Questions on Interlaced, Progressive, and Frames Per Second (1 Viewer)

[Jamie Doucette]

I was always under the impression that video that was displayed interlaced (480i,1080i) was shown in two fields: All the odd lines, then all the even lines, giving 60 frames per second actual, but giving the illusion of 30 frames per second.

With progressive video (480p, 720p, 1080p), the entire field is shown at once, giving 30 frames per second.

Are my impressions correct? The FAQ Primer seems to support this.

The reason I question this is that on another forum, someone said/wrote that 480p and 720p are actually 60 frames per second. Is this true? If it helps they were discussing the Xbox, PS2, and GameCube.

Any feedback or corrections are appreciated.

 

[John Garcia]

Interlaced displays 60 FIELDS per second, not frames. So what you are seeing is actually only half of the image in each frame, but each frame is independent, so it is not 30 frames per second.

From Secrets:

Progressive shows all scan lines at once, so it is an actual 60 frames per second, but there's more to it than just that.