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Sorry if this isn't the right SE forum.

Our TV is a Fujitsu Plasmavision P42HTA51E. In the Specifications section of the manual (which you can view here) it says 

WIDE PLASMA DISPLAY
Series Name: P42HTA51E
Product Name: P42HTA51ESb
Screen size:
  42" wide screen:
  92.2 cm (W) x 52.2 cm (H) (106 cm diagonal)
  36.3 inch (W) x 20.6 inch (H) (41.7 inchdiagonal)
Aspect ratio: 16:9 (wide)
Number of pixels: 1024 (H) x 1080 (V)

So, the physical aspect ratio is 16:9, but the number of horizontal pixels is less than the number of vertical pixels. I'd expect it to be 1920 pixels wide, for a 16:9 ratio.

Can anyone explain what's going on here?

phuclv
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Max Williams
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  • it's off-topic [& idk of any SE site that it would be on-topic for] but it's because of ALIS- "ALIS screens share their horizontal electrode strips (512 of them, in this case) between two phosphor lines rather than the customary method of using an electrode strip for each single line. The screens then alternate the electrode’s power between the two lines so fast that your eye can’t perceive the change and so is ‘fooled’ into seeing twice as many continuously lit lines as there are genuine electrode lines." Basically, it's a cheat; possibly the reason the screen was known for its poor colour – Tetsujin Aug 07 '18 at 08:38
  • If you want a world-class plasma, look at the Pioneer Kuro. It's only just been beaten by the LG 4K & 8K OLED, 8 years after it was last made. – Tetsujin Aug 07 '18 at 08:43
  • @Tetsujin i like my tv, and installed a huge adjustable mount to attach it to the wall, so I',m not in the market for a new one! I'm just curious about the res thing. – Max Williams Aug 07 '18 at 09:04
  • @Tetsujin is that the same as "interlaced", and is that what 1080i means? – Max Williams Aug 07 '18 at 09:06
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    In effect, it's interlaced in both directions, though by different methods. 1080i is also an economy measure, means the processing only needs to be half as fast. Again results in a less-defined picture. see https://uk.pcmag.com/tv-home-theaters/18675/news/1080i-vs-1080p-whats-the-difference – Tetsujin Aug 07 '18 at 09:21

1 Answers1

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The pixels here are simply not squares. It's generally not common nowadays but in the past most TVs (and also PC monitors) don't have square pixels

There are many cases that the horizontal resolution is less than one expected when assuming pixels are square, for example DV's 1440×1080 16:9 full HD resolution and Atari's 80×192

The manually here is probably incorrect. All the sources I can find list the resolution as 1024×1024 and not 1024×1080

A curious-looking but still HD Ready 1,024 x 1,024i native resolution is achieved via the use of Alternate Lighting of Surfaces technology, whereby extended phosphor areas are used, and a system for lighting the gaps between pixels, as well as the pixels themselves, allows the set to effectively double its perceived horizontal resolution.

https://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio-visual/televisions/plasma-and-lcd-tvs/fujitsu-p42hta51es-106567/review

Other key specifications of the P42HTA51ES include a respectable claimed contrast ratio of 3000:1, and a rather odd looking native resolution of 1024x1024i. This comes about from the TV’s use of Alternate Lighting of Surfaces technology, or AliS for short.

https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/fujitsu-p42hta51es-42in-plasma-tv-fujitsu-p42hta51es-42in-plasma-tv-page-2

Some other sources:

The square resolution is not strange, since we also see it in SVCD where videos are stored at 480×480 with a pixel aspect ratio of 4:3. That's exactly the same as in the DV case mentioned above where 1440×1080 is 4:3 and when multiplied with the pixel aspect ratio of 4:3 gives a 16:9 image

phuclv
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