Q&A: Will HDTV Make Me Buy a New Camcorder?

As I understand it, TV is moving toward a noninterlaced (progressive) scan standard. As an amateur video hobbyist, I am wondering how and when the amateur field will be affected. I assume progressive scan camcorders will be needed. What will be the effect on video editing software?

--Milt Russell, Denver, Colorado

It sounds like you're referring to high-definition television, which has both interlace and progressive scan modes. A common HDTV format is 720p, which broadcasts 720 lines in progressive mode. Another common HDTV format is 1280i, which sends 1280 interlaced lines to your TV.

But what the heck is progressive and interlace? Today's televisions use an interlaced system, where half of the lines in the video signal are drawn on your TV each second, then the other half of the picture is inserted afterwards, between the first set. That adds up to about 30 frames of video each second. Progressive scan, on the other hand, draws all the lines of video in a single pass.

Don't worry about progressive scan, though. For starters, any video mode on your TV that uses progressive scan is, first and foremost, HDTV. HDTV is a completely different video standard than NTSC (the system used to broadcast TV today), and your NTSC camcorder doesn't record or play HDTV. This situation is no different than the fact that your camcorder won't work with PAL televisions in Europe or SECAM sets in Australia. To record, edit, and play HDTV-compatible video, you'll need to buy an HDTV camcorder--and those won't be sold for many years. HDTV is an obscenely expensive video format, which is why television stations are so slow to adopt it.

On the other hand, all HDTV sets also accept good old NTSC signals. I have an HDTV set myself, and it plays a wide variety of formats: video from my camcorder, DVDs, and full-bore HDTV signals. The short answer (after a long explanation) is that you'll continue to make video the usual way for many years, even after HDTV is watched in every living room in the United States.

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