I recently purchased a Samsung 27" Slimfit TV, which supports 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i according to the manufacture. I’m assuming this TV is also a CRT (because I don’t know what else it could be - it’s not as big as your usual CRT, but it definitely has a noticeable caboose).
Anyway, the reason I bring this is up is because according to a recent IGN Gear mailbag, all CRTs are interlaced, meaning they’re incapable of progressive scan. Is that true? If so, why does my TV state they’re supported formats? Or is the author mistaken.
Quote from article:
<I>“I’m assuming you’ve got a CRT display, so no, it won’t be able to use 480p (all CRTs are interlaced)” </I>
http://gear.ign.com/articles/745/745703p1.html (at bottom of page)
The article is mistaken. Most CRT TVs are interlace only, but there isn’t anything inherent in the technology which procludes progressive. CRT computer monitors handle a higher scan rate.
CRT computer monitors are universally progressive. Stick a tv tuner in the back and you can get 1080p no problem.
Your TV is a CRT (albeit with some new technology to allow it to have a smaller footprint hence the “Slimfit” moniker).
It also supports progressive scan.
There is nothing inherent to CRTs that prevents them from being progressive scan. As already noted all CRT computer monitors these days are progressive scan (aka non-interlaced).
It just happens that till relatively recently ALL CRT televisions were interlaced because that was the only broadcast standard available. Not true today and progressive scan TVs are getting more common and inexpensive.
You have to be at the upper strata of televisions with nosebleed prices to get progressive scan in a standard-def CRT model. It can be done, but I’ve not seen it on anything smaller than 35" or so. But, there’s very little market for big CRTs now, so that’s essentially a dead-end. (I recall seeing a news article that indicated nobody is making CRTs of any sort larger than 17" now - the display industry has moved entirely to flat panels.)
Sony’s XBR Wega line has something they call Cinemotion that works with the 2:3 pulldown conversion that’s used to display 24 frames/second movies on the 30 frames/second TV to create a progressive-scan image. One snag is that you need to feed a component video signal to the TV from a DVD - it does nothing for broadcast signals as the standard-definition broadcast standard is interlaced.