What are the bare minimum characteristics of Full HD plasma TV?

Answer 1

An HD television is one that is capable of displaying an HD signal. The signal will be either a 1080 line or a 720 line format - both are HD signals. It is this ability that defines a television as HD but that ability can be deceptive.

Almost all HD content uses a format of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Every pixel carries a small part of the image. A television that has 1920 x 1080 pixels on its own screen will display the full image with every pixel as it was broadcast. However, many televisions have a different number of pixels making up their displays. 1280 x 768 is a common pixel layout, especially on smaller screens. In order to display a 1080 line display, the television has to process the image to change the number of pixels in the image. So, instead of seeing 1080 lines, the television will actually show just 768 lines. It's still a good resolution but it's not the full resolution of the incoming signal. In other words, the final picture is a lower resolution than full HD. The television can still be labelled as HD because it can handle HD signals.

One television was seen on sale as an HD television but the screen in fact had only 480 lines - exactly the number of lines used in standard definition signals. Although the television was correctly labelled as HD, the final quality would always be SD because that's how many lines actually made up the image on screen. The claim was deceptive, even if technically correct.

Therefore, for best resolution, always check the native screen resolution and look for 1920 x 1080.