This is going to be a really dumb question that shows how technologically-inept I really am, but what is the difference between 1080p and 1080i?

I recently got a new 18.5" LED TV. I want to use it to play my Xbox 360 with HD quality. After connecting the HD plugs, I looked through the display settings and discovered only two worked:

1080i
1080p

Turning on 720p just gives a blank screen. So what is the difference between those two, which looks better?

1080i = interlaced video
1080p progressive scanning

There is almost no way you can tell the difference between a 1080i broadcast and a 1080p broadcast unless you pause the screen. Then the 1080i version would appear a bit blurry but the 1080p image would be sharp (er)

Both are 'Full HD'

also the xbox can't handle full HD :whisper:

i - Interlaced. It renders every other row of pixels at a time and alternates between them.

p - Progressive. It renders the entire image.

IMO, progressive is better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080i http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlaced http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_scan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing.

The only difference lies in the i and the p. They are both the same basic resolution, but the signal type is different. Like it says on Wikipedia, 1080i uses interlaced video, which is essentially 1080 horizontal lines that mesh together to form a picture. Every other row of pixels is a different frame, to give it the illusion of having better quality when it's actually more compressed. Television broadcasters like to use it because they don't need to transmit as much data. 1080p, on the other hand, is not interlaced, it's progressive. It will transmit solid images. This means that it requires more bandwidth, but it is the standard for more television sets and computer monitors.

At the end of the day, though, it's the same-ish video quality with a slight favor towards 1080p. If your television supports it, just use 1080p.



It can, just not in games. Watching videos on Netflix or otherwise as well as the dashboard and all the functions that come inside it, as well as a few select games, can broadcast at 1080p. The games in general, however, are too strong to have good graphics and still be in 1080p, so they need to downsize. The result of making consoles just before the advent of HDTVs I suppose.

Theoretically they should provide the same image quality, but interlaced can cause vertical stripes when handling transitions (eg. fade to black).

Go for progressive if possible