Don't let them fool you! That's probably the most appropriate way to get into HDTV. Honestly, I don't like to repeat myself quite so often, but "DON'T LET THEM FOOL YOU"!!! It's bringing tears to my eyes, when I see thousand of people spending their money on expensive flatscreens which are either not able to display any high definition video at all or only at reduced quality! Believe me; I promise you that I know what I am talking about. If 3000 Euros or more mean something to you (as they do for me), then you may like to continue reading, BEFORE you buy a flatscreen which you believe to be capable of displaying HDTV!

High Definition TV (HDTV) is the most beautiful thing since the invention of the TV itself. It was only last year, that I first had the opportunity to discover HDTV in depth and I am not exaggarating at all when I say, that an ordinary DVD at best looks like a long-play VHS recording when you compare it to a real 1080 HDTV image. Once you have seen this, you will feel very sad about each and every single Euro you spent on your DVD collection.

Why is that? Well, a PAL picture, though it is better than an ordinary NTSC one, is rather poor in terms of quality as the standard dates back decades. The picture may look quite alright on a small TV set, but it becomes really blurry and fuzzy on today's large screens of 32 inches and more. HDTV on the other hand, offers a lot more in terms of resolution and therefore quality. Images are sharp as well as crisp and you can actually see details, which you could only assume there to be when you saw a PAL image. However, HDTV is not like HDTV. There are different standards and the difference between them in terms of quality is huge. A sale representative at you local store is very unlikely to give you all the details about HDTV, because he/she wants to sell the products that are in stock. So it is up to you, to find out before you spent three grands or more.

Different standards? Actually there are two major HDTV standards namely 720p and 1080i. These "names" make it quite easy to understand them, as the numbers express the amount of horizontal lines available. Hence the 720p standard translates into a 1280x720 pixel resolution and the 1080i standard into an image of 1920x1080 pixels (both 16:9 aspect ratio). In order to understand this, take a look at the image below, to compare the different standards.

As you can easily figure out, the 1080i standard is way better than the 720p standard. Expressed in figures, the resolution of the 1080i standard is 2.073 million pixels, whereas the 720p standard only features 921 thousand pixels, which is not even half of the 1080i standard. The old PAL standard, when translated into pixels only provides about 400 thousand pixels, which is again not even half of the 720p standard.

I should note, that the "p" of the "720p" standard stands for progressive whereas the "i" of the "1080i" standard stands for interlaced. Progressive, expressed in simple terms, means that each image displayed is a fullsized image that features all "lines" in that case a 1280x720 pixel image.

Interlaced on the other hand, describes alternating images which consist of only every second line; hence the first of a pair of images of a 1080i signal would display the first, third, fifth, etc. line but not the second, fourth, sixth, etc. line which the second image of the pair would do. In order to have fullsized images, important for still pictures, the pair of images would have to be combined, which can be a problematic issue, when quick action is involved. However, there exists a progressive version of the 1080i standard, the 1080p, and nevertheless, any of the two standards has a significantly higher resolution than the 720p standard.

Though this little excursion into the resolution and technology of HDTV is not complete, I believe that it is sufficient for the basic understanding of the different standards available. It is rather clear now, that only a screen which can display 1920x1080 pixels is able to display HDTV at full quality. When you go out to your local dealer, especially in Europe, you will see a lot of huge flatscreen televisions, some of which are feeded with a 720p signal which looks great compared to the lousy PAL images on the other TVs next to it. However, the 720p signal is the best, most of these HDTVs can display, which means, that their maximum resolution is 1280x720 pixels. If you feeded them with a signal of the 1080i or 1080p standard, the TV would have to downscale it to the poorer 720p resolution and you would loose more than half of the resolution. Sales people will tell you, that you won't see the difference, which is up to you to believe.

Though I would never buy a TV that can only display 720p, things can hit you even worse. There were and still are (at least in Europe) some large Plasma and TFT screens around, which claim to be "HDTV ready", though they only provide a resolution of 848x480 or something like that. The first time I saw that ages ago, I thought the marketing departments of these companies must be joking, as that sort of resolution is simply good for PAL and nothing more than that. So it is REALLY worth to take a look at the resolution!

Another surprise you could face may come from the connectors. Obviously the TV must have any sort of input for the digital high resolution signal you want to see. Ordinary Cinch, Y/C, Scart, etc. connectors won't do the job, under no circumstances whatsoever. An RGB input may provide a good image, but in my humble opinion a real HDTV capable interface is ESSENTIAL. The very least you should have, is that monitor connector (usually blue) with the 25 pins, which you probably know from your graphic card on your personal computer. Though it is analogue, you can feed high resolution images through it. This connector has been replaced by the DVI interface with 8 rows of 3 pins each (usually white in color and slightly larger in size). It keeps the signal digital and colors more vivid than the predecessor. Both connectors originate from the world of graphic cards. Another connector you could look out for is the HDMI interface, which you will find on Philips TFTs. It is significantly smaller, but capable of any sort of HDTV too. Any of those or any other connector, which can carry the HDTV signal is ESSENTIAL. Why am I saying that? Well, you may not believe it, but I actually saw TVs that were able to produce 720p sized images but they lacked any sort of appropriate connector. So what are they supposed to be good for?

Bottom line? Really simple, indeed! There are two minimum criteria for a HDTV television screen:

1. Resolution of 1920x1080 to display all HDTV standards.

2. Appropriate connectors to get the signal on the screen.

When these two requirements are met, you can start looking for other features you would love to have, from picture-in-picture to built-in surround sound system, whatever you like.

I hope you will find your way into the world of HDTV without any disappointments. Though you may not be aware of it, but there are already various titles available in HDTV quality on DVD ( site in Spanish) and a couple of channels broadcast in HDTV, even in Europe, e.g. Euro 1080. Last but not least, though I cannot read Japanese, I can also recommend, to take a look at this site, where you can get a rough idea about further titles, available...