What is Full HD 1080?
Posted on February 5th, 2007 by Jake under TechIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Sony has a logo program on most of their HD products, including camcorders, high-def televisions, projectors, and consumer electronics devices touting them as Full HD 1080. Presumably this is meant to differentiate from 1280×720 video or 1080i displays sold by the competition. I can’t find anything on the Sony website that spells out the program, so on some level we’re all left to draw our own conclusions. The closest Sony comes is with some marketing hype that says that “…the full power of HD requires the optimal display of 1920×1080 pixels, progressively scanned 60 times per second.”
Steve Mullen at Digtal Content Producer runs with this definition of the Full HD 1080 logo program, claiming it is reserved for equipment with 1920×1080 content support at 60 progressive frames per second. Sadly Steve appears to misleading plenty of otherwise smart people like DV Guru (recently disbanded by AOL) and FresHDV in his good-as-gold definition of Full HD 1080.
Full HD 1080 definitely does not mean 1920×1080 at 60p in their camcorder line-up. The Sony HDR-SR1 camcorder bears the Full HD 1080 logo with a mere 1440×1080i resolution. That’s not what I would call “full HD” and it certainly is not in keeping with the Steven Mullen and Digital Content Producer version of the Full HD 1080 logo program. My take is Sony created the Full HD 1080 logo program as a marketing ploy to differentiate Sony products from other alternatives, implying that anything bearing the Full HD 1080 logo as better than other alternatives.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:13 am
[...] Electronics giant Sony recently started branding various TVs, and other consumer products with its Full HD 1080 logo. The enigmatic sticker appears on HDTVs which feature 1080p, or 1080 full lines of resolution refreshed at 60 frames per second. It’s natural to assume those are the specs required for something called "full HD" however, a little researching indicates Sony might be pulling our leg a bit. Jake Luddington points out on his blog that several sources around the net have incorrectly interpreted the sticker to mean 1080p. That resolution holds up pretty well with Sony’s line of HDTVs featuring the sticker, but as Luddington says, the label is also featured on their HDR-SR1 camcorder. The HDV cam actually records a resolution of 1440 by 1080i. Don’t misunderstand, the SR1 is a fine camcorder, it’s just not anywhere near the resolution of Sony’s TVs with the same logo. The consumer electronics giant isn’t helping clear things up either. Sony offers no explanation as to what qualifies as "full HD" and seems to be using their shiny gold logo as nothing more than a marketing gimmick. It seems harmless, but less-savvy consumers could be duped by a "Full HD" moniker. Still, it’s the kind of cheap marketing that makes the tech savvy generation see just how out of touch Sony is with their consumers. Technorati Tags: Trackback url for this post: http://www.camcorderinfo.com/trackbacks/trackback.php?id=27558 [...]