Please forgive if this has been covered. I'm hopeless at searching.

Basically I'd like to learn about everything there is about this odd resolution.
Why it's used, how the image is affected etc.
Is it anamorphic?
What formats/cameras use it? Is it only HDV and XDCam-HD?

I always thought HD came in two sizes: 1920 X 1080 and 1280 X 720.

But now I find there is actually 960 X 720, 1280 X 1080, and 1440 X 1080.

Boy am I confused.

If someone could shed some light on all this I would much appreciated it.

HD delivery formats and displays come in 1920x1080 and 1280x720.

HD acquisition formats can use other frame sizes stored on tape or media that get scaled up to the above resolutions when played back.

So, for example DVCPro HD records at 1280x1080. However when you play it back the deck scales it to 1920x1080 that gets sent over an HD-SDI cable.

Same with HDV, it records at 1440x1080. But when played back, the deck scales it to 1920x1080 on its HD outputs.

Hope this helps.

Digital video seems to be all about pixel shift technology. We can simply assign pixel values which is why all these resolutions are popping up.

They're using 720 HD on sports channels because it works better. Now, other stations are calling the 1080 "Full" HD but I guess marketing is another subject.

HDV Pixels are elongated about 1.2wide to 1 height ratio rather than square, as I understand it. This results in effective 1920 by 1080.

Thanks guys. So what I'm wondering is if I want to export my sequence that was edited with say HDV to a quicktime format the finished movie would be 1920 X 1080 and I wouldn't have to worry about the odd resolutions that created it.

Yes, you want to output it to 1920x1080. If you output 1440x1080 it will look squashed on playback.