over the air HD (locals with an antenna) is either 720p or 1080i depending on the station.
msot use HD-lite meaning they compress the signal, to help with bandwidth & the the set-top box decompresses it.
some companies do better jobs then other…they downscale from 1920x1080i to 1440x1080i or 1280x1080i…Dish still have some that were still running @ 1920x1080i but i’m not sure if that changes.
where over-the-air 1080i is true 1920x1080i.
i think some subscription channel still only offer 720P…ESPN was one unless they changed.
so basically they give the signal to the provider in either 1920x1080i or 1280x720p & the provider rebroadcasts it…but to my knowledge 720 is not downscaled…only 1080i.