*I apologize if this is noobish and has been asked and answered a thousand times- if so just point me to the thread where it was previously answered*
I just got my first hdtv early december, the westinghouse 1080p 37w3 lcd. Absolutely loving it btw. But it got me wondering for the first time, who came up with the resolutions anyway? I googled, and searched here and wikipedia, but cant figure it out. To illustrate what I mean, I was quite intrigued by the new Westinghouse lcd with 3840x2160 resolution or 2160p (not that I'll be getting one this decade, or even next decade :P). One of the noted features of this resolution is its perfect scaling, meaning 9 pixels for every 1 for 720p content and 4 pixels for each pixel of 1080p content. So I started to wonder, why aren't current resolutions in easily scalable multiples? Why go from 480 to 720 and 1080? These now require expensive scaling to get a decent picture. Why not go with simple multiples. 720p seems to follow this as 720 is 480+240 . But what about 1080? Its not really a simple multiple. Why didn't they go with 960, being 480+480? Perhaps was 1080 simply the absolute most they could squeeze out of the bandwidth with the tech at the time and they just said lets go as high as possible?
As a side question, while I'm here, why 16:9? I don't think any movies are actually in 16:9, though some are close. Computer monitors are 16:10, I've no idea why. Why not something slightly wider since most movies are wider, say 2:1 (which would be 16:8)? A nice, even middle ground between 1.78:1 and 2.35:1 . Or was 16:9 simply thought to be the best middle ground between 4:3 and movie formats?
Funny, in addition to odd scaling, I found in searching for answers to the above questions that the actual resolution is 1088 because the mpeg compression they chose for broadcast doesn't even accept the 1080 resolution they seemingly picked out of a hat and that hdtv receivers have to throw away the extra 8 lines. Thats retarded and makes me question even more what sense 1080 resolution makes. I mean, if they had to use 1088, why throw away the extra? Just give us 1088, it wouldn't be the first random resolution, we've got 1366x768 and even 1360x768 in a few panels.
I just got my first hdtv early december, the westinghouse 1080p 37w3 lcd. Absolutely loving it btw. But it got me wondering for the first time, who came up with the resolutions anyway? I googled, and searched here and wikipedia, but cant figure it out. To illustrate what I mean, I was quite intrigued by the new Westinghouse lcd with 3840x2160 resolution or 2160p (not that I'll be getting one this decade, or even next decade :P). One of the noted features of this resolution is its perfect scaling, meaning 9 pixels for every 1 for 720p content and 4 pixels for each pixel of 1080p content. So I started to wonder, why aren't current resolutions in easily scalable multiples? Why go from 480 to 720 and 1080? These now require expensive scaling to get a decent picture. Why not go with simple multiples. 720p seems to follow this as 720 is 480+240 . But what about 1080? Its not really a simple multiple. Why didn't they go with 960, being 480+480? Perhaps was 1080 simply the absolute most they could squeeze out of the bandwidth with the tech at the time and they just said lets go as high as possible?
As a side question, while I'm here, why 16:9? I don't think any movies are actually in 16:9, though some are close. Computer monitors are 16:10, I've no idea why. Why not something slightly wider since most movies are wider, say 2:1 (which would be 16:8)? A nice, even middle ground between 1.78:1 and 2.35:1 . Or was 16:9 simply thought to be the best middle ground between 4:3 and movie formats?
Funny, in addition to odd scaling, I found in searching for answers to the above questions that the actual resolution is 1088 because the mpeg compression they chose for broadcast doesn't even accept the 1080 resolution they seemingly picked out of a hat and that hdtv receivers have to throw away the extra 8 lines. Thats retarded and makes me question even more what sense 1080 resolution makes. I mean, if they had to use 1088, why throw away the extra? Just give us 1088, it wouldn't be the first random resolution, we've got 1366x768 and even 1360x768 in a few panels.
