What is the difference between HD and HDV?
A. This is the one question that can spark heated debate between video production professionals. Some say that any resolution higher than SD (720 x 486 px) is high-definition. Others say an image is only HD when it is 1920 x 1080 px. HDV falls in between the two, producing an image 1440 x 1080 px. Take a look at the graphic below. It is a scaled model of how the sizes vary. The smallest square represents standard definition. The dark gray box represents HDV, and the large white box represents a full HD image. It illustrates how much more image detail is captured between the three formats. Another big difference between the two are bit rates, or the speed at which information is written to tape or hard disk. HD cameras record at a bit rate starting at 50Mb/sec. HDV on the other hand has a bit rate of 25Mb/sec (about the same as SD). At this point you might be wondering, how HDV can record in such a large pixel size at standard definition bit rates to those small tapes? The answer is com
