What is meant by a HD TV?

Answer 1

On the off chance that you wanted a serious answer:

If you have a regular TV handy, step up close and examine the screen. You will see that the picture is split into a series of lines. Traditional TV in the US was broadcast using the NTSC standard, which described a standard of 525 lines per "frame", or screen image. As a practical matter, the actual resolution of your television set is far lower. First of all, only 484 lines are actually displayed. The remainder are used by your TV for timing and synchronization.

Since the signal is broadcast with limited bandwidth, each frame is broadcast in two pieces. If you could watch the picture fill your screen in slow motion, you would see it fill in every other line. This is the first half of the frame. The second half of the frame fills in the missing lines. This technique is called interlacing.

The idea of HDTV is three fold:

1) To broadcast the signal in a digital format ie pixel by pixel, rather than line by line.
2) To increase the resolution by increasing the number of "lines" which compose a frame.
3) To establish a standard that has a long life.

To that end, HDTV actually defines many alternative screen resolutions, here are the most common:

480i (actually 640x480 pixels). This resolution is comparable to standard TV
480p (704x480) This is native resolution of DVD disks.
720P (1280x720). HD TV
1080i (1920x1080). HDTV
1080p (1920x1080) HDTV

All of these are HDTV standards, and there are even higher resolutions defined for use in the future. The important thing to know is that you don't need a separate TV for each format. HD TV's can "scale" the incoming signal to match the display capabilities of the screen. This will allow your TV to be compatible with any valid format your cable, satellite or media provides. There are even external "scaler" devices that allow you to display any HDTV format on an old fashioned NTSC analog TV.

Since digital images can be scaled to any display device, when the salesman says that he's showing you a high definition TV, it's always the truth. One key thing that you need to know is what the native resolution of the display device is. That's what really determines how sharp and clear the picture will be.

Answer 2

I discourage people form buying HD TV's that have to ask that question. 90% of the people i know that have HD TV's dont' have an HD picture and are just throwing their money down the toilet. For you it really wouldn't matter what TV you get. plasma, lcd, projection. Pick the one that you like the best. I know pick the one with the Coolest name. Don't mean to sound rude or sarcastic. Its almost 2008 HD TV's have been around since the 90's and even before. It just seems like people are so focused on buying HD TV's now all the sudden because it is the popular thing to do. I work customer service for DTV and most of the people i talk too don't know what kind of tv they have nor do they know how to work it. You would probably be happier with a TV you could understand. The guy above has a good link check that out. Also keep in mind that upgrading to HD is not near as cheap as commercials make it sound. TV $2000 Stand $300 HD reciever box $100 Blue Ray player $500. Yahoo answers to walk you through every detail FREE

Answer 3

Usually HD TV means a High Definition Ready TV. One with a screen resolution of at least 1280 x 720. This is capable of upscaling regular resolution and downscaling full HD which is just starting to become available.

In reality, HDTV *should* only apply to TVs with the full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080, but there aren't a lot of them around yet (the Sharp XD1e and Toshiba WLT66 ranges are the only ones that spring to mind)

Answer 4

High definition television.

To put it into easy to understand terms, early black and white television used 405 lines, in other words, there were 405 lines of picture information on your screen.
With the introduction of colour television, more on screen information was required, and so it was increased to 625 lines.

Imagine a mosaic picture. The more squares you have with an image on, the better you see the picture. Then condense this down with more, but smaller pictures.

Modern televisions use pixels to produce an image, the more pixels used on screen, gives a better and clearer picture.

The more information you can get, then the more you can see.

If I could show graphics on here I could explain it easier.

Sorry not a very good answer, but hope it helps.

Answer 5

High Definition TV. A form that provides crystal-clear quality wide-screen pictures with compact disc-quality surround sound. The aspect ratio of HDTV pictures is 16:9 as opposed to today’s 4:3 format.

Answer 6

It means high definition, apparently HD tv has really sharp picture quality, sort of jump out of the screen and bite you in the *** type of thing. Also, a marketing ploy by Sky to rip off customers by charging extra for the service. I'll avoid it for as long as i can.

Answer 7

High Definition TV the picture is better but you have to be set up to receive HD and on Sky the box is £400

Answer 8

High definition TV

Answer 9

High Definition Television.

Basically, this is used to describe the clear image produced by some Television sets along with other hardware.

Answer 10

High Definition TeleVision.

Basically a really good picture on your TV screen, although only some companies/broadcasters use it.