HD for her, Plasma for you, nothing for me!
I don’t watch much t.v., and have never taken the time to understand the difference between different types of HD (High Definition) displays. They have always been too expensive for my tastes, and I can’t see myself hooking my powerbook up to one anytime soon. While reading through my daily online news, I came across Resolution Revolution. Since I knew nothing about HD television, the following note was useful:
Rear-projection TVs and the beginning of true high-definition: First, let us review what “high-definition TV” means. Images on old-fashioned, analog televisions have 480 horizontal lines; first, the even-numbered lines get scanned, then the odd-numbered lines. This is called “interlaced scanning,” so the resolution of these TVs is 480i. Digital televisions scan all the lines at once—a process known as “progressive scanning”—so their resolution is 480p. High-definition televisions either have 1,080 lines with interlaced scanning (1080i) or 720 lines with progressive scanning (720p). More lines mean a more solid, detailed, color-saturated picture; progressive scanning means a picture that moves more smoothly.
Now I have no intentions of buying a new t.v. anytime soon, but this information should help me understand my friends when they are discussing the new gadget they purchased. We we!
