Do You Need a High Definition 1080p TV?

                                                                                         

High definition TV has become very popular of late and broadcaster such as the BBC and SKY now offer dedicated HD channels and services. You may have already purchased an HD Ready TV or display and are now wondering whether you should upgrade to the new HD TV 1080p?

In order to decide whether you need a new generation 1080p it’s important to understand what the term 1080p actually means.
Your TV picture is composed of pixels which are loaded to the screen in lines known as scan lines. The number 1080 refers to the number of vertical scan lines that make up a true High Definition picture. There are 1080 vertical scan lines and 1920 horizontal.

The letter p refers to progressive. This describes how the lines are loaded to the screen in order to create an image. Previous versions of High Definition TV used a method called interlacing where the lines are loaded alternatively in order to create a full image. This method is effective at lower resolutions but at 1080i there is a certain amount of flicker. Although this is virtually unnoticeable to the human eye it is still there. A progressive image is loaded all at once so doesn’t suffer from this problem.

So the natural conclusion would be that 1080p is the obvious choice?

It’s not so simple, unfortunately. Because the system requires much more bandwidth, the major digital TV broadcasters are sticking with 720p and 1080i for the time being.

At present only Blu Ray and some games consoles will broadcast a full 1080p signal. This is fine if you have a Blu Ray player or are a serious gamer but what about regular TV?

If you use a 1080p HD TV to view existing 720p and 1080i High Definition broadcasts then your TV will reformat the signal in order to approximate the 1080p standard. Because, essentially, the picture is being stretched across a higher resolution, and depending upon the quality of the image processor, the end result could be disappointing?

Overall though, to the average viewer, the difference is hardly likely to be significant?

Our advice would be to say that if are a Blu Ray fanatic or a hard-core gamer then a 1080p display will give the absolute best results.

However, for the time being, to view High Definition 720p and 1080i TV broadcasts by Terrestrial, Satellite and Cable providers your existing HD Ready TV will be more than sufficient.

About the author:
Helen Davies is the editor of TV 1080p
- a site dedicated to High definition broadcast technology

Article Source: http://www.Free-Articles-Zone.com