Progressive (scan)

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Categories: Digital Basics

Progressive (scan) – Method of scanning lines down a screen where all the lines of a picture are displayed in one continuous vertical scan (progression), 1, 2, 3, 4… etc. There are no fields or half pictures as with interlace scans. Progressive scanning has become more common as it is used with computer displays and all panel displays – LCD, LED and Plasmas, and is used in television formats, e.g. – 1080/24P, 720/60P, 1080/30P… The ‘P’ denotes progressive. A high picture refresh rate is required to give good movement portrayal, such as for fast action sports and camera pans. Higher frame rates such as 1080/50P 1080/60P are in use; they require infrastructure capable of 3 Gb/s, known as 3G SDI. With ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020 for UHDTV standards describing only progressive scans for its 4K and 8K formats, it looks as though the future is progressive.

It has been noted that rapid movement displayed on the larger screens needed to fully appreciate the contents of the big pictures, requires higher frame rates to smoothly display movement. Thus BT.2020 includes frame rates extending up to 120 f/s. This presents considerable challenges for handling the resulting vast data.

See also: 24P, Interlace, Interlace Factor