The surge in popularity of high definition television has been due to the availability and uptake of digital televisions broadcasts and the affordability of HD TVs. HD TV is given its name because of the high resolutions that are capable of being produced by HD TVs, the resolution are many times greater than standard definition TV. The images displayed on a HD TV are constructed from many rows of pixels, the greater the number of rows the higher the resolution.
When shopping for televisions you may have noticed the terms 720p and 1080i or 1080p displayed on various models of televisions. Using 1080p as an example, 1080 is the number of horizontal rows of pixels and ‘p’ is progressive scanning. As more pixels means higher resolution images, 1080 is better than 720. Scanning is how the images displayed on screen are refreshed. The progressive simply means all rows are refreshed whilst with ‘i’ or interlaced only alternate rows are refreshed.
It can now be seen that televisions which are 1080p capable are the most desirable because they have the highest resolution and the employ the better method of scanning. 1080p high definition televisions are regularly advertised as Full HD TV. The other standards of 720i/p and 1080i which are sometimes called HD Ready are still high definition but if it’s the best standard that you are after then it is 1080p or Full HD that you require.
Buying a 1080p capable TV does not mean that whatever you view on it will be in 1080p format. Firstly you should know that the majority of high definition television channels are broadcast in 720 or 1080i, thus limiting the TV to displaying in these formats. Also other devices that you may use in conjunction with your TV such as older games consoles, DVD players, camcorders do not use 1080p. To make the most of a Full HD TV you are going to need to be using BluRay, the latest games consoles such as PS3 and Xbox 360 or a 1080p output from a PC to display true 1080p pictures.
For more information see Full HD TV Online
