EDTV vs HDTV

You walk into a store or take a look at an advertisement and see a plasma TV for a really great price. You look a little harder and notice that it says EDTV. So you ask yourself, what is the difference between an ED TV and an HD TV, and more importantly is it worth the extra money for the HD Television? That depends on a couple of factors, but before we get into that why don't we take a quick look at what the picture on your TV screen is made up of and what makes that picture look better. After that we will discuss where EDTV and HDTV fit it.

A TVs Picture

The image on your TV is actually made up of a whole bunch of dots, called pixels. The number of pixels that make up the image determines the resolution of the image. So for example, if each row of an image has 20 pixels and there are 10 rows then the resolution is 20 by 10. To increase the quality of the image you increase the resolution, i.e. you increase the number of pixels. However, if you take a low resolution image and try to convert it to a high resolution it might not look that great. That's because the source of the image also needs to be high resolution. This is the reason we have high definition channels (the high resolution source), and if you buy an HDTV is doesn't automatically make everything look better (because you're trying to convert low resolution to high).

Another thing to consider is interlaced images and progressive images. All you need to know is that in an interlaced image, every other row of pixels is drawn. So when the image is created on your TV screen the first row of pixels will be drawn, the second row will be skipped, the third row will be drawn, and so on. In a progressive image, every row of pixels is drawn. This implies that the progressive images will look better since you're seeing a 'full' picture.

Regular TVs

So what is the resolution of a regular TV? Regular TVs display an image with a resolution of 640 by 480. That's 640 pixels across and 480 down. The image is interlaced.

Before moving on to the next page you may want to check out the different types of televisions available. Have a look at Plasma vs DLP vs LCD vs CRT vs LCD Rear Projection