If 99% of HD TVs use 720p native panels, why bother with 1080i?
 

I've read a bit about the pros and cons of 720p versus 1080i and then
it dawned on me that since ~99% of UK HD Ready TVs use a ~720p native
panel, why is 1080i being even considered at this point for some Sky
HD broadcasts?
Surely a 720p transmission viewed on a native 720p TV will look better
than 1080i down-scaled to 720(not sure if that will be p or i)?

The situation may well be different in the US, so maybe there is a
predominance of US 1080i footage that can be transmitted as is,
without any conversion and is already future proofed for when 1080 TVs
hit the UK market place?

If 99% of HD TVs use 720p native panels, why bother with 1080i?
 

HS Crow wrote:
I've read a bit about the pros and cons of 720p versus 1080i and then
it dawned on me that since ~99% of UK HD Ready TVs use a ~720p native
panel, why is 1080i being even considered at this point for some Sky
HD broadcasts?

Because at present the number of HD ready tvs in the uk is absolutely tiny
and there isn't sufficient userbase to commit them to a single format.
For larger screens which I'd expect to make up the majority of future
purchases a higher resolution will look better.
--
Alex

Hermes: "We can't afford that! Especially not Zoidberg!"
Zoidberg: "They took away my credit cards!"

www.drzoidberg.co.uk www.ebayfaq.co.uk

If 99% of HD TVs use 720p native panels, why bother with 1080i?
 

HS Crow wrote:

I've read a bit about the pros and cons of 720p versus 1080i and then
it dawned on me that since ~99% of UK HD Ready TVs use a ~720p native
panel, why is 1080i being even considered at this point for some Sky
HD broadcasts?
Surely a 720p transmission viewed on a native 720p TV will look better
than 1080i down-scaled to 720(not sure if that will be p or i)?

The situation may well be different in the US, so maybe there is a
predominance of US 1080i footage that can be transmitted as is,
without any conversion and is already future proofed for when 1080 TVs
hit the UK market place?

Because H.264/MPEG-4 compression is the favourite for Western European
HDTV, I doubt that we'll see much 1080i, because the compression removes
much or all of the advantage of interlacing, so 1080i will require
significantly higher bandwidth than 720p. Hopefully, we'll get 1080p
eventually.

In America, they use the older and less efficient MPEG-2 compression for
HDTV, and with that, 1080i and 720p have similar bandwidth.

--
Dave Farrance

If 99% of HD TVs use 720p native panels, why bother with 1080i?
 

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 14:57:29 GMT, Dave Farrance
wrote:

Because H.264/MPEG-4 compression is the favourite for Western European
HDTV, I doubt that we'll see much 1080i, because the compression removes
much or all of the advantage of interlacing, so 1080i will require
significantly higher bandwidth than 720p. Hopefully, we'll get 1080p
eventually.

In America, they use the older and less efficient MPEG-2 compression for
HDTV, and with that, 1080i and 720p have similar bandwidth.
That's interesting, thanks for the info.