Cathode ray tubes are analog, with the electron guns, shadow mask, and phosphors and all that. They will display any resolution up to their limits imposed by the shadow mask, etc. (see, e.g., "multisync" monitors). There is not a fixed 1920x1080 or other sized pixel grid as there is with digital display panels.
Seems like it's the input circuitry that converts everything to 1080i because it closely matches what the display is capable of. Most CRT HDTVs seem to be able to display 1080 interlaced horizontal lines (not much different from 540p, and therefore not much different from 480 lines of SDTV), though they usually can't resolve anywhere near 1920 vertical lines. 720p would require a TV that could do close to at mythical 1440i.
Because CRTs are on their way "out" I doubt there will be much further development, even the Sony XBR2 that had something like twice the vertical resolution of prior CRTs is gone.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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I think it goes something like this.
Cathode ray tubes are analog, with the electron guns, shadow mask, and phosphors and all that. They will display any resolution up to their limits imposed by the shadow mask, etc. (see, e.g., "multisync" monitors). There is not a fixed 1920x1080 or other sized pixel grid as there is with digital display panels.
Seems like it's the input circuitry that converts everything to 1080i because it closely matches what the display is capable of. Most CRT HDTVs seem to be able to display 1080 interlaced horizontal lines (not much different from 540p, and therefore not much different from 480 lines of SDTV), though they usually can't resolve anywhere near 1920 vertical lines. 720p would require a TV that could do close to at mythical 1440i.
Because CRTs are on their way "out" I doubt there will be much further development, even the Sony XBR2 that had something like twice the vertical resolution of prior CRTs is gone.