480i or 480p?

[niknar1900]

are most channels progressive, and then most receivers convert them to interlaced for regular TVs? or are most of the signals really 480i?
does it depend on what satellite and provider?
i would think somebody with a pci sat card could answer this please.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by niknar1900

are most channels progressive, and then most receivers convert them to interlaced for regular TVs? or are most of the signals really 480i?
does it depend on what satellite and provider?
i would think somebody with a pci sat card could answer this please.

Looks to me like most everything is 480i. TSREADER is a good tool to monitor this, in that you can click on a video PID, and it will show you things like for one of the PBS channels I"m looking at right now, :
********************
Stream Type: 0x02 MPEG-2 Video PID 305 (0x0131)
MPEG Video: Bitrate 15.000 Mbps Resolution 720 x 480i
MPEG Video: Framerate 29.97 fps Aspect Ratio 4:3 Chroma Format 4:2:0
******************

A year ago, I recorded portions of some NFL games both in 720p and 1080i. The 720p is much better when there is motion. I would take freeze frames from the video, and almost every frame of the 1080i would be blurry because of the interlacing, and you'd have to use a deinterlace function of the graphics program to only use one frame, which ends up giving you half the resolution vertically. However the freeze frames from the 720p video were awesome. Settled a lot of arguments in the NFL list I read.

EDIT: I notice that this relates to another thread, so I should say that when I said most was 480i, I was refering to satellite feeds. Off hand, I don't know what format DVDs are in for example.

[ccoleman]

Originally Posted by wejones

Off hand, I don't know what format DVDs are in for example.

DVD video format is 720 x 480p for NTSC and 720x576p for PAL.

[nania]

If I wanted to use 480p x 720p output on my Lifetime Ultra receiver, what kind of television will sync that NTSC signal. Do I need an EDTV (ie: 3:2 ratio) display? Most NTSC televisions only have 512 interlaced display lines so having 480p output is not being taken advantage of the receivers capability. Where is the definitive source of how to get the best possible output from my FTA box?

[wejones]

Originally Posted by nania

If I wanted to use 480p x 720p output on my Lifetime Ultra receiver, what kind of television will sync that NTSC signal. Do I need an EDTV (ie: 3:2 ratio) display? Most NTSC televisions only have 512 interlaced display lines so having 480p output is not being taken advantage of the receivers capability. Where is the definitive source of how to get the best possible output from my FTA box?

The Ultra doesn't have a 480p or 720p output. At least my US version doesn't. The Ultra just has regular 480i NTSC, ie composite.
The Mercury, on the other hand, has a component output, which might be capable of 480p (but not 720p), although it seems to me that you'd have to find a 480p feed, and most of the 480 feeds I've seen are interlaced. I'm about to connect my Mercury to the component input of my new TV. ( Yes, I finally got a new TV, and it's a lot of fun.) So I may be looking for interesting feeds to try it out on. If you know of a 480p feed, I'll try it.