With 1080i the image is interlaced. This means you see half of the information from the picture, or 540 lines of pixels, in one moment with the remaining 540 lines in the next moment. For example, if you're playing a game that runs at 30 fps, you see 540 lines of one picture in 1/60th of a second and the remaining 540 lines of that frame in the next 1/60th of a second.

With 720p the image is progressive scan. This means you see all the information from the picture at once, or all 720 lines (in this case) of the image are displayed at the same time. If you're watching the same 30 fps game then your monitor will display all 720 lines for two periods of 1/60th of a second before moving on.

Basically, with 1080i you technically get more information in the picture (though you'd be hard pressed to notice since most games run 720p or lower natively and only upscale to 1080i/1080p) but not as stable of a picture. With 720p you get a more stable picture but not as much information in each full frame.

My philosophy has always been to go with the native resolution of the monitor I'm using, and in the case of HDTV's I use 720p for my 32" LCD (native resolution 1366x768 (don't ask me where the extra pixels go 'cause I don't know)) and 1080p for my family's 60" Plasma (native resolution 1920x1080).

I agree with Teppek, this should be in the system wars forum, however if you must know . . .

I always loved the XBox more. Maybe I'm a bit biased because I'm on the XBox forums, but it always seemed to me that even though the PS2 had like 10,000 games that at least 9,000 of them were random **** from Japan that 99.9% of western gamers wouldn't play anyway. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of exclusive PS2 games (God of War, GH, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus) that I couldn't live without, but it always seemed to me like the XBox was catered more towards me since I like online shooters and western RGP's (Morrowind, KOTOR1 and 2, Fable). I can't forget how the XBox had noticeably better graphics too. The PS2 was just plain cr@p for shooters.

My 32" LCD has an 8ms response time and I don't see any ghosting. In fact I can't tell the difference between my TV and my 22" computer LCD which has a 2ms response time.

It's only when you get above 8ms and see some monitors with 14ms and 25ms response times that you will get some serious ghosting.