DIGITAL TV BRINGS THE ACTION INTO YOUR LIVING ROOMS
What is HDTV?
The easiest way to explain HDTV is the amount of pixels the television or monitor is capable of displaying on screen. Regular PAL signals are capable of 640 lines of resolution and NTSC signals have 525 lines. The increase in lines and pixels on screen is what makes the HDTV picture appear not only brighter but also sharper and more detailed than a standard television.
HDTV: Hi-Definition Television means broadcast of television signals with a higher resolution than traditional formats (NTSC, SÉCAM, PAL) allow. Except for early analog formats in Europe and Japan, HDTV is broadcast digitally, and therefore its introduction sometimes coincides with the introduction of digital television (DTV).
SDTV: Standard-definition television or SDTV refers to television systems that have a lower resolution than HDTV systems (704x480 or 640x480). The term is usually used in reference to digital television, in particular when broadcasting at the same (or similar) resolution as analog systems.
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SDTV resolution. |
HDTV at four times the resolution of SDTV. |
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Below are a few examples of a Perfect Dark Zero scaled according to the differnet television formats, clearly you can see that the higher resolutions that are only capable with an HDTV or CRT Monitor (XGA) are both much clearer and much higer resolution. Quite simply those of us with standard televisions will not be capable of reproducing the true potential of the Xbox 360 and will instead see a much lower resolution and pixelated image on screen.
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Resolution: 640x480 Resolution: 640x360 16:9 Letterboxed Format: NTSC/VGA |
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Resolution: 768x576 Resolution: 768x432 16:9 Letterboxed Format: PAL | |
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Resolution: 1024x768 Format: XGA |
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Resolution: 1280x720 Format: HDTV 720p |
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Resolution: 1920x1080 Format: HDTV 1080i |
But what does this all mean when it comes to Xbox 360? Well in simple terms in order to achieve the very best quality visual results you will need an HDTV 1080i or an HDTV 720p compatible television. A SDTV is simply not capable of producing on screen the number of pixels that an HDTV is and if you are using the Xbox 360 console on a SDTV you will actually see an image similar and more like the one below:
On a HDTV you will actually see an image the one below, which is brighter, sharper and less pixelated:
