Hi,

I have a Panasonic 50" (TH-50PC77U). It is 720p/1080i. What resolution should I put my Toshiba HD-D3 DVD player at? Out of the box it is set to 1080i, but I put it at 720p instead. What is the best thing to do?

Thanks.

Its really up to you and whatever you think looks best. There is no "official" answer to this but with my 50" Pio Kuro, I use 1080i from my HD DVD player and am happy with the results. Doesnt mean you will be but thats what I use.

My 2 cents....

Easy answer is...wait for it....whichever looks better to you.

If you set the player to 1080i, then the player is responsible for deinterlacing the picture, and the TV will downscale to its native 720p resolultion.

If you set the player to 720p, then the player is doing all the deinterlacing and downscaling.

It boils down to which, the player or the TV, has a better video processor for resolution scaling.

Easy answer is...wait for it....whichever looks better to you.

If you set the player to 1080i, then the player is responsible for deinterlacing the picture, and the TV will downscale to its native 720p resolultion.

If you set the player to 720p, then the player is doing all the deinterlacing and downscaling.

It boils down to which, the player or the TV, has a better video processor for resolution scaling.

Thanks. So how can I find out which has the better video processor?

Thanks. So how can I find out which has the better video processor?

I'm really not trying to be snide, here. But, whichever setting you use on the HD-D3 that gives you the best picture to your eyes determines which has the better VP.

If you want a more definitive, objective answer, you could get the HQV Benchmark DVD, which has tests that will help you decide which has the best VP. It will allow you to compare 720p and 1080i from you D3 and how it handles jaggies, a myriad of pulldown and cadences, sharpness, etc. Just google "HQV Benchmark". However, the results are mostly academic; in grading the upscaling of SD-DVDs on my XA2 vs. my PS3, the XA2 wins somewhat convincingly on the tests. However, real-world viewing is highly satisfactory on both units, both on my 52" 720p DLP monitor, as well as my 1080p front projector onto a 106" screen.

I'm really not trying to be snide, here. But, whichever setting you use on the HD-D3 that gives you the best picture to your eyes determines which has the better VP.

If you want a more definitive, objective answer, you could get the HQV Benchmark DVD, which has tests that will help you decide which has the best VP. It will allow you to compare 720p and 1080i from you D3 and how it handles jaggies, a myriad of pulldown and cadences, sharpness, etc. Just google "HQV Benchmark". However, the results are mostly academic; in grading the upscaling of SD-DVDs on my XA2 vs. my PS3, the XA2 wins somewhat convincingly on the tests. However, real-world viewing is highly satisfactory on both units, both on my 52" 720p DLP monitor, as well as my 1080p front projector onto a 106" screen.

Nice info. :)

If you set the player to 1080i, then the player is responsible for deinterlacing the picture, and the TV will downscale to its native 720p resolultion.

If you set the player to 720p, then the player is doing all the deinterlacing and downscaling.


Not totally accurate, because the native resolution is 768p. Sending 720p means the players downscales to 720p, then the plasma has to re-upscale it to 768p.

While the true answer is of course "whatever looks better to you", almost everyone puts their devices at 1080i when feeding 768p plasmas. That way you get the maximum 1080 lines of resolution available for the TV. This seems to be the consensus for hi-def sources and cable boxes.

Not totally accurate, because the native resolution is 768p. Sending 720p means the players downscales to 720p, then the plasma has to re-upscale it to 768p.

While the true answer is of course "whatever looks better to you", almost everyone puts their devices at 1080i when feeding 768p plasmas. That way you get the maximum 1080 lines of resolution available for the TV. This seems to be the consensus for hi-def sources and cable boxes.

Hmmm... no wonder my Toshiba A30 1080i setting looks soo good on my 768p Sammy display.

I was wondering why the 720p setting via the Tosh was actually not as good as the 1080i setting. Thanks for the clear up.

Not totally accurate, because the native resolution is 768p. Sending 720p means the players downscales to 720p, then the plasma has to re-upscale it to 768p.

While the true answer is of course "whatever looks better to you", almost everyone puts their devices at 1080i when feeding 768p plasmas. That way you get the maximum 1080 lines of resolution available for the TV. This seems to be the consensus for hi-def sources and cable boxes.

Bingo. :) I feed my 50ph10uk the *native* resolution for everything. Let the panel do the upscaling/downscaling. (Well, 480p for DVD.)

I don't know if it's a dirty little secret or not, but I have a pretty good upscaling DVD player, but I don't even use it for that. Panasonic plasmas have pretty good scalers. But not that great of deinterlacers IMO.

While the true answer is of course "whatever looks better to you", almost everyone puts their devices at 1080i when feeding 768p plasmas. That way you get the maximum 1080 lines of resolution available for the TV. This seems to be the consensus for hi-def sources and cable boxes.

For cable boxes, I would say it depends on what you watch. If you watch a lot of sports, the PQ for the networks that broadcast natively in 720p (ABC, ESPN, FOX, etc.) is generally better with the cable box set for 720p output. Fast action and camera pans look smoother. However, for non-sports programming (sit-coms, dramas, etc.), I don't see a lot of difference between 720p and 1080i.

-Steve

I agree with you, but I was mostly generalizing. If the vast majority of your viewing is the 720p networks for sports stuff, it probably makes sense to set your cable box to 720p and you won't notice much difference anyway on the 1080i networks.

But while I drew that generalization, the original question was about an HD DVD player, in which case it clearly makes sense not to take a 1080p native source, downscale it to 720p, and then have the TV re-upscale it to 768p. Better to give the TV the full-res 1080i signal.

I don't know if it's a dirty little secret or not, but I have a pretty good upscaling DVD player, but I don't even use it for that. Panasonic plasmas have pretty good scalers. But not that great of deinterlacers IMO.

But if you feed your Panny 1080i, isn't it deinterlacing things and then scaling to 768p?

So why wouldn't your interlacer be good as I am assuming you are happy with the pic?

On both my HD player and my Dish DVR I have res set up for 1080i for my 768p display.
Can't recall when a different setting ever looked better. Typically little to no difference, but sometimes worse. Try both with different material, and decide for yourself and your display.

But if you feed your Panny 1080i, isn't it deinterlacing things and then scaling to 768p?

So why wouldn't your interlacer be good as I am assuming you are happy with the pic?

Good observation. :) For whatever reason, deinterlaced 480i from satellite, for example, looks like crap. I'm not talking about overall picture quality, but jaggies during a pan during a football game for example. But yeah, I don't seem to notice as many problems deinterlacing 1080i from BD or HD DVD. So maybe the source has something to do with it.

I might have to take another look at that when I can find a good HD DVD or BD section to try 1080i vs 720p...

I recently had the opportunity to test a couple of plasmas with a pattern generator. They were 720 native and could not handle the vertical scaling well on 1080. I would recommend setting the player on 720.

I recently had the opportunity to test a couple of plasmas with a pattern generator. They were 720 native and could not handle the vertical scaling well on 1080. I would recommend setting the player on 720.

Which plasmas?

Once was an older Hitachi and the other was one year old. But it doesnt matter, its best "mostly" to have the tv fed its native res.

I don't if Panasonic has changed, few years ago they would convert all signals to 1080P first then to screen's native resolution. That was just before the 1080P screens were out. That fact was in their plasma catalog.

Once was an older Hitachi and the other was one year old. But it doesnt matter, its best "mostly" to have the tv fed its native res.

For BD and HD DVD, I agree. But I don't think it would ever make sense to do this:

480i or p for SD DVD => 720p => 768p for a 768p plasma. 480i (to p) (directly) to 768p is much cleaner and prone to less artifacts.

or this:

1080i or p from BD or HD DVD => 720p => 768p for a 768p plasma (you're actually discarding information the panel could use this way)

Also, a lot of (most?) Hitachis use that ALiS processing (if it's a 1024 vert res model), which is really interlaced processing. So testing with that kind of display is not a valid comparison to how most progressive panels like Panasonic, Pioneer, etc, do it.

There is theory and then what you see however. It's best to test every which way possible, and then pick the best. *That*, I agree with. :)

Easy answer is...wait for it....whichever looks better to you.

If you set the player to 1080i, then the player is responsible for deinterlacing the picture, and the TV will downscale to its native 720p resolultion.

If you set the player to 720p, then the player is doing all the deinterlacing and downscaling.


Actually, no. The 50" panels are all 1366 or 1365 x 768 native resolution so using either HD output mode will have both the player and TV scaling. In 1080i mode the player is probably de-interlacing and scaling up to 1920x540p.

A 720x480p HDMI output at the DVD's native resolution will have the player de-interlacing and TV scaling just once.