General Feature: HD Ready & Full HD

When you look at different TVs that stores are selling, they have either HD-Ready or Full HD. But what is the difference and when can it be used?

High Definition TVs are televisions that can broadcast higher resolutions then standard TV (SDTV). It was researched by Japan in 1970 but it was the United States that made the first introduction of HDTV in 1981. Then in 1991, Japan had its first HD Channel. After more than 35 years of development, HDTV has two different forms: Full HD & HD Ready. People that buy TVs with one of the two forms of High Definition have the following benefits:

- Better image quality
- Sharper image
- More full colours

When do you get High Definition on your TV?

- Satellite & Cable. More and more channals are nowadays broadcasted with higher resolution, leading to better image. Here in the Netherlands (also the rest of Europe), it was introduced in 2004. Quite late compared to USA & Japan. It will cost some time before HD becomes a standard.

- Blue Ray disc, The follow up of the DVD disc. While the invention of DVD already made a big contribution to high image quality, Blue Ray discs are even better with the best image and superior sound.

In order to have HD quality image on your tv screen, you need a HDMI cable (left side) a follow of the traditional SCART cable (right side), plugging from the Receiver / Blue Ray player to the TV in order to get get real HD image.



What is the difference between Full HD & HD Ready?
To explain better about the difference between HD Ready TVs and Full HD TVs below is picture with all the possible image resolutions.

TVs that have HD ready can only show up to 1280 / 720 p (green part of the picture), which is the minumum requirement of in order to watch HD. Therefore, the price of those TVs are cheaper. Suitable for people who are in the average watching group. If you want to use the fullest potential image quality on your TV when you are watching a movie or tv channels, the Full HD is recommended TVs with Full HD can show up to 1080 / 1920 (blue part of the picture). The bigger the TV, the more Full HD is recommended. The reason because when you are watching a big TV with the same resolution as a small tv, then obviously the small one has better image quality.