1080p-720p shoot-out in Athens! - Page 3

Great comparison....but the bottom picture is turned to magenta....so it's clearly the 720p (you said that in one of your post.....!)

Howewer the different frames are somewhat misleading (foliage frame is not the same, but it's clear because there is too much of a difference!!...in real world the difference 720p vs 1080p is somewhat really minor, given an adequate source and viewing distance.....)

My .02$

for those are looking for someone else to confirm Takis saying who is the 1080pwell is the top one on first look it was hard to tell even while you are in the room, after a little while you could notice the resolution difference pop up but if you need 30 people (some of them could be qualified as above average viewer) to tell the difference then something should be taken under consideration seriously the source Most people attend the meeting question the need of a 1080p machine at home if they can have the image the saw with the 720p projector (I have to admit I am one of themnot that I don't want a 1080p projector but with what material I will use it in country with no Hi-Def broadcasting and HDD or Blu-Ray still away)

someone asked if we could see the pixels, well it was hard to see the pixels on the 1080p even at 2.5-3 feet distance, for the 720p OK thinks was worst but for people seat at 8 feet no difference those was sitting at 15 feet forget it

Is it just me or does the aspect ratio look out of wack in the top pic of the 1st and 3rd set of shots? On the 1st set look at the skyline on the left of the upper shot. On th 3rd set look at the crystal knob on the left. Or is this an optical illusion due to the camera placement in relation to the screen?

Me think second and third generation 1080p would be improved subsranially compared to the one's we have now.

The bottom one is 1080P, as you can see the pillars on the riverboat are much more solid than the one above. But the color of the top one is more spot on.

Yep that is right (within round-off error). Move your head 1 foot closer and you are at 1.3X screen widths, back one foot and you are at 1.5X screen widths.

I too am surprised that the difference in screen door wasn't more widely reported. One possibility, which I have observed myself, is that SDE can be harder to see in typical scenes in HD vs SD feeds. Something to do with the higher native spatial frequency content of HD masking the screen door grid. However, differences in SDE should still be be readily apparent at 1.5X on bright, relatively uniform, scenes (eg: sky or clouds, titles, etc.).

Did you go for maximum focus ?

Great test by the way and thanks for reporting. Helps alleviate the 1080p envy !

Brent

Did you not notice that 2 members from the shootout have already confirmed that the 1080p is the top image?

The 2 Greek guys are pulling your leg, can't you tell !!!

No, I can't tell that at all.

Have a look on this screenshot from the comparison, try not to look on the different frame but try to compare the image in the two circles, it should be easier to find out the 1080p projector (on top one sorry mate) then again as I said people in real viewing conditions had problem to find out the 1080p (the comparison started as a blind test that people should pick one or the other)

This thread makes me wish my 3 Samsung 710's hadn't broken. Seems like that would have been the unit to keep for a few years until other aspects (other than resolution) come along to push the projection experience further. This also makes me wish I could find a good deal on Samsung H800 darkchip 3 - I'm a glutton for punsihment!!!

Hi guys,

I'm the photographer , I took the screenshots (with a Canon 20D, lens L 17-40) so I can confirm that pictures are original, just only resized. Afterall, in real size 8MP the differences are exactly the same.

As Takisot said, the bottom is 720p and the upper is 1080p

The conclusion for me is that the source material (software) is the most important thing to whole chain. 1080p is preferable only when you have alot of inches screen and you sit too close e.x. 130" from 4 meters.

This is absolutely astonishing.

The viewing distance in this test is what might be called 'unreasonably close' - very few people will sit that close.

This means that, for example, you'd be better off buying the SIM 3-chip DLP 720p model for GBP £10,995 than their new 3-chip 1080p model for c. GBP£30,000.

Also, if you have GBP £6,000 to spare on a plasma, it'd be better spent on a 50 inch 720p model and a good scaler/VP than on a 1080p plasma.

I think this test might just have saved a lot of people a small fortune!

Steve W

Easy to say that now

I certainly feel much happier, after spending so much on a C3X! However, I do think the differences are much more pronounced on flat-panels, the new Sony and Pioneer models do look considerably better than 720p. Great thread, very interesting to read people's responses.

Interesting test, but I really wonder how things would have turned out using HD-DVD or Blu-Ray media. I'd be really shocked if the difference still couldn't be readily seen.

Quick someone do that before I spend a wad of cash on the new JVC!

I thought the source of those images were from a hd or bluray player, what was the source then? im also assuming that no video processor was used?

Htpc

I too find HTPCs to often not be as good as standalone, but the difference in sharpness should be more or less as obvious from a HTPC as from a Toshiba HD-DVD-Player.

So maybe in real life one would have seen a bigger difference. Maybe in real life people with a skilled eye would spot the better one immediately.
But this test suggests that at least for the "usual suspect" the differences might not be obvious but rather subtle.

And more importantly, it seems that correct color and good black levels/contrast are far more important than resolution.

Just wondering why the pj's were not set up on top (vertical array) of each other?
Just wondering!

The OP stated that the folks there "in real life" had a very hard time telling them apart. So, no, it doesn't sound like they saw a bigger difference. But could some "goldeneye" folks from AVS *think they saw a difference, oh yeah.

A good point from all this even though there will be those who will say they see a difference, that difference is very very small. Smaller then most would expect.
I remember reading posts saying 1080p is XXX more pixels then 720P so it has to be sharper and you have to be blind if you cannot see the difference...that difference in pixels while it may be a big number just does not cross over to the added visible detail we expected but does play a larger roll as fill factor, sitting closer.

I blame this lack difference between 720 & 1080P projectors on our source. I feel our best BD/HD DVD is still weak.

Meaning software or hardware?

Shouldn't be too difficult to produce crystal clear and painfully sharp images nowadays. After all, 1080p is only a small fraction of what analog cameras can capture.

They only had one 1080 clip in use, everything else was scaled DVD.

It would have been interesting to see more 1080 content.

Cheers,

I vividly remember "upgrading" my Panasonic 300 (960x540) to a Panasonic 500 (1280x720) expecting to see almost a 2-fold improvement, I mean, I had almost doubled the # of pixels, right? Even on the best 1080i HD programming, my wife and I couldn't see any improvement in resolution between the two. In summary, the math on the pixels doesn't necessarily translate to what you see.

And I agree with Alan that at this point, improving the source quality is where the money is. 1080p will get you smaller pixels, higher fill factor, maybe "smoother" image, etc...and allow you to sit 2 feet from the screen if you want. But otherwise, it's a bit of overhype (to be polite) that we need 1080p pjs.

Ultimately, as we approach the limits of human perception, you need bigger and bigger jumps in resolution to have a smaller and smaller improvements in PQ.

Jump from SD (c.480 lines) to 720 and that's an increase of 50%. 720 to 1080 is a further 50% increase. Because of the way these things work, a further 50% increase will result in an even smaller improvement.

The implication is that a resolution increase of a further 50% (up to 1620 lines) will see an even smaller improvement than 720 to 1080.

Sorry lads, the games up.

We all want it, don't we. We all want to believe that there's some improvement out there that will 'transform' our viewing experience; some magical, as yet undiscovered/undeveloped system. And yet logic dictates that it's impossible for equally impressive improvements to go on forever.

Well, here we are. Not perfection, but not far off, at least not as far as resolution is concerned. The biggest step forward would be some sort of non-gimmicky 3-D. But on a flat screen, with a flat picture, we're near the edge.

Steve W

Software.

See my post to Alan.

Many of us have 1080 content that could have been sent over for use that has been captured from OTA broadcast or other sources.

Not to mention available for download from various sources.

Why more 720p and 1080i/p sources weren't used is surprising to me.

What it says (IMO) is that if you're scaling DVD you won't see much difference between 720p and 1080p.

Cheers,

John

I agree that would have added a little more credibility to the shootout

I thought they did!

"HD VIDEO: BenQ demo, Epson Demo, Shakira Tortura mtv video clip, Samsung Demo, (all at 1920Χ1080i)
HD FILM: Starship Troopers (1920Χ1080i)
SD FILM: SW III, Chronicles of ridick, Sin City, Alexander, Van Helsing (all 720X576)"

I posted this exact same thing yesterday in response to John saying this. So, John, did we miss something here?

I took this to mean they had more than one 1080 source: