p is available from Blu-ray and 2nd Gen HD DVD players right now.

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