1080i or 1080p on a HDTV?

to answer this question, you need to know a little about what is going on. 1080i is an interleaved signal composedof two fields to form one frame of video. one field has oddlines and the other field are even lines. The best way to look at it is if you have two combs and you put the teeth together to form one solid image. The way television uses interleavingis based on our form of Alternating current. In the Uniteed States and other NTSC countries, the current alternates back and forth 60 times in one second, 60 Cycles per second. (CPS) So the speed of 1080i is 60 fields persecond or 30 frames per second. This is the highest resolution you cna currently get using a non digital HD signal, usually using component video cables for your HDTV

Now a 1080p signal, the progressive is the video being drawn along a single point, almost as if the pixels are being typed along a line such as the typing I am doing here. Computer monitors are a progressive type scan. Because of this depending on the video memory and processor, how many pixels have to be “typed” you can change the refresh rates. If your computer can keep up with or your DVD player canhave a higher refresh rate with a progressive scan, it can produce a cleaner image, but your actual refresh rate in frames per second will depend on the source video which movies are generally shot at 24 frames per second and NTSC video is 29.97 frames a second. The place where you will notice a difference in any refresh rate above that is usually with video games. so in closing, 1080p would be faster than 1080i because it isn’t dependant on the AC electricity CPS for timing.