Frame based for flat screen TV?

[Maukka]

New flat screen (plasma or LCD) TVs use basically the same technology as computer screens. So logically, if my project is to be primarily viewed on such new TV screens, it should rather be frame-based than field- based. Is this correct, or is the TV broadcast image interlaced no matter what the TV screen is like?

In Europe most countries are moving to digital TV within the next few years, and as prices go down, a lot of people prefer to buy a new flat screen TV rather than a "digibox" with which they would still be able to use their old TV.

If the first postlate is correct, we could soon forget about field-based, interlaced video. This may be something to take into account already now, when planning new projects. Or is it?

any comments? thanks,
Maukka

[sjj1805]

Dont know the answer but..... what sprung to mind was
will anyone else be looking at your stuff on their non-plasma televisions.

[Devil]

Although many new sets are "HD ready", if you are receiving a traditional analogue signal, it is interlaced (576, 25i in PAL land). The European SDTV DVB standards allow for 704 x 576 MPEG-2 compression in 24p, 25i, 25p or 50p formats. I don't know, but as most of the "canned" programmes will be in 25i, this will be the easiest for the broadcasters to implement for DVB. The question is how the TV receivers handle interlaced signals. They could either display them at 50 fields, the same as a CRT, or they could do it at 25 frames, with half the image held in memory and the 625 lines thus reconstituted into 25p for display. Either way, I presume the refresh rate would be a multiple of 25 to prevent flicker. (Did you know that interlacing was introduced by Baird primarily to reduce flicker on his LD MW system, and it was adopted also by the BBC for its 405 line system for the first regular TV broadcasts in the world, to save on bandwidth?)

I think interlacing is here to stay for SDTV>