What standard are HDTV programs being captured and recorded in?
The production standard for TV programs is not necessarily the same as the broadcast standard. EURO1080 is (as its name suggests) broadcasting in 1080i, but that does not mean that all its programs were recorded at such high resolution. European studies (including those done by the BBC) have concluded that the progressive standards should be preferred for TV transmissions because it is hard to convert well from interlaced to progressive formats in the display set. They also concluded that most viewers would not benefit from higher resolution than 720p given the size of their screens. They even concluded that the extra benefits of 60Hz frame rates were not warranted over the increased bandwidth required. BBC Research and Development concluded that it would be good to film in 1080p50, but the cameras are hard to come-by. They recorded Bleak House using a Sony HDW-750P camera (pictured) which captures in 720p25. I.e. only half the frame rate of the 720p50 standard. That is probably not so
