Why are some HDTVs 1920x1200?

I don't get it, 1080p is 1920x1080, what are the extra 120 rows of pixels for? Does this mean you would get small black bars across the top and bottom when playing say, Gears of War 2?

Some 720p screens I looked at were a strange resolution too, why aren't they just the proper resolution?

I don't know of any HDTVs with 1920x1200, but it's not uncommon for monitors to have a 16:10 aspect ratio like that. I'm not entirely sure of the reason for using that ratio, but you probably will get black bars if the content is a different aspect ratio.

Widescreen

Guess they do it so people can use it for the PC and document viewing, since PC is usually 16:10

Gears 2 does not run native in 1080p, that is upscaled willy, any HDTV can upscale

I think you mean PC monitors.. they run at 16:10 instead of 16:9 widescreen.

Yeah, 1920x1200 is a monitor resolution (16:10). There are no stand alone TVs that run at that res or ratio, but there are a lot of monitors that you can also use as a TV...

"Yeah, 1920x1200 is a monitor resolution (16:10). There are no stand alone TVs that run at that res or ratio, but there are a lot of monitors that you can also use as a TV..."

You either meant PC monitors or 1920x1820 monitors.

You can have a 16:10 monitor at various resolutions 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 and it still be listed as HD because, well, high definition is anything better than a SDTV, which if you've been using a computer since, I dunno, say around the early 1990s you've had an HD computer monitor.  To be specific, it's anything 800x600 or higher.

You can list these monitors as HDTVs though that's a bit dishonest because most computer monitors are not cable ready nor have speakers or any other inputs other than VGA or DVI.  As well, if you do have those types of inputs (component, HDMI) try running 720 or 1080 signals (which are 16:9) though a 16:10 monitor, you get stretching and distortion unless your monitor has a really good scaling chip, and those monitors don't come cheap.