HDTV resolutions

Some more questions for the videophile

I understand that there are three high definition formats.

720p – Needs 1,280x720 native resolution in the panel.
1080i – Needs 1,920x1,080 native resolution in the panel but will not do progressive scan at this resolution
1080p - Needs 1,920x1,080 native resolution in the panel but will do progressive scan at this resolution

Now the questions

1. The latest Panels which are hd-ready with a native resolution of 1,280x720 can do only 720p right ?
2. Is there a visible quality difference between 720p and 1080i ? Which do you prefer ? I am asking this because there are hd broadcasts in both these resolutions.
3. I keep seeing some other another native resolutions like 1024 x 720 and another one 1,366 X 768. What are these ?

>>>1. The latest Panels which are hd-ready with a native resolution of 1,280x720 can do only 720p right ?

Right.

>>>2. Is there a visible quality difference between 720p and 1080i ? Which do you prefer ? I am asking this because there are hd broadcasts in both these resolutions.
On a 1,280x720 display use 720P.
On a 1080 display, use 720p for fast motion programming and 1080i for others.

>>>3. I keep seeing some other another native resolutions like 1024 x 720 and another one 1,366 X 768. What are these ?
I think I have seen this more often on diplays aslo meant for computer monitors.

Thanks,
Sharad

The standard HDTV resolutions are the ones that you mentioned. However, the panel native resolution may be non-standard (as in the 768p case). All 720p (or 768p, a non-stand) panels will accept 720p as input. But they also seem to accept 1080i as input resolution (and perform processing to display it on the native 720p or 768p). There also seems to be some 720p displays which accept 1080p as input. This is more common amongst plasmas and projectors.

Sorry, I cannot help you here since I have not compared this side-by-side. But with 2.25 times increased pixel density, it is hard not to have a visible difference.

Now, 720p, 1080i and 1080p are the accepted standard HDTV resolutions. However for some reasons, all LCD TVs seem to be 768p (i.e. 1366x768 resolution and inherently progressive display). However, this is a non-standard resolution. Now, again most TVs do not accept 768p as input. So they have to perform some processing to convert the standard resolutions to native resolutions. You may not see much difference, but video purists detest such a processing. Here 1080p is much preferred as the native resolution is standard and you get what is called as pixel-to-pixel mapping of input.

BTW, I have a 768p LCD

Regards,
Prasad Redkar.

Thanks guys for the input.