HDTV resolution explained
By David KatzmaierFeb 19, 2008
Resolution is the main reason HDTV looks so much better than standard television. On a high-def TV displaying a high-def source, a million or more pixels combine to create images that appear sharper and more realistic than TV ever has before. Resolution isn't the be-all and end-all of picture quality, however, and its numerous, well, numbers, can be incredibly intimidating at first. In this article we'll try to demystify HDTV resolution and help you cut through the hype that surrounds all of those numbers.
1. How important is resolution?
Not as important as you might think. According to the Imaging Science Foundation, a group that consults for home theater manufacturers and trains professional video calibrators, the most important aspect of picture quality is contrast ratio, the second most important is color saturation, and the third is color accuracy. Resolution comes in a distant fourth, despite being easily the most-talked-about HDTV spec today.
In other words, once you get to high definition, most people are perfectly satisfied with the sharpness of the picture. All other things being equal--namely contrast and color--HDTV looks more or less spectacular on just about any high-def television regardless of its size or the HDTV signal's resolution itself. The leap from normal TV to HDTV is so big that additional leaps in resolution---from high-def to higher-def, let's say---are tiny by comparison.
Nonetheless, the HDTV landscape is littered with resolution discussions in regard to both sources and displays, so a little knowledge of how they interact is a good thing.
