Why did they make HDTV 1080i? Wouldn't 960i have been a better choice? It would make up conversion and down conversion of 480 and 720 signals much easier. Does anyone know what the logic of choosing 1080i was? Or did someone just pull that number out of their ass?

Confusion with respect to electronic components?

I don't know the answer, perhaps someone has an explanation but I would not count on it.

There were representatives on the standards commitee chosen from the computer community. This resolution was selected correlating to the 1920x1080 resolution in the computer realm. Also, if I am not mistaken, computer based film editing (such as on the Avid), is done at 1080/24 frames- progressive. Of course in the computer world we are dealing with progressive scanning, but the broadcast community on the engineering end, noted that with existing technology at the time of the standard adoption, it was cost prohibitive and interlaced scanning was approved as a less expensive means of broadcasting.

This actually led to some delays in establishing the format because of resistance to including a resolution that high but making it interlaced. The engineers at the broadcast facilities are the ones that have to maintain the equipment and know the cost factors involved due to some very tight budget constraints that are almost always put upon them. All of them agree that progressive is a better looking signal but if they had not insisted on interlaced, it probably would have been at lot longer before you saw a 1080 signal on your home set.