Engadget has a new weekly feature called The Clicker which this week covers the litany of HDTV formats…

First, to be technical, there are eighteen different ‘ATSC DTV (digital television) formats’ of which only six are actually High-Definition. Of the six HDTV formats only two are used frequently, 720p and 1080i. That doesn’t really answer the question, but it narrows the field down a bit and gives us something to work with.

The answer comes down to what type of content the broadcaster is looking to optimize. We all know that 1080i has the higher resolution, so why bother offering another format like 720p? While it’s true that 1080i has a greater number of pixels (1920 x 1080 vs. 1280 x 720), 720 has two things working to its advantage. First, 720p is a progressive signal. Second, 720p is 60 fps (frames per second). 1080i, on the other hand, is interlaced and 30 fps (60 fields per second).

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 10th, 2005 at 2:30 pm and is filed under HTPC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.