A 1920 × 1080 60P System Compatible with a 1920 × 1080 30I Format

William E. Glenn

The human visual system has better acuity for vertical and horizontal detail than for diagonal detail; scenes statistically have less detail on the diagonal. For these reasons diagonal sampling produces a sharper perceived image than a cardinally sampled image for the same number of pixels. If the sampling pattern of a 720-line 60P image is rotated 45° with the same number of pixels, it will look sharper than either the 720-line 60P image or a 1080-line 30I image. This rotated pattern produces a diagonally sampled 1810 times 1018 60P image; a slight increase in the number of pixels and lines produces a diagonally sampled 1920 times 1080 60P image. A diagonally sampled 1920 times 1080 60P image has the same bit rate as a 1920 times 1080 30I image with higher perceived sharpness. This pattern has 960 pixels per line, and two lines can be transmitted dot-sequentially (one line on the odd pixels and the other on the even pixels) to give 1920 samples per line. A transmission in this format is compatible with 1920 times 1080 30I displays; however, progressive display must be used to avoid interlace artifacts. By using synchronous spot wobble, an interlaced display can show a diagonally sampled image progressively without changing the horizontal scan rate.

Print ISSN
Published
2002-07
Content type
Original Research
DOI
10.5594/J15332