Why are some HDTVs 4:3 Aspect Ratio and Others are 16:9?
The aspect ratios differ because the television industry manufactures both standard and wide-screen HDTVs, to appeal to consumer viewing preferences.
Wide-screen TVs differ in the way that they display standard-screen programming. You can view the program in “pillarbox” format (surrounded by blank bars), or you can stretch or zoom the picture to fill your HDTV screen.
Your set-top allows you to choose the way you want to view standard-width programming on your wide-screen TV. See
Selecting Your Picture Size and Format
on page 18.
What are the Differences Between Standard TVs and HDTVs?
•An HDTV is 1/3 wider than a tradi- tional TV. The HDTV aspect ratio is usually 16:9 (compared to 4:3 for SDTV).
•HDTV uses a much finer resolution to create the TV picture—up to 1125 lines for HDTV, as compared with 525 lines used in SDTV. This means that the resolution for HDTV can be up to 1920x1080 pixels, as compared with 720x480 pixels for SDTV.
•In the USA, HDTV is always broadcast with digital signals. SDTV is currently broadcast in both digital and analog.
(However, HDTV and digital SDTV do not use the same digital signal.)
•Generally, all HDTV-ready monitors or integrated HDTV sets are capable of supporting an SDTV 480i or 480p signal. Not all HDTV monitors support both 720p and 1080i HDTV signals. For instance, some plasma displays only support 720p.
