What is High Definition?

Let's just quickly consider what HD means. Well, obviously it stands for High Definition. Screens, mostly LCD, plasmas and PC monitors, have always been measured by their resolution, usually displayed by how many pixels are running up the vertical and across the width of the screen. This is what nearly anyone who has read a little into HD will be looking at when they go to buy their next screen. This is really very odd, as many institutes place the importance of the resolution of the screen as your forth, major concern. Most research points that contrast ratio is the most important, second most important being colour saturation and for third is colour accuracy. In another words, nearly all who get an HD screen are certainly going to be happy with its sharpness.

So if everything was the same - contrast and colour - HD is amazing on about any screen regardless of its size. The move from today's normal resolution TV to HD is so massive that any further advances, from high-def to higher-def, are going to be so small, and probably unrecognisable by the human eye, it wouldn't be worth the effort from companies.

HDTV Source Resolutions
If you flick through any magazine, and or the Web itself, you'll come across a few numbers, all displaying what is a clear indicator of what 'level' of HD the product can produce. There are two main HD resolutions in use daily by HD broadcasters and consoles: 1080i and 720p.

One is not necessarily better than the other; 1080i has more lines and pixels, which makes you think, "yeah, bloody great it has 'more' so it has to be better", but 720p is a progressive-scan format that should produce a smoother shaper image that stays cleaner during motion, or less to no 'ghosting'.

Another format that is also becoming better known is1080p, which combines the higher resolution of 1080i with the progressive-scan smoothness of 720p. True 1080p content is extremely scarce however, and none of the major broadcasters have plans for 1080p. The term 1080p today appears mostly in reference to the display's native resolution, not the source it's receiving. Though it's a good bet that this is likely to be the next standard in the future as the HD machine presses forward, time will reveal the answer to that one.

Despite the obvious difference in pixel count, 720p and 1080i both look amazing. So much so, unless you have the luxury of a really big screen and an excellent source material, like the latest HD-DVD player or Blu-Ray player your own eyes would find it difficult telling the difference between any of the HD resolutions. It's especially difficult to tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p with the resolution being as high as it is.

For a quick look refer to this:

When looking into most screens the first thing they will give you is the native resolution of the screen, and all of the above would actually meet the requirements to be an HD resolution screen. All of these numbers are pretty much accurate and do serve a purpose, but don't put too much trust in them. In the real world, it's not easy to really see the difference between resolutions once you get into HD standards. For example, despite the fact that a 37-inch LCD with a mere (though still very high) 1,366 x 768 pixels has to remove a good deal of information to display a 1080i movie or broadcast, you'd be hard pushed to see more detail on a similar 37-inch LCD with 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. So going back to what was said earlier, there is a lot more to the choice of HD than just what the numbers gives you. Personally, contrast black levels and colour accuracy are a lot more accountable for the quality of the screen.

In the last year or so, there has been a big growth in the market of HD screens with 1080p resolution, which will cost you a good deal more than their lower-resolution brothers. As I've been saying all along, once you get into HD media and broadcasts, the difference between resolutions becomes much more difficult to see from average day to day viewing. I've managed to see tests with two 46-inch LCD HD screens, one with 1366 x 768 res and the other with 1080p, using the same 1080i source with an HD player, and it was extremely difficult for me to see any difference, even doing the whole nose against the screen or sitting back distance. Smaller screen sizes or distant seating distances make chances of you seeing any difference go down again, especially on smaller screen sizes, the eye can only pick up so much detail at a given space, though there is a better argument for distance viewing (larger living rooms, etc).

I'm not saying you should discard 1080p HD screens, as many will simply just go for the 'best'; they do deliver more detail, no one should argue that, and it can enhance the viewing experience for those more concerned about all out resolution. Many manufacturers build other screen enhancing tools, better contrast and colour, into their 1080p HD screens simply because those sets usually sit in that manufacturers top of the line range. Plus you should expect to pay a lot more for such a screen. And given the continuing development and newer generations of screens being released from a tidal wave of manufactures, we can all expect more1080p screens to become cheaper down the years. Right now, unfortunately, the cost for 1080p is still very high, and unless you're getting a very large set, which I would consider to be 50 inches or more, I couldn't recommend basing a buying decision on whether or not the television has 1080p.

Whatever you choose, and should you be able to splash a little more than your better half would usually allow, I would practically guarantee that any purchase into HD would be a good one. The TV market is only heading in the HD direction, so any purchase is a good way of also future proofing with more and more HD Media products becoming available. Hopefully as the popularity grows, the prices will fall.

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