What is 1080i Video?
1080i video is a category of video formats. The number 1080 refers to the number of lines of vertical resolution in a single frame of video, and the i represents an interlace scan pattern. 1080i video is one of the available modes of HD (high definition) television. The interlace scan pattern used by 1080i video was designed as an improvement over older scanning methods that displayed an image by projecting a single line of pixels, each line below the previous one, until the whole surface area of the screen was filled. Interlace scanning scans and displays only the odd-numbered lines of the frame, followed within 1/30 of a second by the even-numbered lines, which are projected in the gaps left from the previous scan. Because human vision works by retaining images for a brief period of time in the brain or retina, the interlace scan process makes two separate scans of an image appear as one frame. In the case of 1080i video, this means that there are two fields of 540 lines each that ar
