So, we’re just talking about the words “resolution” vs “format”, right? I agree format is a somewhat better term. A 4K TV has a 4K format, but resolution expressed in PPI varies based on screen size. And then effective/usable resolution, depends on how far you sit from it as well. For sure, marketing wants to suck in customers, though I’m not really convinced that the word “resolution” sucks in more than “format” as I’m not sure that the average buyer has put a lot of thought into either term. And as I pointed out before, that wikipedia page uses resolution the way I would use format so I don’t think it’s as much marketing as it is the term “resolution” gets used in a broader way than you would prefer.
NTSC was kind of complicated being an analog format. It very clearly specified a number of scan lines (like pixels in the Y direction) but “pixels” (kind of) in the X direction was based on the frequency of the incoming signal and the displaying device’s capabilities. The NTSC format specified a maximum frequency response so that they could pack channels in, (which was later REDUCED to add color, while keeping the same channel spacing) but many home devices didn’t live up to that. However, many years later, some home video devices were actually able to exceed that limit, since tech had improved and since they weren’t bound by broadcasting format rules. For example, ED Beta was capable of displaying 500 vertical lines of resolution, but that didn’t seem to work from a marketing standpoint as they sold very few of them.
Marketing video tech is an interesting subject. For example, when I first become a product manager my marketing guys were always sending me studies to bring the new engineer-turned-manager back down to earth. One of the studies showed that only around half of VCR owners were aware that their VCR had a Record feature. Just one of many results that blew my mind.
Banned but back. Because why not?
