What is HDTV and What is 1080p?

What determine the quality of a picture? What does 1080p mean? Let me begin by informing you about the two elements that determine a televisions picture quality. These two elements are resolution and interlacing. I will explain further here:

Resolution

Take a good look at the picture on your TV. You will notice how the picture is actually made up of many lines that are scanning across your screen. The set of lines that end up becoming an image are called a "frame". For TV equipment and broadcasts, resolution is defined as the amount of lines that are horizontal that make up a frame. The more resolution then the sharper and more crisp the picture will be. Standard television uses 480 horizontal lines to make up each frame. High Def TV uses either 720 or even 1080 lines to make a frame.

Interlacing & Progressive

Interlacing is if each frame contains all the lines or every other line. Interlacing is take every other line from 2 frames and then combine the two frames. A frame lasts 1/60^th of a second, and they combine the 2 frames and make them last 1/30^th of a second. That means that interlacing is just playing tricks on your eyes. Interlacing makes you think that you are seeing twice the resolution that is really being displayed. Progressive scan is shown every 1/60^th of a second and has all the lines of video.

Does this answer any questions that you may have? If not here is the easier to follow version:

1080p means that there are 1080 lines of horizontal resolution and that every image is being shown at the fast frame rate. 1080p is the best right now. Basically there are few video sources that can even display up to 1080p. Blu-Ray is the main source at this time.