Thread: 1080i vs. 720p
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Old 02-10-2018, 03:40 PM
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old_tv_nut old_tv_nut is offline
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It is no longer possible to make a real comparison of 1080i and 720p at home.
1) the greatest degradation of any source is the final bit reduction that the station applies, and how well does the encoder handle images at that bit rate. Since each station does it differently, there is no way to compare 1080i on one station to 720p on another.
2) the second greatest degradation is format conversion - this may happen multiple times from source through distribution to the final station, and also happens in your flat screen TV at home. The anti-aliasing filtering required, plus the conversion from interlace to progressive for the LCD display, completely clouds the issue.

As I have stated on VK before, these two scanning formats, when compared on CRT displays without format conversion, show greater static resolution for 1080i, but sports look better in 720p. In the original tests, naive viewers could easily see the difference. Unfortunately, there is nowhere that this can be viewed anymore except maybe at a studio.

The best of both worlds is obtained by broadcasting 1080p (or higher resolution), which will become the norm with ATSC 3.0.
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