Foxbat said:
May I pick a nit? Horizontal pixels <> Horizontal resolution. Don may be able to elucidate further since this is his livelyhood, but in order to resolve "x" lines, you need to to have 2x pixels. If you took a Sony SXRD 1080x1920 (to keep it consistant) set and tried to draw 1920 vertical black lines, you would have a black screen!
You do have a point- I even wrote a paper on this sometime back in the late 90's
While this is not the place to go into much detail on this, I'll try to explain in brief why what you say is logical yet not true.
In summary it has to do with definition. H Resolution in analog TV was defined as a visual test of detail resolving power and that test was performed at 4 corners and the center of the screen. Since the image was scan line based on the vertical and voltage based on the horizontal the test had to do with the ability of the screen to focus the line and also switch the voltage along that line rapidly from black level voltage to white level voltage. BGHetter sets (analog) simply had better focus systems and faster rise and fall times on the voltage switch. The resolution was the number on the test chart corresponding to the visible number of lines in the test that could be seen. The test chart had to be shot with a camera that had at least 2x the resolution of the monitor being tested ot be generated electronically by a fast switching signal generator.
In digital the image is pixel based and not scan line / voltage based. While the analog test chart could be used to define the resolution, that was not how it was defined and is not a standard. Instead, the resolution both horizontal and vertical was defined as the number of pixels in the image and related directly to the construction of the digital display. To differentiate this, the digital display is said to be of a "native resolution" While you can feed a native resolution monitor different pixel arrangements, the optimum picture will be displayed as the native resolution. eg. a 720P x 1280 DLP monitor will perform at optimum H resolution of 1280 pixels x 720 pixels vertical.
OK I said I would not get into too much detail but I think I need to go just a bit further to be clear on this digital vs. analog res test.
In the analog test the lines must be black and white. In the digital, we know each pixel is discrete. therefore we know that in effect, each pixel could resolve one at 255.255.254, next at 255.255.255, next at 255, 255, 254 and so forth, This may appear as all white to most people but in effect the screen actually has resolved less than white, white, less than white. So, by definition the digital based monitor is defined as native pixel resolution and the analog is line resolution. There may be lines on a digital display but there can never be discrete pixels on an analog display. The line test on a digital display is not considered a standard even though many use it.