Standard Definition Television

Standard - definition television [ ˌ ˌ stændəd dɛfɪnɪʃən tɛlɪvɪʒən ] or SDTV is a collective term for video resolutions, as they were already common in analog TV reception.

With the conversion from analogue to digital television reception initially the then popular video resolution of 720x576 mostly (PAL ) or 720x480 pixels ( NTSC) was retained. Meanwhile, in addition to higher resolutions of 1280x720 or even 1920x1080 pixels - High Definition Television ( HDTV) - are sent. Since both resolutions are currently mostly transmitted in parallel, SDTV serves as an explicit designation of the well-known resolutions, also referred to as digital standard resolution.

Partial introduced, including HDTV abbreviations are used: 576i or 480i. These terms refer solely to the vertical resolution, since the horizontal by the possibilities of 4:3 - and 16:9 format is not fixed. The appended letter indicates interlacing ( "interlaced scanning" ) for image transmission is almost always used in the television sector.

SAR: Default Aspect Ratio; DAR: Display Aspect Ratio; PAR: Pixel Aspect Ratio