Digital Television (DTV) has been replacing old analog TV world wide. Analog TV often suffer from problems like ’snow’ or ‘ghosting’ which occur when the signals are interrupted or weak. You see horizontal bars running over the screen or picture getting totally distorted. Similarly, digital TVs (DTV) that started to evolve with the onset of Standard Definition TV which uses video standards like NTSC, PAL and SECAM also had their own shortcomings as far as the picture quality is concerned.

Digital images are usually not susceptible to these problems, as the digital broadcast displays frozen image when transmission of signals is interrupted. The other advantages of DTV are better image quality, superior sound effects and their compatibility with numerous video inputs.
Again, DTVs are classified into three major types based on resolution or picture details that they are able to display.

They are as follows:
Standard Definition Televison (SDTV)
Enhanced Definition TV (EDTV)
High Definition TV (HDTV)

Standard Definition Television (SDTV)
Although SDTV provides better picture quality than standard analog television, its 480 lines of resolution is the lowest of the three types of DTVs. Definitely, they are superior to analog TV both in terms of picture and sound. However, in comparison with EDTV or HDTV, they lack some of the advanced features like wide aspect ratio and greater bandwidth.

Enhanced Definition Television (EDTV)
What distinguishes EDTV from SDTV is the progressive scan that an EDTV uses to produce display. Typically, 480p is the standard resolution of EDTV, which is also the resolution of a DVD. So, it is not necessary to mention that they are highly recommended for viewing DVDs to enjoy the best picture quality. Most low-end plasma TVs are often EDTV, as only larger, high-end plasma TVs come with HDTV compatibility. However, most LCD televisions, irrespective of screen size, come with HDTV resolution. Likewise, an EDTV can support both 4:3 aspect image and wider aspect image (16:9).

High Definition Television (HDTV)
HDTV is definitely the best of all DTVs, not only in terms of its higher resolution but also in terms of overall picture quality and its Dolby surround sound features. While 720p is its standard resolution, high end HDTVs can have higher resolutions like1080i and1080p. The true HDTV resolution (1080p) produces images of the highest resolution which is not at all possible on any other DTV. Usually HDTV signals use video compression, hence, they can store much more amount of visual data and can produce billions of natural colours.

What is ‘high definition’?

High definition or HD has been a relative term in the history of television which dates back to the beginning of second quarter of the last century. In fact, the word ‘high definition’ was coined to denote the television system which was prevalent before and during the second world war. Right from the introduction of black and white TV in 1936 till 1969 when Nippon brought out the first HD television, the word denoted one television system or the other based on the new advancements made in the technology. For instance, the NTSC which used better resolution (525 line when compared with previous 405 lines of resolution of black and white TV) and became a new standard for video formats, was considered ‘high definition’ till other advanced television system showed up. While NTSC was developed and accepted as standard in the USA, some European countries including UK established PAL, SECAM which has a standard resolution of 625 lines. The system that has the highest resolution was always described by this term.

However, France launched a black and white TV system that was supposed to be far superior to previous systems as it broadcast 819 line signals. Until 1986, it was considered to be the television system capable of broadcasting signals with the highest resolution.

Initially a few countries including Japan, the USA and some European nations, made attempts to launch analog HDTV for public use, however, except Japan, these attempts did not welcome much support in other countries. It was only after the introduction of digital TVs, modern HDTV started to make rapid advancements.

High Definition Television is finally ‘definied’
It was Nippon Hoso Kyokai who became the pioneer in the area of HDTV. He developed the first ever HDTV in 1969, however, it was only after two decades, HDTV started to replace prevalent standard definition TV. During the last seven years, HDTV included many different standards as HDTV was gaining popularity in the television market and many leading companies used the word ‘high definition’ to describe their products leading to confusion over what is true HDTV. However, the International Telecommunication Union finally accepted three HDTV standards which include 720p, 1080i and 1080p. HDTV broadcasts usually have standards set by ATSC or DVB.

High Defnition TV in today’s world

Presently, HDTV refers to HDTV display like Plasma TV or LCD TV and its accessories like HDTV tuners, antennae & satellite dish to receive HD signals. Either HDTVs may come with in-built HD tuners otherwise they require external set-top box to receive HD signals. In addition, HDTV also refers to HD video sources like Blu-ray discs, HD-DVDs and video games like Play station 3.   

High Definition Television or HDTV is a term that can be better understood when we make a comparison between different digital television standards available today. In fact, HDTV is a relative term and is often analogous with higher resolution. When we date back to the days when TV was in its formative years, there were standards like NTSC, PAL, SECAM which measured the video quality of the TV in terms of scan lines and number of frames per second lines. It was in mid forties of last century , NTSC or National Television System Committee which universalized a video standard which had  4:3 aspect ratio and 525 scan lines refreshing at a rate of 30 interlaced frames, or 60 fields per second. A few nations like the UK, did not stick to this standard and made a change in refresh rate, thus UK followed TV standard based on 50 Hz instead of 60 HZ which was set as standard in countries like the US and Canada. However, PAL and SECAM which came as alternatives for NTSC had more scan lines (625 instead of 525 lines) to provide more detailed pictures on the screen. Although the pictures were better on PAL but the refresh rate tend to be slower resulting in flicker which used to annoy the viewers.

The real revolution took place in 1982, when ATSC or Advanced Television Systems Committee was formed to develop a new television technology that can altogether replace the analogue video formats like NTSC, PAL or SECAM. First began as technological advancement in analog television, ATSC soon started to develop digital TVs that include standard TV, enhanced TV and finally High-definition TV. All these DTVs promised better picture quality in terms of resolution, refresh rate, colour quality etc. Another advantage that DTVs holds over previous analog televisions was improved sound quality that comes with their impressive display.

All the Digital TVs that include LCD television or plasma TV differ depending up on how many pixels per inch make up the image (this is called resolution), number of scan lines over the screen (both vertically and horizontally) and the aspect ratio. The aspect ratio shows how wide is the screen in relation to its height. In early televisions (analog) and standard digital televisions the 4:3 is the aspect ratio is still followed which means the width will be slightly longer than the height of the screen. This aspect ratio is much closer to 16 mm or 35 mm movie, and was popular until the wider format of movies (70 mm) started to be used by most movie makers during the last two decades. The 16:9 or wider aspect ratio started to be followed by television makers to present movie like viewing experience and soon became the standard for the HDTVs.

Resolution is one of the major characteristics that help us to distinguish one TV from another. Compared with old analog televisions, present HDTVs can show ten times higher resolution or even twenty times! A high end HDTV LCD TV (which is 1980p resolution), can show more than 4 million pixels on its screen presenting imagers so sharper and more detailed. When resolution is taken into account, any digital TV that can show minimum resolution of 720p is HDTV. There are HDTV resolutions like 720p, 1080i, 1080p etc. While there is not much to compare between 720p and 1080i as they look more or less alike, however, 1080p images always look superior to any other HDTV resolution. Again, 720p and 1080p indicate the method of scanning is progressive scan which tends to present better image quality against the same resolution scanned by interlace method ( which is denoted by ‘i’ and which follows the resolution). 

Digital TVs also come with improved audio quality as they adopt new audio systems like Dolby Digital which minimize the unwanted noises and also use much more audio data on their tracks. Dolby uses five channels to provide surround sound quality which is more or less similar to what one experiences in a cinema hall. However, most of the HDTVs usually feature only two channels and only a few can support 5.1 channel feature of full Dolby Digital.

Both Sharp LC-32D43U and Sharp LC-32GP1U are 32” LCD TVs, however, they differ in a number of features. Both of them are a bit expensive, considering the smaller screen size. Sharp LC-32GP1U is a full HDTV while Sharp LC-32D43U can display 720p images. Other features that make Sharp LC-32GP1U more expensive of the two LCD TVs are additional connectivity (DVI), in-built game mode, Vyper driver that come with this TV.

Both TVs come with sleek, elegant design and the picture quality of their images are superior compared to other LCD TVs of similar size. The price factor still hurts anyone who wishes to buy these TVs which offer excellent features otherwise.
 
Where do Sharp LC-32D43U and Sharp LC-32GP1U differ?

• Resolution
• Contrast ratio
• Additional features
• HDMI
• Connections
• Power consumption

Sharp LC-32GP1U is a full HDTV which means it can display the maximum HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. By contrast, Sharp LC-32D43U has a native resolution of 1366 X 768 pixels. This makes Sharp LC-32GP1U can show HDVD and Blu-ray content better than Sharp LC-32D43U. Due to this advantage, pictures of full HD resolution look sharper in Sharp LC-32GP1U LCD screen.

Sharp LC-32GP1U also has an edge over Sharp LC-32D43U in terms of better contrast ratio (2000:1 Vs 1200:1). So, the picture exhibits deeper black levels in the former, while the black levels are still decent in latter.

Sharp LC-32GP1U has three HDMI inputs when compared with two HDMI inputs available in the other. This means, you have one more HDTV connection in this unit. There is also a DVI input available in Sharp LC-32GP1U which is missing in the other. 

There are a few additional features available in Sharp LC-32GP1U, that are absent in Sharp LC-32D43U, namely game mode and Vyper Drive.

In terms of power consumption, Sharp LC-32GP1U is slightly better. (165 Watts Vs 175 Watts)

Common features of Sharp LC-32D43U and Sharp LC-32GP1U

• Screen size
• black frame
• HDTV enabled  
• ATSC, QAM TV tuners
• Viewing angle 176 degrees
• Sound system  

Both TVs have 32” screen with a black frame, however the base of their table top differs in these two LCD TVs.

Both TVs exhibit nice black levels although Sharp LC-32GP1U is slightly better in showing shadowy details of the picture.

Except the additional HDMI input and DVI input, Sharp LC-32GP1U has similar connections like Sharp LC-32D43U. Both TVs come with  two audio inputs, three composite video inputs, three S-Video inputs, three video audio inputs, two component video inputs, two component audio inputs, one composite video output and one set of audio output and digital audio output.

Enhanced features in Sharp LC-32GP1U

• Full HDTV
• One additional HDMI
• DVI
• Game mode
• Vyper Drive

The best advantage that Sharp LC-32GP1U enjoys over Sharp LC-32D43U is its capacity to display full HD resolution of 1080p or 1920 X 1080 pixels. Together it has one additional HDMI and a DVI input.

Likewise, you get game mode and Vyper Driver in Sharp LC-32GP1U – the features which are not available in the other LCD TV.

Bottomline
Both TVs have significantly higher price tags when compared with LCD screens of similar size. The strengths of Sharp LC-32GP1U are its capacity to display 1080p resolution and additional features like DVI, game mode, Vyper Drive.
Both TVs offer excellent performance in terms of colour reproduction, black levels and sharpness.

What is interlaced scan?

Standard Television sets use anyone of the interlaced scan systems - namely NTSC or PAL. Both these systems display analog video signals that are broadcast from TV stations or from some video sources. Although the display using these scanning systems produced acceptable results, they failed to create exact images on a PC or when DVD materials are used. It is because the video images produced by these scan system always had a few limitations in terms of resolution and picture quality. In an interlaced scan system, an image is scanned in an alternate order (1, 3, 5) skipping next line. As a result, the images lack smoothness and details and also become prone to constant flickering. Although certain improvements like ‘line doubling’ have been made in this system to produce images of higher resolution, they also produced some undesirable effects like ‘motion lag’ on the screen. Some of the video processors handle these problems quite efficiently, but the display needed an entirely different scanning system to completely remove flaws of the interlaced images.

What is progressive scan?

On the other hand, progressive scan system scans images in a sequential manner (1, 2, 3 etc), from top to bottom on the screen. This scanning method renders more details and smoothness to the images, especially when some text materials are shown on the screen. Presently, progressive scan is used in DVD, Digital TV and HDTV. Progressive scan is ideal for viewing DVDs and HDTV broadcast so high end PCs and flat panel television sets use this scan system to display images.

Progressive scan with 3:2 pull down and different progressive scans

There are two kinds of progressive scans that are being used. Progressive scan and progressive scan combined with 3:2 pull down. Whether your display device uses 3:2 pull down or not, the images are definitely better in terms of picture quality when compared with interlaced video images. However, the 3:2 pull down offers a film-like image quality and is often preferred if you wish to watch some HDTV sources or HD DVDs. Based on number of lines or pixel rows scanned, there are different progress scans like 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p. While a typical digital TV uses 480p (480 lines progressively scanned), the rest of the scans are applied in HDTV broadcast. Thus a HDTV broadcast or DVD will have resolution of 720p or higher. So if you plan to view a DVD or HDTV materials and to get enriched visual experience, you should go for TVs that come with progressive scan inputs.

What you should look for in your LCD TV?

If you want to access progressive scan pictures from DVD or TV broadcast, your TV should have anyone or all of the following connectivity options:

• Digital Video Interface (DVI)
• High Definition Multi-media Interface (HDMI)
• Component video input

Together with these inputs, either your TV or your DVD player should have 3:2 pull down detection, so that you can view progressive scan images with reverse 3:2 pulldown.