HDTV Tech

The most frequently asked questions I've received this year have been about the difference between 1080i and 1080p. Many people felt—or others erroneously told them—that their brand-new 1080p TVs were actually 1080i, as that was the highest resolution they could accept on any input. I did a blog post on this topic and received excellent questions, which I followed up on. It is an important enough question—and one that creates a significant amount of confusion—that I felt I should address it here, as well.

If there is one thing that just screams "future" to me, it's lasers. Sure, they've been around since the 1960s, but come on—it's lasers! Right now, they can be found in your CD and DVD players, but a few companies are hoping to put them in your TV, as well.

Bulbs are so 20th century. You can gussy them up, charge a bunch of money for them, even call them fancy names (lamps), but the fact of the matter is, they're still basically light bulbs. Almost all new RPTVs and front projectors use UHP (ultrahigh pressure) lamps to create light. These lamps are fairly efficient for the light they put out but are very hot, costly, and don't last very long. One new technology that's aiming to replace the UHP monopoly is LED, or light-emitting diode.

The current top HDTV broadcast resolution is 1080i (interlaced). Most television and cable networks use it, including CBS, NBC, the WB, HBO, Showtime, HDNet, The Movie Channel, Starz HDTV, and others. What happens to this HDTV signal when one of the latest digital HDTVs processes it? Does it take the full 1,080 lines of transmitted resolution, change the signal from interlaced to progressive (called deinterlacing), detect and compensate for motion, and send it to the screen, as it should? Or does the display's processor cheat you out of seeing all the detail within the broadcast?

I'm sure many of you read over the measurement boxes in our video reviews, take what you need from them, and move on. But what does it all mean, really? Why do we do it the way we do? For those of you new to the magazine or video displays in general, what does any of it mean? These are excellent questions.

MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) is a next-generation video codec (coder/decoder) that's about to change the face of digital television—slimming it down, enabling it to move into narrower channels, and probably changing how it looks. I can almost see your eyes glazing over: Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do.