A topic that frequently raises its head in the field of home entertainment is Full HD TV. The popularity of HD televisions increased after the move from analogue to digital broadcasting. But what most people don’t realise is that the digital switch might of brought us high definition viewing but it hasn’t necessarily brought us full high definition viewing.
To fully understand this point the viewer needs to understand the significance a bit of Full HD TV information. Basically the term ‘high definition’ television covers televisions capable of displaying a few different formats. The most common of these are 720p, 1080i and 1080p.
More simply put, the numbers refer to the amount of lines that makes up the images on screen (the more lines the better the quality of picture) and the letters refers to the method of scanning (either progressive or interlaced). Progressive scanning is produces the best quality of picture because every line in drawn for every frame where as for interlaced each line is drawn on alternate frames. The result is that progressive produces smoother or less flicker than interlaced scanning does.
Knowing that progressive scanning is better and 1080 lines is the highest resolution, then it is fairly simple to see that 1080p is the best format available. 1080p is what is also referred to as ‘full hd tv’. Incidentally the other standards of 720p and 1080i are more commonly referred to as HD Ready.
However, here’s the catch. Currently there are very view TV channels that currently broadcast in 1080p, most television broadcasts are either 720p or 1080i. This means that in terms of viewing our favourite TV shows, full HD televisions are not being used to their full potential. There are a handful of channels and providers offering limited TV broadcasts in 1080p and some internet companies that stream Full HD TV online, but these are rare.
There are other ways of fully utilizing 1080p capable TVs like watching BluRay movies and playing the latest games consoles but until 1080p TV broadcasts are readily available the situation is not going to change.