What is HDTV?
HDTV is an acronym for High Definition Television which is a a new standard for television broadcast. The quality is almost twice better than regular NTSC.
Regular color television is at 480i which means that there are 480 horizontal lines scanned in an interlaced format. This means that only half of the lines are displayed in a frame at a time: one time the odd-numbered lines and the next time the even-numbered lines.
There are currently two recognized HDTV standards: 780p and 1080i
- 780p means 780 horizontal lines that are scanned progressively.
- 1080i means 1080 horizontal lines that are scanned in an interlaced format.
By May 2006, all broadcasters should have HDTV over-the-air signals as mandated by the FCC.
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