Originally Posted by Nick Flood
Yeah they will but you can get the transmission converted to 720p which is much better for sport
Yes, but if the original transmission only contains (effectively) 25 frames per second of picture, the motion is simply not going to me as smooth as if it contained 50. Clever algorithms might be able to put some otf the smoothness back but it would be better if it was there to start with. You might be able to see the blades of grass clearer with a static camera, but the pans etc. are going to look worse. It's total daftness, there's no technological reason why they can't broadcast a mixture of 720p and 1080i material, and ATM you can count the number of true 1920x1080 resolution TV screens on the market in this country on the fingers of one hand. 99% of the installed HD base here is 1366x768 or lower, so is incapable of displaying all the pixels in a 1080i signal anyway.
Put simply, they're choosing to transmit extra pixels which most people can't use, instead of extra smoothness which most people can.
For films, of course, 1080i is fine. There's no point using 1080p when your source material only contains 24 full frames of picture per second, and you can get more detail for a similar use of bandwidth than if you used 720p.