1080p with 1080i?

Question

Does an HDTV that supports 1080p also support 1080i, 720p.....and the rest? I mean, if you have 1080p resolution you can watch in 1080i, right?

Answer 1

Basically, yes. But there are some surprises hidden in this issue and while you don't really need to worry about it you might find some additional information useful.

First 1080p support does not necessarily mean your HDTV will accept a native 1080p signal ("luckily" there aren't too many ... yet). While newer TVs increasingly will, many manufactured even 6-12 months ago would not. They accept a 720p or 1080i signal and covert/scale to 1080p. See Link 1.

To complicate things further there is the question of frame rate. Movies are shot at 24 frames/second while TV in North America is 30 fps (or 25 fps in Europe), so there is a conversion necessary to match the frame rate of movies to the rate needed by the TV. This conversion can (and frequently does) lead to picture "artifacts". See Link 2 for a complete explanation, but the relevant issue here is that the "holy grail" is TVs able to directly accept (and DVD or HD DVD players output) 24 fps signals. To date few can. But we will eventually have not only 1080p resolution, but direct 24fps input support.

But in the context of your question upconversion of "lesser" signals automatically is the norm. Note that this is essential since there are such a range of potential input resolutions. For example, 480i or 480p for DVDs, and 720p and 1080i for HDTV (there is not a single standard, for example ABC HD is 720p while CBS HD is 1080i).

Answer 2

Generally 1080i (interlace) will be supported by most HD TVs. 1080p is progressive and has twice the data rate to the screen. In 1080p each of 1080 lines is written each frame. In 1080p every other line is written.

Many HD TVs will not support 1080P. But if it supports 1080P it should support all the slower and lower resolutions including 1080i and 720p.

Answer 3

The TV will convert any input to its "native" resolution. So if you have a 1080p display, the TV will "scale" the input (480i, 480p, 720p), and deinterlace 1080i, to 1080p for display.

Answer 4

Yes, an HDTV that will do 1080p,
will also support lesser resolutions.

H a p p y
H o m e
T h e a t e r i n g !

Xe♫

Answer 5

i would think so most tvs have a setting for is. I would check you tv manual