I was looking at this sony site and it has a list of all major networks and which shows are in HD. It also tells if it's 720p or 1080i. What's the difference between the 2 and which is better.

thanks


http://products.sel.sony.com/hdtv/index.html?DCMP=hdtv_sony05&HQS=hdtv

What's the difference between the 2 and which is better.

That's bound to get you a lot of different answers ;-) In terms of the difference:

1080i is interlaced video, meaning that there are 30 complete pictures presented every second, but each picture consists of two fields which have every other line in them. When things move quickly this can produce jagged edges since the even scan lines are captured 1/60 second after the odd scan lines. This may be hard to see with the naked eye in motion, but is apparent if you view still frames. This format does have higher resolution -1920x1080 pixels however. Whether that is perceptible in practice is the subject of debate.

720p is progressive video, meaning there are 30 snapshots taken each second that each contain all the scan lines. When things move they have a little different quality than interlaced video due to this, some people think it looks more like film. The resolution is 1280x720 pixels.

bad ass thanks. So is that why FOX has the better looking HD football, because it's 720p. You said 1080i look jagged when things move fast.

I wouldn't necessarily jump to that sort of conclusion.... HD is broadcast using some heavy data compression. That might have more to do with what you're seeing than the format itself.