What exactly is an "Enhanced Definition" display? (1 Viewer)

Hello. Have been seeing a couple of televisions/displays marked with "ED" or "Enhanced Definition" stamped on the "Feature" cards at my local electronics store. Of particular interest is a Panasonic Plasma display, the PT-42PD3, which is 42" diagonal. At Panasonic's site, it mentions that is has a HDTV display capability of 480p.

My questions are, 1.) Is this a true-HD display standard? And is it is, 2.) Why do they call it EDTV? Lastly, Will the upcoming (Hopefully) switch to pure HD programming have 480p support?

Thanks for any info or answers.

Arvin_C

The only hd mode an edtv supports is 480p, for video games and dvds and the like. I don't understand why someone who was putting down the money for a plasma wouldn't buy an hd set, but what do I know?

The EDTV can't do 1080i or 720p, but is better then the 480p. Home Theater Magazine did a Face-off of 8 plasmas and the Panasonic you mentioned won it. The article is here and it involved all kinds of plasmas, from commercial to industrial, and ED to HD. It's a good read, explains why Panasonic can't can't call the plasma a true HD, and also explains why they felt it was the best one in the bunch even though it didn't have the best resolution.

I know most people feel that magazines that accept advertising can be swayed in their opinions, but I still found the article good.

I just know that if I spent that much money on something, I would want it to last me a long long time, and would not settle for non-hd.

I agree James, which is why I'm not getting a plasma anytime soon. For the moeny, it just doesn't seem praticle for me to get it. Especially when the ED one is rated with the best picture. Something just doesn't seem right with that. I'm not saying people are suckers for buying them, it's just not my bag, baby.

There are lots of plasmas with 480 rows of pixels, some with 540. I still regard them as SDTV quality. The 540 row sets should handle 1080i with no scaling artifacts except that the picture comes out looking like 540p. The ATSC digital TV standard has (approx) 720 x 480 and 640 x 480 interlaced and progressive formats also and these are not high definition.

The typical 480 row plasma set has about 850 pixels per row all the way across, each pixel having a red portion, a green portion, and a blue portion. This, too, is not high definition. If the plasma or direct view LCD set can treat the red, green, and blue subpixels on the screen as individuals as opposed to triplets, the horizontal resolution will be improved somewhat.

Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

I work at circuit city and some customer who works for a company who builds parts for some electonics manufacturer told me that they are coming up with a way to spit out plasma tv's really quick and cheap. Right now there are about 7 layers that comprise of the screen that they pretty much have to lay down manually and carefully. But this customer told me that they are coming up with a way to production line these things much quicker which should drop the cost dramatically. This is just what I heard so I can't validate it, but it's something to watch out for if you're looking for a plasma but not at the high cost. Wait a little and cost might drop big if this customer is right.

The problem you will find is that due to the materials used in Plasma's there are no models that actually have 1920x1080 resolution most are typically 720x480 (the same resolution as dvd and of course 480p material)

This is whats called there "native resolution" there are some panels out with resolution up to 1280 x 720 these are capable of producing a 720p image.

As of yet there is not a single plasma panel out that has a native resolution of 1080i or 1920x1080. So in short all will typically say they are "HD compatible" which simply translates to them downconverting the signal to there native resolution.