[TechnoticMedia]

High Definition video is becoming the next big thing. Many people still do not have a clear understanding of the different formats, and the ways to record the footage. I have put together some information for you guys that will help when chatting about high defintion with your friends.

First let me start with the frame sizes...

480i - Standard Defintion Footage, Interlaced. Pretty much what you see on TV and your regular camcorders.

480p - Stardard Definition Footage, Progressive. Looks better than 480i but it is still standard defintion footage. Progressive means that the entire frame is drawn every time, instead of 1/2 the frame (odd or even fields).

720p - The first in High Definition frame sizes. This assumes a 16:9, or widescreen aspect ratio, and contains about 1280x720 pixels in the frame.

1080i - Even better High Definition frames. The resolution here is 1920x1080. Some TV's support this by using pixel shift technology, while others can display a true 1920x1080 resolution.

1080p - The best quality high definition available currently. It is the progressive version of 1080i. Currently TV's that support 1080p are slightly more expensive but they look gorgeous.


Consumer Recording Formats:

DVD - Standard Definition only. Capable of 480p. Can create a 24P disc to save space and for the "film-look."

Blu-Ray Disc - New optical disc format developed by sony for storage of high definition movies. Using a 405nm laser to read and write data, this disc has the capaibility to hold 50GB of data on a dual layer disc, which translates to 9 hours of HD playback.

HD-DVD - Backed by the DVD Forum, and spearheaded by Toshiba, it is another optical disc format capable of storing high defintion movies. Also using a 405nm laser, this disc has a capacity of 30GB on a dual layer disc, 5.4 hours of HD playback.


Digital Video Formats:

Digital Video (DV) - Created in 1994 as a standard definition format. Seen in many consumer devices as MiniDV.

DVCAM - Sony's professional version of DV. Uses similar cassettes as DV and MiniDV but moves the tape faster for less dropouts. Standard Definition.

DVCPRO - Developed by Panasonic for Electronic News Gathering and has even less dropouts than DVCAM.

DVCPRO50 - Doubles the DV coded bit-rate to 50Mbit/s and uses 4:2:2 color sampling instead of 4:1:1. Mostly used as a higher-quality Standard Defintion.

DVCPRO HD - Uses a coded bit-rate of 100Mbit/s and also uses 4:2:2 color sampling. Uses downsampling techniques to store 720p and 1080i footage.

HDV - Developed by JVC and Sony. Uses MPEG-2 Compression techniques to store 720p and 1080i footage on standard MiniDV tapes. Uses 1440x1080 pixel frames for 1080i.


Frame Rates:

60i (50.94) - Your standard video framerate. 60 "fields" interlaced per second. Looks like home movie footage.

30p (29.97) - 30 full progressive frames per second. Same "frame-rate" as 60i, except its progressive, so it looks much better.

24p (23.976) - A way to achieve a film look with digital video, using 24 progressive frames per second. Film is turned around 24 frames per second.