Video - A Practical Guide to Video and Audio Compression - page 90

Table 5-2 SDTV-Related Picture Sizes

Description NTSC PAL

Width Height Width Height

Physical raster 720 525 720 625

SQSIF 132 80 132 96

QSIF 160 112 176 144

QSIF 176 112 192 144

QSIF* 180 120 180 144

SIF 320 240 352 288

SIF 352 240 384 288

SIF* 360 240 360 288

1/2 D1 (HD1) 320 480 352 576

1/2 D1 (HD1) 352 480 384 576

1/2 D1 (HD1)* 360 480 384 576

2/3 D1* 480 480 480 576

3/4 D1 528 480 528 576

3/4 D1* 540 480 540 576

3/4 D1 544 480 544 576

FD1 640 480 640 576

FD1 704 480 704 576

FD1(4SIF)* 720 480 720 576

9SIF* 1080 720 1080 864

16SIF* 1440 960 1440 1152

In the past this was referred to as high-definition TV, which it is when compared to 405
lines. This is now referred to as standard definition. High definition now describes some-
thing with much larger vertical and horizontal dimensions.
The Beijing Olympics are anticipated to drive a significant uptake of HDTV receivers
by 2008, with an additional 2 to 4 years before it is adopted as a mass medium. With the
advent of H.264 encoding, there are amazingly few technical barriers to deploying HDTV
in the very near future. Such obstacles that exist have to do with commercial issues and
the penetration of the market by the existing MPEG-2-based SDTV set-top-boxes.
A range of HDTV picture sizes are shown in Figure 5-13 for comparison and are sum-
marized in Table 5-3.
In the United States, HDTV signals are already being delivered with 720 lines, a
major improvement over visible area provided with a 525-line service. When compared to