Is there a huge difference between 1080i and 1080p? Should I buy some player to change my setup?
I can provide you a technical understanding of the same.
You must be knowing that "moving picture" on your display are actually still images that are refreshed at a very high rate, giving you the illusion of contineus moving image.
The difference between "i" and "p" refers as to how your display refreses that image. When we say 1920x1080 resolution what we mean is, 1,080 lines of vertical resolution, and 1920 lines of horizontal resolution, making a frame resolution of 1920x1080 pixels.
As I said the image is displayed on these pixels as a still image refreshed very fast.
The term "i" stands for interlace, When the display refreshes the picture with an interlaced display, it refreshes every alternate line of resolution, or half the picture, and then refreshes the other half. This technically doesn't give a smooth transition as "p" or progressive display.
On the other hand "p" stands for progressive in which the entire image is refreshed in one go or all at once.
The refresh rate is displayed if fps (frames per second) for pal its 25 and NTSC is 30, so if we say 1080p30 we mean 1920x1080 progressive resolution with 30fps as the frame rate.
The older CRTs had the interlace technique, all latest displays uses progressive, that is said to be smooth and less flickery. Although its always debatable how much difference the eye would pick up.
