What is Full HD 1080?

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 1280x720 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 1920x1080 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 1920x1080 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 1920x1080 at 60p in their camcorder line-up. The Sony HDR-SR1 camcorder bears the Full HD 1080 logo with a mere 1440x1080i 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.