The Big Picture

This week, we are proud to debut a new blog called <A href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/ultimate-gear/">Ultimate Gear</A>. Seeing as how the word "ultimate" is part of the name of our site, we thought it might be interesting to post profiles of home-theater equipment and systems that can rightly be placed in that category.

As many of you may know, I'm a regular guest on a nationally syndicated radio talk show hosted by Leo Laporte, aka The Tech Guy. The show is broadcast live from 11AM to 2PM Pacific time on Saturdays and Sundays, and my segment is right after the 11:30 news on Saturday.

A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Bogeun Chung, general manager of the LCD TV product-planning team at LG's headquarters in Seoul, Korea. He wrote that he would be passing through L.A. with one of his engineers on Monday, June 9, and asked if we could meet at Grayscale Studio, the video-testing facility for <I>UAV</I> and <I>Home Theater</I>. I value any personal contact with manufacturer representatives, so I quickly agreed. Little did I know how interesting that meeting would turn out to be...

Greetings to all <I>UAV</I> readers! As you may have heard, there have been some changes around this digital watering hole. Shane Buettner has moved over to head <I>Home Theater</I> magazine and its <A HREF="http://www.hometheatermag.com">associated website</A>, leaving some mighty big shoes to fill here at <I>UAV</I>, a challenge I happily accept.

On Sunday, March 7, the 2010 Academy Awards were handed out at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California, and like 41.3 million other viewers around the world (including 3.1 million New York Cablevision subscribers who almost didn't get to see it due to a dispute with ABC), my wife and I watched the spectacle live as it unfolded only a few miles from our house. Well, okay, we didn't watch it live, exactly&#151;we waited a couple of hours so we could skip through the commercials and acceptance speeches thanks to TiVo. So what I'd like to know from you is...

<I>I have heard you and Leo Laporte discuss the merits of 1080p versus 1080i signals. You both agreed that both methods are almost indistinguishable from each other, but neither of you seemed clear as to why they were so close. Well, I believe I may have the reason, but please correct me if I am wrong. The essential feature is their respective frame/field rates. 1080p is 30 true frames or complete pictures per second, whereas 1080i is 60 fields per second, but because it is interlaced, it also results in a true 30 frames per second. Thus, both formats generate the exact same number of true frames or pictures per second, which is why their ultimate picture qualities are identical.