Before discussing high definition television (HDTV) resolutions it’s appropriate to dispel the myth that resolution is the most important factor in selecting a HDTV. In fact, according to the Imaging Science Foundation, a group that consults for home-theater manufacturers and trains professional video calibrators, the most important aspect of picture quality is contrast ratio, followed by color saturation (intensity), and color accuracy. Resolution is actually ranked in fourth position. Once you understand what resolution means you should follow up be reading our comparison of the 720p and 1080p HD resolutions.

HDTV Native Resolution

The native resolution mentioned in HDTV specification sheets is a measure of the number of pixels a display has. All video sources will be scaled to match the native resolution of the display. If the video source is a match then no scaling is required. If you are choosing a HDTV for gaming then you should match the screen native resolution to the video output resolution of your games console. This avoids the annoying scaling lag which can be annoying to avid gamers.

All fixed-pixel displays have a native resolution spec that tells you how many pixels the display actually has. Native resolution is the absolute limit on the amount of detail you’ll see.

Two common broadcast HD resolutions are 1080i and 720p. Generally the progressive scan 720p should provide a smoother image which is sharper during action scenes. The most recent standard, 1080p has the smoother, sharper image of 720p while gaining the extra lines of resolution of 1080p. The 1080p video standard is not broadcast yet but is available from Blu-ray discs and some video game consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3.

HDTV Resolution Definitions

Progressive: an image is scanned and displayed following a path similar reading a page of text: line by line, from top to bottom.

Interlaced: an interlaced scan pattern in a CRT (cathode ray tube) includes only every second line followed by an alternating scan of the gaps between the lines of the previous scan. The afterglow of phosphor of CRT tubes combined with the human eyes persistence of vision results in two fields being perceived as a continuous image.

Field: A scan of every second line is called a field.

HDTV Display Resolution Notation Format:

(number of lines in display resolution)(p for progressive frames or i for interlaced fields)(number of fields per second)

eg. 1080p50 is 1920 x 1089 pixels of progressive encoding at 50 fields per second

Most commonly the frame rate is left out and can be assumed to be either 50 or 60. The example above would be expressed as 1080p.

Most HDTV systems support some standard resolutions and frame or field rates. The most common are noted below.

Standard Resolutions

• DV NTSC/VGA 720 x 480
• PAL 768 x 576
• XGA 1024 x 768
• HD 1280 x 720p
• Full HD 1920 x 1080p

Standard frame or field rates

• 24p (cinematic film)
• 25p
• 30p
• 50p
• 60p
• 50i (PAL/SECAM)
• 60i (NTSC)

HDTV Resolution Resources

Image Formats for HDTV

HDTV’s Sucessor