HD ready vs HDTV

StellenboschStudent

Expert Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2007
Messages
2,067
Reaction score
1
Location
Geordie land
Hi
I just want to make sure I am right, what is the difference between a tv that is HD ready and a HDTV?
I'm not gonna give my explanation... maybe I am wrong!
 
Nothing really.

HDTV just means HD Television (it usually refers to the broadcast or signal itself rather than the TV set)
HD-Ready means that the TV is capable of accepting an HD signal and can display at least 720p signals natively via HDMI or DVI (with HDCP - High Definition Copy Protection)).
Full-HD generally means that the TV can display a 1080p signal natively.

In other countries, where there is free-to-air HD digital broadcast, many HD sets have a built-in digital HD tuner. In SA, for the forseeable future, HD broadcasts (i.e. via DSTV) will require a set top box, so this is not required.
 
"HD Ready" used to imply that the monitor was high resolution with the difference between a HDTV and a "HD Ready" TV being that the "HD Ready" TV didn't include a built in digital tuner (see the now dated 2005 "HDTV Ready vs. HDTV" Engadget article). Nowadays a TV displaying the "HD Ready" logo only guarantees the TV is capable of accepting a HDTV source and provides no guarantees as to the output (as stated in removed wikipedia section "HD ready: HD ready caveats").

Although things have gotten better, many of the locally sold plasmas that display the "HD Ready" logo only support output resolutions of 1024x768 and sometimes only 852x480 (i.e. 480p) :( Neither of these resolution qualify as HDTV.

Whatever you do, when looking for a HDTV, check the resolution. Although TV's brandishing the "HDTV ready" or "HDTV compatible" logo may support 720p and 1080i input, many have a lower then 1280x720 output resolution and they'll scale the picture down to their native format (which may be as low as 480p).
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X