The New Aspect Ratio
Current televisions are based upon the aspect ratio of 4:3. This means a TV with an aspect ratio of 4:3 will be 3 feet high and 4 feet wide. With HDTV the aspect ratio is 16:9, making the image much wider than a normal TV. The new screen size is 33% wider to be exact.

Comparison of the aspect ratio of a High Definition TV compared to a NTSC TV of the same height...

The increased width is a huge improvement because it allows you to view TV and movies as if you were watching them in a theater. When watching TV on a 16:9 screen you use your peripheral vision, which truly makes you feel like you are a part of the program.

Norm Samat, the directory of ABC's Monday Night Football HDTV feed put it perfectly:
You almost get into a trance looking at HDTV pictures because you really see more. The wider 16:9 aspect ratio makes a big difference in covering football. With the old 4:3 aspect ratio screens it was often tricky to cover the defense. In HDTV they are already in your picture, so you can see more of the play develop.

Resolution
The usual resolution a normal NTSC TV can display is 525 scan lines with 480 actually being visible. The usual TV can display a resolution of about 210,000 pixels per image. High Definition TV's can go all the way up to 1920 (horizontal) x 1080 (vertical) pixels, with a total of 2,073,600 pixels per image. That is ten times the resolution and picture quality. Ten times!

Number of pixels on a HDTV monitor at 1920 x 1080 versus NTSC at 720 x 486...

In fact, when you squeeze all these pixels down to the same sized TV you get impeccable quality. Instead of stretching these pixels out, they are crammed together so tight that resolutions get as high and as sharp as they do.

Different Views of SDTV and HDTV-Resolution

Digital TV - SDTV:

    * 480i - 704x480 interlaced
    * 480p - 704x480 progressive
     

Digital-HDTV:

    * 720p - 1280x720  progressive
    * 1080i - 1920x1080 interlaced
    * 1080p - 1920x1080 progressive

More Accurate - Listing the resolution and frame rate:

    * 480i - The picture is 704x480 - (60/2 interlaced frames per second)
      = 30 complete frames per second.
     
    * 480p - The picture is 704x480 - 60 complete frames per second.
     
    * 720p - The picture is 1280x720 - 60 complete frames per second.
     
    * 1080i - The picture is 1920x1080 - (60/2 interlaced frames per second)
      = 30 complete frames per second.
     
    * 1080p - The picture is 1920x1080 - 60 complete frames per second.

Comparison of Digital TV and HDTV

Note: Although "non-CRT" television sets use different technologies in creating the screen images, and there are other factors involved with how they display the picture, in the end, HDTV-Resolutions are still (720p) and (1080i) - or higher.

Just got back from Guanzhou, china and bought myself a true HDTV.  Its a 32" 16:9 CRT HDTV thats supports 1080P, 1080i, 720P. 

I bought it for RM2250 and cost about RM350 to ship it back to malaysia.

There is demand but there is no supply.  All Malaysian TV comes in 4:3 ratio except the newer DLP and LCD TV.  Those are too expensive anyway.  That is why i bought the Skyworth 16:9 crt HDTV because its widescreen.

Hehe, both look the same because of the tendency for retailers to hook up the dinkiest (and I mean stupidest) kind of composite connection to "show off" the TV, with brightness and other settings tuned up way high...

You're right - I forgot to mention that strangely enough only my model (which has been discontinued, I guess) has support for 480p, 720p and 1080i. I couldn't find a similar PDF but it's stated on the manual. Hmm... I need to do a bit more testing, I think.

As for no interlace line - I played a bit of King Kong yesterday, and that looked pretty amazing for a  CRT. Soul Calibur 2(ori) also looked extra crisp but that was at 480p. I'll need to see if I can push it higher...

Yes, its china brand Skyworth.  Quality wise to me are more or less the same.

Basically CRT HDTV displays are still the highest quality display over any other format (DLP, Plasma, LCD, LCoS). However in the xbox 360's case, all games natively support 720p but unfortunately CRT televisions do not support 720p native. Instead they upscale everything to 1080i in which loss can occur. So if you want to display games in their native resolution, going to Plasma or LCD is the way to go.

However from a technical standpoint, there is one CRT that kind of words around the technical jargon and can do 720p native - the JVC 34" widescreen HDTV. Instead of converting all signals to 1080i, it actually converts signals to 1500i which is a few extra lines on top of 1440i resolution. 1440i is the same as 720p. Since the picture is interlaced (have the picture is shown every other time) across 1440 lines (720 on the first, 720 on the second), it can actually show 720p received signals accurately without compromising quality because the resolution is exactly divisible by 2.

So, to sum it up, unless you have a 1500i CRT TV (JVC is the only one that currently does this), then you will not be getting the most out of your picture, no matter the cable

CRT televisions do not support 720p native. Instead they upscale everything to 1080i in which loss can occur. So if you want to display games in their native resolution, going to Plasma or LCD is the way to go.

there is no such thing as 1440i/1500i.  HD standard is 720P/1080i/1080P.  And newer crt these days can fully support these.  The only disadvantages of crt hdtv is that part of the tube might be covered the frame so one might not see the whole picture.  A minor disadvantages considering the price you pay.

(32KHz for 1080i and 37KHz for 720p if I remember correctly.) There are very few CRT's that natively support 720p for this very reason. The manufacturing costs are much higher. 99% of all sets that claim to support 720p, actually scale the signal to 1080i.

hI,

Can tell which model is it?

I'm currently looking for a new HDTV...since my old 29" SDTV KO liao, it gives me a good reason to!!

But i've a hard time deciding. My current choice is the SONY DB29M61 which is currently the ONLY CRT HDTV which supports 1080i/720p/480p/576p etc...and i think it's the cheapest HDTV in the market!!(Only RM1900).

However, i'm also looking at  the Philips Pixel Plus 2(the old Pixel Plus models all sold out i guess) and saw some on display in SENQ. Can't remember the price though.

Pixel Plus really makes a difference, i think it's the best looking of all the technology mumbo-jumbo of other tv's out there. However, as highlighted by other poster, the Philips model only plays 480p and 1080i.

So i'm wondering, can i play 720p XBOX games with Philips TV? Does it do upscaling (or whatever conversion) to 1080i??

Really headache...cannot decide!!

Lord Ashe: Can u tell me whether your Philips TV does upscaling/conversion of 720p to 1080i??

Example, when u play SC2 (XBOX) on your TV, how do you know which resolution it's running? Is it set from the game or TV?? Does it runs SC2 in 720p mode by upscaling to 1080i??

I think need to check out the Pixel Plus 2 prices soon.

Hmm. Okay, thanks for the input. I'll do that the moment I can! Strangely the back of my original SC2 says 720p support.

Hmmmm.

I think the info there is wrong. It is known that SC2 supports 720p and has been mentioned in various reviews in online sites.

btw, how do u disable the 480p/1080i mode? From software or tv??

Updated:
Check http://www.hdtvarcade.com/xboxlist.htm properly again.

SC2 XBOX support 720p ler.. 

  Feel sorry for you man...kena con by china conman......seriously it's better to buy a Philip Pixel Plus or even SONY HDTV locally for that price....if problem occurs (touch wood)...who can fix and where to find spare parts?? A bit risky...

I am also perplexed why I am seeing poor setups at most showrooms.
Some showed Astro ESPN that looked so bad that its a turn off. 

Is cost (cabling, hidef players, etc.) the reason why they have such poor setups?

IMHO that shouldn't be a reason, since these showrooms also stock the necessary cables/players. For example, since most LCD/plasma displays these days are HDTV ready - all they need is an HDTV source. I suspect however that the showrooms lack HDTV source devices, unlike us gamers who have our consoles that can at least output ONE flavour of progressive scan. True, these showrooms also have DVD players that support progressive, but I'm seeing that they're just plain lazy or ignorant to hook up their displays properly. A simple example would be Astro. Even on my entry level Pixel Plus 2 set, Astro on a cheap S-video can look pretty good (depending on the source, some shows are better than others) and I've seen a 43" TV in a showroom hooked up to an ESPN feed that looked like it came over regular terrestrial signals! So yeah, while HDTV settop boxes may be expensive, hooking up their high end TVs to progressive scan DVD players with component cables is not!

At the end of the day, the bottom line is to flood the potential buyer with so many specs and features that they end up buying the most expensive TV, not to help them make a good buying decision. Sad, innit?

They UPconvert from 720p to 1080i. No CRT display on sale right now has 720p native. They just don't do it. It will ACCEPT a 720p signal, but then it just converts it to 1080i. Even the Sony XBRs, which some say are the best of the direct view CRTs, convert 720p to 1080i.

Consumer television, large format CRTs just can't do a 720p signal. They don't have enough vertical scanning frequency to do it. Thats why. The big Sony XBRs have the display size and resolution available with their screens. But, they've yet to make one with a high enough scanning frequency to actually resolve 720p. They will do 480p, but all other HD signals sent to one will be converted to 1080i.

You have to look at it in a scanning frequency view. The frequency of a CRT is measured as horizontal lines per second. After seeing what it takes, you'll understand......

480i - 480 lines x 30 frames = 14.4kHz
480p - 480 lines x 60 frames = 28.8kHz
1080i - 1080 lines x 30 frames = 32.4kHz
720p - 720 lines x 60 frames = 43.2kHz
1080p - 1080 lines x 60 frames = 64.8kHz

Thats why large format CRT PC monitors cost so much back in the day. To get them to be able to show such high resolutions, they had to have very high frequency electron guns....

1600x1200 @ 85Hz = 102kHz
1920x1440 @ 85Hz = 122kHz

You can see there, the high frequency required for desktop CRT displays. Even now, the 24" Sony FW900, which most people say is the best of the consumer CRTs, and is now almost 4 years old, still costs about $1000 new these days. Its just very expensive to get CRTs to display that much picture. With LCDs, its easy. You just build a panel with that many pixels, and your done. But, its not that easy with CRT.

All,
May I ask, do you know of other forums for discussing AV stuffs (Malaysia-
related)? Sometimes I have questions that are not console-gaming related
that I wish to discuss/consult.

Eg. I bought a wireless AV sender/receiver yesterday but the IR extender
wouldn't work with astro's remote control.

Thanks

Also, even with progressive DVD player, currently the DVD media are not really encoded properly. I read some tech stuff which i can't really understand, but it basically means the quality even with progressive scan TV and DVD player, it's not really 100% progressive due to current DVD media are encoded, but still much much better than crappy interlace.

100 or 120Hz TVs actually take each interlaced field and then doubles the lines to make a full frame. It also shows the rebuilt "frame" twice, that's how you get 100/120Hz from a 25/30fps PAL or NTSC source. The final image is actually "progressive" but because it's taken from an interlaced input so you'll get nasty de-interlacing artifacts.

Hehe..true. In fact, Pixel Plus 2 is just that - a very good line doubler 

Actually, all the major HDTV brand uses some kinda line doubler technology...vertically and horizontally. Some even got the nerve to call it line-quadrauple due to this...ah well...u can't argue with marketing people...