In regards to 1080p & 1080i

[Deciazulado]

There's actually a little more to it.

IF a program is mastered at 1080p while being watched on a 1080p display and the transfer optimized for 1080p display and then coded as 1080p on the disc, and the disc player when splitting the 1080p frame into two interlaced fields does nothing to the image except slice it into two interlaced fields and then the 1080p display recognizes the sliced 1080i input as being from a 1080p frame and simply re "weaves" the two fields into one full 1080p frame without further processing the image, a 1080i player output would look = to a 1080p one.

If any of this things is not followed the image WILL be softer.

For example if the image is being created/transfered/evaluated using a 1080i CRT, the image will probably be transfered softer than it should be, being vertically filtered to prevent interlace flicker/twiter.

Or another example, if the 1080p display treats the incoming 1080i source as 1080i video then it will have to "deinterlace" it using one of the various methods for that, the worse being the Bob method which halves the vertical resolution, the best being the pixel/motion adaptative ones which are better but not totally perfect, etc.

You think DVD is 480p? Many many DVD transfers (if not the mayority!) are optimized for interlaced displays and not done in true 480p quality. Look at the Lady And The Tramp DVD. The 2.55 wide image has been so filtered it looks soft. Probably to avoid complaints from parents by preventing any violent twiter happening on 4:3 TVs when watching a Cinemascope 2.55 image shrunk into a tiny aprox. 260 pixel tall interlaced image. DVD is basically 480i. Because that's what NTSC is.

Could that be one of the reasons some of the first High Definition film transfers look softer than they should? Maybe some were already-done transfers optimized or created in 1080i facilities used for HDTV broadcasts...


On the other hand, for true 1080i material, any 1080i source (live camera, etc) since it is 60 interlaced fields (or 50 in PAL), has to go through a deinterlcing chip at some point, be it at the 1080p player output or the 1080p display input. The better the deinterlacing chip method the sharper and artifact free the output but the best ones cost $$$ and the result is not the same as a true 1080p 60fps source would be.