Official "1080p Vs. 720p" Thread Discussion - Page 44

I heard ESPN is thinking about it.
Love to have it.

And the beat goes on.





In a perfect world, what you've been saying is true. Unfortunately when it comes to broadcast signals, there is as much differences in compression as there are channels, which as discussed earlier in this thread, has a greater impact on PQ then interlacing artifacts. Until that changes, this topic is somewhat mute.



Unless you are sitting very close to your 1080p TV, you shouldn't. Because of the larger pixels of 720p PDP's, SDE can be an issue.




Ian

I believe I presented enough verifyable evidence for neutral people reading to see 720p is better than 1080i. Did a politician ever admit they lost a debate?
720p 49
1080i 0
All those links and videos quotes and tests I presented are wrong? You think readers are going to believe that?
Game over.

No, I do not think you proved 720p is better than 1080i. I don't think it can be proven one way or the other as they both have different pros and cons.

My preference, and what reality has shown, is I prefer 1080i broadcasts because the pros/cons of that format (and how stations I watch have implemented it) out weight the pros/cons of 720p (and how those stations implement it).

It's interesting how on Blu-ray there's a lot more 1080i titles than there are 720p titles. Even with sports titles. The only 720p sports title on Blu-ray is 3D isn't it?, where they didn't have the option of 1080i since 3D 1080i isn't part of the Blu-ray spec.

If 720p gave a better picture on Blu-ray than 1080i irrespective of bitrate you'd think there'd be more 720p titles on it than 1080i.

That's the answer you can come up? If you read most of the facts presented, most of it had to do with compression issues with broadcast signals, such as it being 1440 h not 1920 and or 1035i not 1080i or 1.1 mapping.
Also you answer your own question, 1080i has a lower frame rate, not the 60 frames of 720p, so 60 would not benefit a transfer in this case, but it would a sporting event, so this is why the blu ray sports are 720/60.
Your question can be answered two fold to the blu ray 1080is. One they figure if you have a set in the progressive 700s, it would still max out the Rez of the set, and if you have a 1080p set, the 1.1 pixel mapping since blu ray 1080i is 1080i x 1920, not 1035x1440.

Also the question could be asked, since 1080p is better than, 1080i, why didn't you ask the question why are they not making all of them them in 1080p? Why some in 1080i?
I could also ask why did Disney, History, Directv 101, National Geographic, ABC, Fox, FX, Fox News, ABC Family, AUD, all of ESPN pick 720p?
Yes 1080i networks outnumber 720p ones, but the reson is one, HDTV commenced with CRT interlaced sets, and now they figure, with the 1080p sets, the sets will deinterlace it, but as I showed, it is not a 1.1 pixel mapping. Also, if you have a set in the progressive 700s, you can convert it, taking for granted the box properly converts it.

If you read through this I stated repeatedly that I seen no big difference with movie material on hd DVD or blu ray comparing 1080i to 720p. Just a slight edge with 720p with the eye color.
My signature states "delivery format". Read that article. Click on it.

720 won on a 1080p set;
"We chose three Pioneer plasma displays, type EX5000"

The 720p format showed better image quality than the 1080i format for all sequences and for all bitrates;
With decreasing bitrate in the compressed domain, the difference between the 720p and 1080i format became more marked.

Now you people are reaching for blu ray formats and screen door effects. It's amazing how once people are locked into a mind set they brainwash themselves (with no links, evidence other than twisted ....look at it this way scenarios) and will resort to anything to continue their belief.

One again, are all those links in error ad well as the tests etc? Yes I am stating a clear cut victory of the 720p broadcast signal over 1080i. The facts and logic are presented with verifiable links from well researched professional sources.

Really? You are the one that quoted information trying to say having larger pixels was an advantage for 720p because it was brighter.

I'm done trying to have a civil discussion with you to look at the pros and cons of both sides. Keep your 720p ESPN on your 720p plasma and I'll look for my 4k monitor at CES (which I guess will be dimmer since pixels are smaller).

What the world really needed and was not put forward as the standard was 960p--All SD would look better because of the perfect multiple.

Let's face it--interlaced just flat out sux!

Sir one statement presented with MANY other factors (like that was the only reason).

I read all those links about the pros and cons, and all you read is the same thing, 720p is better for fast action sports and 1080i is better for movies etc.
What do you think I haven't read that?
But I presented multiple facts why the higher pixel count is a non relevant factor with broadcast signals (today) read it. How compression artifacts are a factor with 1080i and not 720p. People don't look at the facts and the tangibles that effect broadcast signals...they just look at ...faster frames rate is better for sports, but it doesn't have as high of of a pixel count. The facts presented clearly displayed that was too simple to be true because of the tangibles that effect broadcast signals.

"Our work suggests that the 1080p/50 format is of high value for content capturing, whatever the emission format. The 720p/50 format derived from a 1080p/50 (or higher spatial source) format was of very high quality. Many professional HDTV cameras in use today have sensors that capture progressively in 1920 x 1080 pixels (or even higher spatial resolutions) but, for studio interface reasons 4, 5, provide only a down-sampled 720p/50 or 1080i/25 signal on their HD-SDI outputs.
We can clearly recommend the use of 720p/50 as a television production format today. The fact that the 1080p/50 format (or higher resolutions) is used inside many of today’s cameras raises the ques- tion of whether this would be a suitable HDTV production format in the future.
We believe that 1080p/50 in fact would be an ideal high-quality production format for the future – as soon as the following three fundamental issues are solved:
1080p/50 studio infrastructure;
highly-efficient studio compression systems become available that can handle 1080p/50 whilst maintaining high quality (i.e. 7th generation transparency criteria) and without overloading the network and storage systems;
availability at reasonable prices and with industry-wide support. For emission
The demonstration suggests that a progressive format for emission provides the best image quality / bitrate compromise with MPEG-4 AVC compression. EBU Members have already been advised in EBU Recommendation R-112 that the 720p/50 emission format is currently the best option. The demonstration has underlined this statement. Once interlacing is applied to an image format, vertical-temporal information is lost that can never be recreated. The interlaced “footprint” causes an unnecessary burden in the digital broadcast chain, particularly since modern content-adaptive compression systems such as MPEG-4 AVC perform better with progressive signal sources than with interlaced signals. Furthermore, de-interlacing chips are not needed in flat-panel matrix displays 6 thus avoiding a further point of image-quality impairment and video-audio delay.
1080i/25 already suffers a first spatio-temporal “compression” in the baseband domain when inter- lacing is applied and this affects the whole digital chain (particular the encoders). Although different interlacing techniques are possible, roughly half the vertical-temporal information compared to 1080p/50 is removed. Consequently, an encoder has less information available to make intelligent decisions for compression and it is necessary to make more approximations which become visible as artefacts. "


"Despite all the facts with links, and tests results I presented in this thred, like a religion, people stuck up for 1080 interlaced. Here is a link (another one) that proves 720p is better. I claim victory not only with the official test by the EBU in my signature, but read this.

"The advocates of 1080i HDTV support their cause with a flurry of numbers: 1080 lines, 1920 pixels per line, 2 million pixels per frame. The numbers, however, don't tell the whole story. If we multiply 1920 pixels per line times 1080 lines, we find that each 1080i frame is composed of about two million pixels. 1080i advocates are quick to point out that a 720P frame, at 1280 pixels by 720 lines, is composed of about one million pixels. They usually fail to mention that during the time that 1080i has constructed a single frame of two million pixels, about 1/30 second, 720P has constructed two complete frames, which is also about two million pixels. Thus, in a given one-second interval, both 1080i and 720P scan out about 60 million pixels. The truth is that, by design, the data rates of the two scanning formats are approximately equal, and 1080i has no genuine advantage in the pixel rate department. In fact, if the horizontal pixel count of 1080i is reduced to 1440, as is done in some encoders to reduce the volume of artifacts generated when compressing 1080i, the 1080i pixel count per second is less than that of 720P.

Another parameter 1080i advocates use to advance their cause is resolution. Resolution is the ability to preserve the separate components of fine detail in a picture, so that they may be discerned by the viewer. But picture quality is not dependent on resolution alone. Numerous studies of perceived picture quality reveal that it is dependent on brightness, color reproduction, contrast, and resolution. Color reproduction is identical in all HDTV scanning formats, and may thus be disregarded as a factor. A typical study assigns the following weights to brightness, contrast, and resolution:

Contrast 64%

Resolution 21%

Brightness 15%"

"What this means to the HDTV viewer is that the vertical resolution of any HDTV pictures that have a vertical motion component is better in 720P than in 1080i. Based on the above findings, progressively-scanned images equivalent to the observed dynamic vertical resolution of 1080i may be achieved using only 648 lines. If we want to play a numbers game, 720P has better dynamic vertical resolution than 1080i by 72 lines."
"We have seen that interlaced scanning was born as a compromise to conserve analog bandwidth; a compromise that results in picture impairments and artifacts. A DTV broadcast is limited not by analog bandwidth but by digital bandwidth: the critical limitation is on the number of digital bits per second that may be transmitted. In order to broadcast DTV pictures, their bit rate must be aggressively reduced by digital compression to fit within the broadcast channel or pipeline that is available. The digital bits representing HDTV pictures must be compressed by a ratio that averages around 70 to 1 in order to fit into the 19 megabit-per-second DTV transmission channel. This creates a "funnel effect": for each 70 bits that enter the funnel's large end, only a single bit passes through the small end of the funnel into the transmission channel. Digital compression technology is improving rapidly, but it has been consistently observed that 720P HDTV pictures may be compressed much more aggressively than 1080i pictures before they become visually unacceptable. In fact, compression of 1080i pictures routinely generates visible artifacts, particularly when the pictures contain fast motion or fades to or from black. These artifacts cause the picture to degenerate into a blocky, fuzzy, mosaic, that may be observed frequently in 1080i broadcasts. The stress level to the HDTV broadcast system caused by bit rate reduction is much lower for 720P, and blockiness artifacts are seldom observed in 720P broadcast pictures. It may be expected that 720P will always lead 1080i in compressibility and freedom from compression artifacts, because progressive scanning is by its nature superior in the area of motion estimation. This gives it a "coding gain" relative to interlaced scanning, and the result will always be delivery of the same picture quality at a lower bit rate.

Finally, let's take a closer look at the display. The resolution of any type of display is dependent on its dot pitch, which effectively defines the physical size of the dots, or screen pixels: the higher the resolution, the smaller each dot must be. We see this when considering computer monitors or printers: a 600 dot-per-inch printer makes a sharper image than a 300 dot-per-inch printer, and a 0.28 dot-pitch monitor makes a higher resolution image than a 0.50 dot-pitch monitor, and of course the higher resolution printer and monitor cost more than their lower-resolution counterparts.

In order to fully resolve a 1080i picture, a display screen must have about 6 million dots, and for 720P, the figure is about 2.75 million dots. The larger the number of dots required, the smaller each dot must be, and the smaller the dot, the less light it generates. The full resolution of 720P may be displayed using dots three times larger than 1080i for a given screen size, and this gives the HDTV viewer a brighter picture with a higher contrast ratio. As an added bonus, the lower resolution display is less expensive to make."
"720P, when compared with 1080i, provides better dynamic resolution, better motion rendition, the absence of interlace artifacts, and the absence of compression artifacts. It makes brighter pictures with a higher contrast ratio than 1080i".
http://www.bluesky-web.com/numbers-mean-little.htm

Those are the facts. I have seen nothing other than some misguided flawed information by forum posters to dispute this evidence.

Stay with 720p over 1080i if at all possible especially if you have a progressive monitor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-JXf...e_gdata_player

FORGET ABOUT IT!

That's wrong. There are more sports on Blu-ray at 1080i than 720p. Like I said, the only sport on Blu-ray that is at 720p is a 3D title, because Blu-ray doesn't allow for 1080i 3D. All other sport titles on Blu-ray (as far as I know) are 1080i (except for any 'film look' types ones that may be at 1080p24).


With movie material (24 or 25Hz) on Blu-ray, correctly de-interlaced would obviously be superior at 1080i than at 720p because both interlaced lines could be combined so that it should be just as good as if you recorded it at 1080p24/1080p25. With 720p you're downsampling it to a lower resolution. It may average away some noise/random grain in the source but it will also average away detail and give you a lower resolution.

From ABC Television and their reasoning for broadcasting 720p:

http://www.bluesky-web.com/numbers-mean-little.htm


Ian

...and the rest of the article that you quoted above says:

"Thoughts from Walter Graff

I see an endless masturbation on the web of discussions of 720 vs 1080. And that's what I see it as, endless masturbation. Both are simply two different ways of making a picture, with neither necessarily better than the other. There are in general advantages and disadvantages to both but that depends on the application. In projection 1080 offers slightly better resolution when discussing cameras costing $50k and above but that resolution might be lost depending on the equipment and the chain in which that signal is processed. For instance a 2/3" camera might show the slightly better resolution rendering of 1080 but that is completely lost to a sub $50k camera. In other words all this masturbation. about $9k cameras and their 'ability' shows me that those folks are neither professionals nor concentrating on the things that make one a professional. For television applications there is no real advantage or disadvantage in most cases between either 720 or 1080. It's simply personal choice. Anything else is nothing more than wannbes trying to use equipment to justify their lack of experience."

Who won the contest?
Talk about being selective, how come no one commented on that part of my quote?
Walter Grafs comment was an opinion that containited no facts to contradict or agree with the article on the page. It was about cameras, and resolution, not about the compression facts and the facts that 1080i is really 1440 H and sometimes 1035i. Taking about how the picure is made up by cameras was not the issue.
It was the tangibles from point A to point B, where did he contradict those facts? He didn't, he is trying to stay neutral. Funny both those articles basically say the same thing, in different ways.

Do you mean what format did the EBU recommend back in 2006 when they couldn't effectively do 1080p50? Back in 2006 they recommended 720p. It's also interesting that the link you keep posting says without compression, the people doing the evaluation found it hard to distinguish between any of the formats (did the higher than 720p res footage really have a high enough effective resolution? And if so, why couldn't they clearly see the difference? Weren't they close enough? I'm not sure the set-up allowed people to see each display equally at the appropriate distance, etc. Surely they could have had one TV at normal eye level being fed different sources, without the viewers being told what source was being shown (720p/1080i/1080p) and at the appropriate viewing distance. Also, the test was biased since they were told what to look for, etc. They were told to look for artefacts (were they even told to look which showed more detail than the other or was that not as important as absence of artefacts?). The people doing the comparisons should have done it without being told anything other than "pick which of these is best". Surely if the footage was made and displayed correctly, and people with 20:20 vision were watching from a certain viewing distance they should have been able to easily see the difference between the 1080p50 and 720p50 uncompressed versions. The EBU wanted 720p before they got people in to do the test, so it's not surprising the results after they did the biased trial back in 2006 favoured 720p.

In the linked document it says "The demonstration was not intended to be a formal scientific subjective evaluation of the HDTV formats" but it is being posted on this forum and others refer to it as if it was, and it is/was being used by the EBU for the recommendations. Surely a much better test/evaluation would have been to have many people do a blind test of the different formats and pick the best.

Also, in the test, the 720p and 1080i were downconversions, though aren't most 720p broadcasts from 1080i sources and not downconverted from 1080p50/60?

Also, despite what the EBU recommended back in 2006 (when they couldn't do 1080p50 easily), countries like the UK went with 1080i. Another European country went with 720p and then later changed to 1080i I think.


I don't think that's a fact. I think he said some encoders use 1440x1080, which is true - the BBC in the UK usually uses 1440x1080 for their HD broadcasts, but other broadcasters use 1920x1080 (the BBC uses 1920x1080 when they broadcast 3D in side-by-side - I think their encoder is still switched to that for one of their channels until they switch it back to 1440).

Also, despite what I've written I'm not necessarily against 720p. Though perhaps if they did a better test today, and it was unbiased, they'd recommend 1080p50 or higher. Back when the tests were done (or when US broadcasters chose their formats) I'm sure there were less full HD TVs available/being sold, and screen sizes were generally smaller and hardware codecs weren't as advanced. They might take 4K and higher into account too.

Move on. You're wasting your time and everyone else's here.

Once again nothing to contradict the facts presented.

All I see is double talk, and claims of bias test.

If you guys spent as much time actually watching your HDTV as you do talking about it you may see it yourself.

Where is that data showing they actually preferred 720p. All I read in those reports is their summary and conclusion. Or did I miss it. I would expect the data to show at higher bitrates there was little or no difference. I'd like to know at what bitrate it becomes more obvious. Without the data my hunch says when the compressed the crap out of it 720p looked better and they were looking for the cheapest route.

And I thought they even said that in no way was this an objective test, just subjective,in which case we are at the mercy of the few observers and all the influences around them and the construction of the test.

It's like I keep posting, in theory 720p should be better everything else remaining equal, but there is no evidence of that when broadcast signals are highly compressed. If channel A looks better then channel B, it's more likely due to the latter's bandwidth limitations, not the resolution format.


Ian

My experience when i've done back to back comparisons and testing is that when i feed a 1080i signal to my 768p and 1080p LCD and Plasma TVs, the image looks crisper and more detailed then when i feed them a 720p signal. It's quite a big difference in PQ too.

Here's yesterday's morning news data from my Tivo's Now Playing List, as recorded over my roof antenna, sorted from best to worst:

CBS Morning News 2.1 4:00 AM 1/4 0:59:59 7.74 GB (1080i, looks crisp, clear, detailed, best HD quality PQ of any channel on the air)
‎
KTLA 5 Morning News 5.1 5:00 AM 1/4 0:59:59 5.55 GB (1080i, looks crisp, clear, detailed, excellent as HD should, virtually as good as CBS PQ)

Eyewitness News 7.1 4:00 AM 1/4 0:59:57 4.49 GB (720p, looks soft, and is not crisp like KTLA is, looks more like upconverted SD than HD, 2nd worst PQ in L.A.)

Fox 11 Morning News 11.1 5:00 AM 1/4 0:59:58 6.54 GB (720p, looks even softer than ABC, and is also grainy, not very HD-like, worst OTA picture quality in L.A.)

I watch some of the same channels on DTV, but depending on the program, I sometimes get different results. For example, on CBS, NCIS LA looks sharper, more detailed then NCIS which is softer. I have my box set to native and Fox NY 720p looks pretty chrisp, but as with your LA station, it's often too grainy. ABC NY 720p is a bit softer but not as sharp as ABC Family also 720p, which is very good. Lots of detail and pop, very little banding or graininess. I still conclude that it is the differences in compression, which can vary anywhere in the the video chain, (ie: transfers, broadcast signal, service provider...), that has the most amount impact, not the format resolution.


Ian

"The 720p/50 format showed better image quality than the 1080i/25 format for all sequences and for all bitrates;
With decreasing bitrate in the compressed domain, the difference between the 720p/50 and 1080i/25 format became more marked;
The 1080p/50 format was rated equal or better than 720p/50 for the higher bitrates – the extent depending on the test sequence. However, 720p/50 was rated better than 1080p/50 at the lower bitrates."

"We can clearly recommend the use of 720p/50 as a television production format today."



I had 1080i on yea it has it's moments, but the artifacts man.....trust me ....you guys have to blind or you got so used of a ****** picture. You guys can't see 720 P is bright and smooth? Unreal. Hey its your tv guys, feed it whatever artifact signal you want. 720P won. I use 480p for standard tv, 720p for TV, 1080P for TV PPV, and 1080p for blu ray & HD DVD, and DVD upconvertion. I get to enjoy all 3 progressive formats, but interlaced, bites the big one!
Watch the video man, interlacing gets you every time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-JXf...e_gdata_player


Over & out!

That's not data.

"Me and 10 other forum members all agree and clearly recommend 1080i based on our own real world testing". That statement carries just as much weight as theirs without any data.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-JXf...e_gdata_player


Watch the above video my man, and you prove my point, 10 other forum members. The video states a lot of people think 1080i is better, and he explains why it's is not. I proven this with pages of information, videos, test results, and yet you remain defiant, like a fourum of religous nuts stating the world is 6000 years old, I can point you out to a lot of those forums too, with a lot more people than 10.

Over!

You have not shown one ounce of data or test result to prove one is better than the other. And to be honest I don't think you can. I do not think there is an objective answer. It is purely subjective. Both formats are very similar and at any given time on any given channel one may look better than the other. There are pros and cons to both. I prefer 1080i on a channel where there are no subchannels and it is given the full bandwidth. This tends to be the majority opinion on these forums as well.

If you think 720p is better, great, that is your opinion. But to say it in the way you are with no data to back it up and say 1080i is garbage is just plain ignorant. You are too one sided and unreasonable to have an open discussion so this is my last response to any of your posts.

EDIT: And not sure how you can prove 720p is better than 1080i with a low quality over compressed youtube video.

You stated
"You have not shown one ounce of data or test result to prove one is better than the other"

Ok, that was enough right there for people who read through the last 2 pages.

I like tis one too, you said;
"EDIT: And not sure how you can prove 720p is better than 1080i with a low quality over compressed youtube video."

(HELP )

Ok, here is revelation, my bad, it's the points he is making, not that you're going to see a difference visually on the video, see, listen to what he saying. There you go. Try it again.

Now I know exactly what Walter Graff meant.



Ian

I agree, which is why i don't use various TV shows to judge picture quality and signal quality - too many variables in the finished product to accurately compare to other programs/networks/resolution formats.

That's why i do my comparisons using the anchormen and anchorwomen in the studio shots on our local HD news broadcasts - they're broadcast live from the studio and the signal is pure as it's sent over the air so there is no cable company/satellite company compression going on. The difference is clear when comparing facial details between the anchor-people on the various stations. 1080i is clearly more crisp looking and more detailed.

Very often when i set up someone's new HD TV, i'll try to get their cable or satellite feed looking as good as possible but even then it's still compressed to some extent. TWC in my neighborhood happens to look better than in any of the other surrounding towns; it's not comressed very much here (so far). But in West L.A., TWC bought Comcast and they have an antiquated network and the HD picture quality is overly-compressed and downright hideous looking. And forget U-Verse, it's horrible. I like to break out my trusty old 1975 rabbit ears and tune in some local OTA channels and show them just how good HD should look compared to their cable signal - they're usually quite surprised at how big of a difference it is. I always recommend FIOS TV if it's available in someone's neighborhood (not mine sadly). FIOS looks like OTA!

Excellent. I'm glad to see that someone else uses the local news broadcasts for checking pq. After I calibrated my set, I used a reference Blu-ray movie to check my settings, and then the final test was my local evening news. If they looked good (not overly-saturated colors, etc) with a crisp and clean picture, then I was happy. Our tv is OTA only. My market is the San Francisco area and we have excellent OTA here, and with an unobstructed LOS, my reception is as good as it gets. The only cable/sat comparison that I can do is walk next door to the neighbors, who has Comcast, and watch sports. A home game broadcast from the same truck at the stadium looks terrible on cable but looks, and sounds, beautiful on my set. Same for network tv. I can look at my tv and almost every time tell if the program is 720p or 1080i. 720p looks great but the nod has to go to 1080i. If I may borrow Randy's quote, "1080i is clearly more crisp looking and more detailed". I would also like to point out that my tv is set for 1:1 pixel matching with no artificial video processing going on.

Why are there two standards to begin with? And why 720 and 1080? Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to choose 960i/p as the HD standard and leave it at that?

The standard should have been 960--then SD doubled from 480 would look good--seems like a no brainer to me!