All about resolution, well almost.
I remember a time when buying a television set meant
walking into a store and picking out the biggest screen on display. Back then,
all one had to do was pick out the biggest set, nowadays, a myriad of other
factors have to be considered before purchase. Thank God for technology and presently
the task of purchasing a television set has never been more daunting. It is
frustrating when in preparation for the purchase of that big screen TV and on
getting to the store, a bunch of jargon is thrown at you leaving one more
confused than when they came. This piece seeks to investigate the various
terminologies out there relating to screen resolution to make it easy to a
common persons understanding.
There was a time when digital television was the term
heard everywhere. That time came and passed, and then there came the era of LCD
versus LED. LCD technology is the mainstream technology currently in use in
most of the television sets. On the other hand, all of the television sets
being advertised as LED actually engage LCD technology. The difference is that,
with LED sets, as opposed to LCD, is that in LED sets, Light Emitting Diodes
are used to provide back-lighting whereas in the case of LCD, cathode technology
is used. Since the Light Emitting Diodes are distributed more evenly, they allow
for easier control of back-lighting. This is to say that only the LED s at
specific places are lit when required. This is what gives LED sets an advantage
over conventional LCD sets. Though providing a distinct advantage over traditional
LCD in terms of contrast ratio and size, there’s considerably, no other benefit
offered by a LED television set over an LCD one.
Then there came the era of 3D television sets. It is
unfortunate that this technology did not quite pick up mainly because it is
still not that refined yet. 3D technology is still in its developmental stages,
and even though it is in the final stages, it is still quite far from
completion. This, therefore, means that the television manufacturers out there
had to come up with some other gist to make you buy their sets.
The thing that people consider the most before
buying a television set is the screen size. This is to say that for any
television set, the bigger the size the better. Well this is indeed true, but
only to a small extend. Any serious television buyer out there knows that the
best thing to consider when buying a television set is the resolution. Below is
a description of the common available resolutions as applied to television
sets.
480i/576
(Standard definition.)
This display employs 480 interlaced horizontal lines
to display a picture on the screen. The term interlaced refers to the way the
image is drawn on the screen. There are two ways in which the picture can be
drawn on the screen, “interlasively” and “progressively”. The two are designated
as a small letter i or p after the resolution number to describe the image.
When a television set displays images using the interlaced method, it means
that it displays a part of the image on the screen at a time then refreshes to
display the remaining part of the image. Although this is done at high refresh
rates that are ideally supposed to be indistinguishable to the human eye, most
people agree that the image looks a little washy as compared to the progressive
method of display. This thus brings us to the second method employed to display
pictures which is the progressive technology. Unlike the interlaced technology
where part of the image is displayed on the screen then the remainder displayed
in the second phase, progressive technology draws the whole image at the same
time. This, therefore, makes the image from a progressive picture appear
sharper and more focused than an interlaced set.
480p/576p
(Enhanced)
This display employs the same number of pixels as
the interlaced version, but as aforementioned, is better since it displays the
whole image on the screen at the same time. 480p is commonly used for DVD in NTSC
format while 576p is commonly employed for PAL DVD formats. NTSC is an acronym
for National Television System Committee which is a standard for the signal. PAL
refers to Phase Alternative Line which is also a standard for signal
broadcasting that displays 625 interlaced horizontal lines at 50 Hz.
720p-High
Definition
This is the part where the term high definition
starts applying is composed of 1280 pixels by 720 pixels giving it a pixel
density of 921600. Depending on the size of the screen, the pixel density
varies. It is good to note that there is no interlaced version to 720p
resolution.
1080i/
1080p resolution
This is the resolution commonly known as Full HD
resolution. This resolution supports 1080 by 1920 resolutions giving it a pixel
density of about 2073600. This is about 2.25 times the resolution density that
of a 720p resolution. This is currently the highest resolution available for
broadcast. It is not normally used due to the high amount of bandwidth required
to transport the signal.
4K
Resolution.
This is the next stage in the resolution war. As
televisions get bigger and bigger, the issue of resolution keeps coming up.
This is because the bigger the television, the higher the resolution so as to
keep the pixel density as high as possible. This resolution has about 4000 by
2000 pixels giving it a pixel density of about 8000000. This is approximately 4
times the pixel density of 1080p resolution. I know you might be wondering
whether this is necessary and whether this is required. The truth on the ground
is that this resolution would wow you; the only problem is that there is no
content available to test this resolution. It is going to take quite a while
before content made for 4k resolution is available. This is not because it is
difficult to do this; most people have 720p sets of resolution while a few have
full HD sets. Convincing people to revert to 4k resolution sets is going to
take a while and a lot of convincing. Personally, I would buy a 4k resolution
set, not because 1080 p is not clear enough, mostly because I want to see
whether there will be a distinction between Full HD and 4K resolution. All in
all, the only need for 4k resolution is necessary only when a 55 inch and
higher television is in use.
If you feel overwhelmed with that, the Japanese are
experimenting with 8K resolution. That’s a story for another day folks
Conclusion.
All other terms you heat out there when it comes to resolution
like HD ready, and all that are simply fabrications to help sell products. This
is not to say they exist. In essence, when a manufacturer tells you their set
is HD ready, what they mean is that, the television is can display Full HD content
through down scaling to fit its native resolution. The problem with this is that
a down scaled image is not in any way close to the image displayed by a full HD
set.
The other question commonly asked is whether to buy
a Full HD set or a 720p set. So am going to put it all out there once and for
all. If you watch television like normal people do, which is about two meters
away from the screen, then for any television set below 32 inches there would
be no distinguishable difference between a Full HD set and a 720p set. The same
can be said for either 4k or 8k resolution.
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