High definition is a new standard in picture quality that uses a much higher resolution to produce a picture that has much more detail and therefore a much better quality.
Most large screen Sony LCD televisions are HD ready and so you should not have to worry about this although some of the smaller screens do not. This is because with such a small screen it can be hard to even see the extra detail and manufacturers also like to keep the prices down for the smaller screens and so they often do not have the HD technology.
There are several resolutions that can be used with HD and to put it simply the higher the number the better. The number tells you how many pixels are used to make up the picture on the screen and so the more that are used the more detail the picture will have and therefore the better it will look. There is a letter after the number which tells you if the picture is progressive or interlaced; a progressive picture has all of the lines that make up the picture believed to the screen in one go whereas an interlaced picture only delivers half of the lines with each picture update. The picture is updated very fast though and so it can be hard to tell the difference although with fast moving images there is a clear improvement with a progressive picture and so a 1080p is better than a 1080i but only slightly.
HD Sony LCD televisions also use a different connection as scart leads do not carry the HD picture quality and this new connection is called HDMI. An HDMI cable delivers perfect picture and sound quality and so it is wise to make sure that your other equipment has an HDMI socket if you are planning on using it with your new HD Sony LCD television (you can use a component connection as an alternative if you cannot use HDMI).
To get the HD quality you have to be viewing an HD source. This is very important as it means that you cannot just plug in your old equipment and expect HD quality although some equipment can upscale to a near HD quality but it is still not true HD. For true high definition you are going to need equipment such as an HD DVD player, HD digital television or an HD games console and these all give the jaw-dropping high definition quality that you need if you wish to get the most out of your new HD Sony LCD television.
© Sony LCD Televisions.co.uk 2007.
