The days of big bulky television sets are gone.  We now have thin LCD and Plasma screens that allow us to watch our favorite programs or video’s in High Definition.  So why not shoot all our video’s in high definition?  When you are in the market for your next video camera, don’t consider any format that is not High Defintion.

High Definition video is defined as video with atleast 720 horizontal pixels.  It currently comes in two varieties, 720 or 1080.  The 720 variety has 720 lines of horizonatl pixels while the 1080 has 1,080 lines of horizontal pixels.  They are both use the 16:9 aspect ratio, which means they are widescreen formats and not “square” like old televisions.  The high definitions picture looks better because it has more pixels to view.

HD versus SD images

Another factor that is important to consider when looking at high definition is whether the image is interlaced or progressively scanned.  Traditional television is interlaced, two images are interlaced together using alternate scan lines from each image.  This gives you blurred edges when motion is occuring and only shows half of any one image.  Progressive high definition is much crisper and sharp because each image on the screen is not interlaced and in full resolution.

Standard Definition televisions are always interlaced.  Your hand held video camera is shooting video interlaced.  High Definition can also be interlaced.  High definition that is shot at 720 is going to always be progressive, 720p.  High definition shot at 1080 is going to be either interlaced or progressive, 1080i or 1080p.  Most of your high definition sports programming is shot in 720p and most of your high defintion programming is shot 1080i.