Resolution is the ability of a camera, monitor, or system, to represent fine detail.
Several factors contribute to the level of resolution in a system, including the quality of the camera and the monitor, the quality of the transmitting equipment, and the number of active scanning lines. TV images are two dimensional, thus we are concerned with resolution in two dimensions, vertical and horizontal. Vertical resolution is defined by the number of vertical elements that can be captured by a camera or reproduced on a monitor. Vertical resolution is measured by the number of alternate black and white horizontal lines that can be distinguished in the height of the camera image or display picture. The number of active lines are generally referred to as approximately 575 lines for CCIR, and 480 for EIA, yet these figures still do not reflect realized vertical resolution.