Below is an excerpt from "The Pefect Vision" Now I'm confused about what they are saying about screens not really being 1080P. Is he correct is saying this?


At the other end of the signal chain,
a display with a native resolution of
1920x1080 pixels can accept a 1080p
signal at 60fps (and possibly 24fps) or
it can’t. Either way, the display is often
labeled “1080p” because it has a
resolution of 1920x1080, and it must
deinterlace a 1080i input to display it; in
other words, the signal must be 1080p
just before it hits the imaging hardware.
I agree that this is very misleading,
because a “1080p” label on a display
really tells you nothing about whether
or not it can accept a 1080p signal.
Not only that, modern fixed-pixel displays
(DLP, LCoS/SXRD/D-ILA, LCD, plasma)
do not render an image in an interlaced
or progressive fashion in any event—they
flash the entire image of each frame all
at once rather than drawing horizontal
lines sequentially. (Hitachi’s ALiS plasmas
are an exception, though even
these displays do not draw lines sequentially.)
As a result, calling such a display
“1080p” is doubly misleading. The terms
“1080i” and “1080p” should only be
applied to video signals, not displays.
I must also point out that, contrary to
popular belief, a 1080p signal is not
necessarily better than 1080i, especially
if we’re talking about 60fps.

Below is an excerpt from "The Pefect Vision" Now I'm confused about what they are saying about screens not really being 1080P. Is he correct is saying this?


At the other end of the signal chain,
a display with a native resolution of
1920x1080 pixels can accept a 1080p
signal at 60fps (and possibly 24fps) or
it can’t. Either way, the display is often
labeled “1080p” because it has a
resolution of 1920x1080, and it must
deinterlace a 1080i input to display it; in
other words, the signal must be 1080p
just before it hits the imaging hardware.
I agree that this is very misleading,
because a “1080p” label on a display
really tells you nothing about whether
or not it can accept a 1080p signal.
Not only that, modern fixed-pixel displays
(DLP, LCoS/SXRD/D-ILA, LCD, plasma)
do not render an image in an interlaced
or progressive fashion in any event—they
flash the entire image of each frame all
at once rather than drawing horizontal
lines sequentially. (Hitachi’s ALiS plasmas
are an exception, though even
these displays do not draw lines sequentially.)
As a result, calling such a display
“1080p” is doubly misleading. The terms
“1080i” and “1080p” should only be
applied to video signals, not displays.
I must also point out that, contrary to
popular belief, a 1080p signal is not
necessarily better than 1080i, especially
if we’re talking about 60fps.


The best way to tell if a display is 1080p or not is by the type of signal input it can receive. Sometimes it is specified as it's "native resolution" and other times it is specified in the signals it can recieve (1080i/30, 1080p/24, 1080p30, etc).

It is a little misleading in that a display that only accepts a 1080i/30 signal and de-interlaces it to 1080p/30 and a display that accepts a 1080p/30 as is are both called 1080p, but that's just how manufacturers list their products. All interlacers/deinterlacers being equal, the resulting picture should look the same as the original film content is the same. However, all interlacers/deinterlacers are not equal and their could be some variance in picture quality.

Hopefully the helps!