Digital Dictionary: Your Home Theater Guide to Basic Digital Terms

As a home theater owner, it is important to understand the technology of your home theater components. A general understanding of relevant technology as a consumer can help you to make intelligent choices on buying all things digital and electronic, specifically your home theater system parts.

With the decrease in popularity, and impending death, of analog television has been the rise of digital television. With digital television, the best picture available is achieved with digitally-wired antennae that pick up digital signals along with built-in digital tuners that can decode the digital signals.

There is a difference between high definition and standard definition in terms of picture resolution. Standard definition is roughly 525 interlaced lines of an image. High definition is technically 720p but some people will say that a DVD is high definition which is 480p, which is 480 lines. To project the image, first the lines 1,3,5,7 and all the odd numbered line are projected, followed by the even numbered lines.

There are varied discussion about the 480i, 480p, 720p, and also 1080i and 1080p. Some experts have even said that 720p is actually better than 1080i. The reason for the discussion is often rooted in conversations of sports fans because most people who have higher definition sets are usually sports fans. ESPN broadcasts in 720p. 1080i is a little bit better, it is interlaced but it depends on how close you are to the screen. 1080p would really be better but again it depends on how close you are to the screen. The thing with 720 is that it can handle rapid movements better than 1080i. So if someone has a rapid camera pan watching a football, what is seen is a much better image at 720 because of the processors and the components built into the set that convert images much more quickly.

There is a bit of a misnomer with 1080p because no one is creating 1080p content. You can often save $300 or $400 by purchasing a 52-inch television that has 720 as opposed to 1080. The only devise on the market now that generates a full 1080p is the Sony PlayStation 3. Even the highly-touted Blu-Ray disc does not generate a true 1080p image because most movies are shot at 24 frames a second. Therefore, what 1080 does is repeat the same image twice to fill up the 60 frames a second needed for 1080p. Technically, the picture is not necessarily better.

One last technicality among screen resolutions is the viewing distance for the relative screen sizes. At larger distances, the difference between 720 and 1080 is negligible.
However, at shorter viewing distances, the differences are easily detectable. When shopping for a new set, regardless of the definition, it is important to keep in mind the viewing distance in your own home theater environment. By considering your relative viewing distance, you get a much better feel for how any set will be viewed once it is placed in your home theater room.

Set resolution is one technical aspect to consider when choosing home theater components. Not only do sets differ but also home theater environments. Be sure to note your home theater viewing space before making a final decision regarding resolution lines and screen sizes.