Home > Reviews > 1080p
1080p TelevisionsYou probably see the term 1080p thrown around a lot when shopping for HDTVs, along with terms like 1080i and 720p. These refer to the different high defintion signal formats that the display can work with. The quick and easy explanation is that 1080p provides the best quality, so if you're going to get an HDTV and you want the best picture quality, you'll want one that supports 1080p. All 1080p displays also support the lower resoltuon 1080i and 720p formats. Most HDTVs of both Plasma and LCD types on sale now are 1080p models, but many rear projection TVs only support 720p or 1080i.To get a bit more technical 1080p refers to a format for television signals that contains 1080 lines from top to bottom. The "p" indicates that the lines are being dispayed in a progressive manner, meaning that all the lines are being displayed at the same time, 60 times a second. This is in contrast to 1080i displays where there are actually two sets of 540 lines that are alternated very quickly, one set being shown every thirtieth of a second. The result is that 1080i signals look more jittery; imbetween the two sets of frames, the image will have changed, and this produces the odd jagged look of some interlaced TV signals. 720p displays also use progressive scanning, so all the lines are displayed at once, but there are fewer lines to display. Despite the reduced resolution, however, the progressive display can often produce better picture quality than 1080i. For example many sporting events are broadcast in 720p as they contain a lot of motion, and this looks better in 720p. So once you have a 1080p television you're golden, right? Not necessarily. The simple truth is that there just isn't very much 1080p content out there at the moment. Almost all broadcast television is 1080i, and even high definition consumer camcorders only record at 1080i. But there's still a benefit; a good television will have built in technology to convert a 1080i signal into 1080p by deinterlacing the two sets of lines. You should make sure that your 1080p television is capable of this. Material that is deinterlaced will generally look better than the original 1080i content, but still won't look as good as a true 1080p signal. In fact about the only place you can get true 1080p content is via a Blu-Ray disc and the now defunct HD-DVD format. Despite the limited availability of content manufacturers are now offering 1080p displays across their entire product range and any potential savings you might have gotten in previous years by going with a 720p or 1080i television are disappearing. We recommend that you do purchase a 1080p television as this will ensure that you get the best picture quality as more and more sources of 1080p content become available.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||


