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Article:
High Definition ' When? by: Cal Barton High definition will inevitably become a widespread if not universal television broadcast format. However, it's not yet clear when that will happen. So it's also not yet clear when high definition camcorders will be routinely required for acquisition for non-fiction programmes. With that in mind, this E-zine aims to give some background to high definition technology and the Sony high definition camcorders currently available. High Definition ' Formats and Camcorders Before venturing into the world of high definition, it should be said that our UK-based clients primarily use Digital Betacam and DV Cam camcorders and we find minimal demand for HD Cam. Our American clients are using HD Cam more frequently than our British clients but Beta-SP remains the format they most commonly request. Two High Definition Formats To begin with, the future of high definition broadcasting is unclear. There are two HD formats being considered for transmission. One is 720p (720 horizontal lines or rows of pixels in the image) and the other is 1080i (1080 horizontal lines or rows of pixels in the image). The 'p' stands for progressive scan and the 'i' stands for interlaced scan but more on this later. Panasonic manufactures the camcorders that generate 720 horizontal lines and Sony manufactures the camcorders that generate 1080 horizontal lines. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has suggested for discussion using 720p for public service broadcasters but say that does not mean they favour 720p as the standard HD format for transmission. Trade magazines say BSkyB plans to broadcast both 720p and 1080i in a service that will begin sometime in 2006 although I was recently told 1080i may be the only format they use for transmission. The Sony 1080-line system has one clear advantage over Panasonic's 720-line system. Each image contains more than two million pixels (1920 vertical lines x 1080 horizontal lines) compared to '900
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