1080p vs. 1080i (1 Viewer)

[DonaldJD]

I'm not sure I understand what all the hoopla is about for the new sets touting 1080p. Are there any current broadcasts in 1080p? I thought they were all either 1080i or 720p. Comparing apples to apples and assuming that 720p is better than 720i wouldn't 1080p be better than 1080i? If they were broadcasting it, right??

 

[Jim Mcc]

1080p is the future. The new HD DVD's and players use 1080p. The current best broadcast is 1080i, but the new sets apparently upconvert the signal to 1080p. Maybe next year will be 2160p. Ha Ha.

 

[Alon Goldberg]

Hi Donald - 1080p sets will allow you to watch True HD 1920x1080p media in the future. Examples of 1080p are HD DVD, Blu-Ray, Playstation 3 (upcoming), DivX HD, WMV-HD, and to a lesser extent Upconverting DVD players.

1280 x 720p = 921,600 pixels
1920 x 1080p = 2,073,600 pixels

That's more than twice the resolution of 720p.

 

[Charlie Campisi]

Isn't it the player that produces progressive scan and the media that has lines of information? So, there is no '1080p media' or '720p media,' just 720i or 1080i media that the player deinterlaces into 720p or 1080p. At least that's the way I understood it.

 

[Alon Goldberg]

Hi Charlie - All professional CCD cameras made by Sony and Panavision are 1920x1080p. The first 1080p cameras were introduced in 1998.

Many new releases are now digital, including dozens of new releases this year. Miami Vice was shot with a Thompson Grass Valley digital camera at 1080p, for instance. Superman Returns was shot on a Panavision Genesis camera at 1080p.

Their subsequent HD DVD and Blu-Ray releases are encoded at 1920 x 1080p @ 30 Hz using MPEG-2 or VC-1, and are not upconverted (though of course they use variable levels of compression, depending on the scene).