Official "1080p Vs. 720p" Thread Discussion - Page 2

Thanks both. Ok, so I'll be squandering that great resolution by sitting so far away, but a 1080 won't look worse at that distance than a 720, all other things being equal?

A related question: If I learn how to plug this LCD into my computer for gaming, and hence am sometimes sitting relatively close to the screen, then will I be glad I sprang for the 1080 over the 720?

Sony still has some nice 768 sets, however I find the 1080P sets have a better picture. My guess: the top of the line sets are 1080P and top of the line sets have the best panel and the best processing. The exception to this, at least a few years ago, were some of the ED plasma sets. Some of these looked downright stunning at the right distance, especially with good DVD transfers. Lew Black

I have alwasy though 1080 lines of resolution looked better than 720. I have heard all the arguments but my old sony 53hs10 4:3 1080i set has always had a better picture in my opinion than any of the 720p plamas or dlp sets even the high end ones. it was about 50" tv in 16:9 mode.

my new samsung ln-s4695 1080p lcd has a better picture with my hd-a2 hd-dvd player at 1080i IMO than the 720p sets and I never played the player on my old sony to compare. could be due to set quality more than resolution but I have just always though 1080>720.

the flip side is with normal 480i the set does not look as good as my old sony.

I've seen the distance charts for the various displays, so considering I'd be about 5-6 feet away from the display I'm leaning towards 1080p. Unfortunately, all I can afford as a college student at the moment is the Westy 37w3 which I know has it's supporters and it's nay-sayers.

But for around the $1100 range, it is a good deal. However, I understand the arguments against 1080p at this point. But when I started looking into better quality sets, I can't find much in the 1024x768 range for the same price range - for any display type (LCD, DLP, etc...). I feel that the technology at this point is in a bit of grey area. In another 6 months, 1080p will be a lot more practical.

Not true. A fair number of 1080p displays still do this.

So if I'm going to be about 5-10 feet from my HDTV pretty much at all times, 1080p or 720p is better?

haha ive been paying attention... just lazy >.<<br />

i'll make a more detailed post soon. haha =D

Do you know which sets still do this? And some of the sets that don't? I have been too busy to look for articles on this issue. Lew

I have never seen this more true than last night. I took the kids for pizza. The football game was on. I would say about a 42" Samsung plasma. From our seats about 15 feet away it was beautiful. As I walked within 2 feet to hit the restroom, it was horrible. A lot of this was the signal, but it demonstrates the same effect. Pick a size for your viewing distance. If you sit close enough for a 720 to look bad, I doubt a 1080 will look much better.

http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/1106hook/

Breakin it down... (correct me if im wrong).

For your best viewing distance. (with 20/20 vision).

-On a 27" HDTV, 1080i/p - 3.5ft away. 720p - 5.29ft away
-On a 32" HDTV, 1080i/p - 4.1ft away. 720p- 6.27ft away
-On a 37" HDTV, 1080i/p - 4.83ft away. 720p - 7.25ft away
-On a 42" HDTV, 1080i/p - 5.49ft away. 720p - 8.23ft away
-On a 50" HDTV 1080i/p - 6.53ft away. 720p - 9.8ft away.

The difference isn't THAT BIG on smaller televisions it seems. The bigger you get, the more the question "1080p or 720p?" comes into play.

In normal, not confusing terms, it seems that today not many pictures are produced/broadcasted in 1080. In a year or two though after you spent a grand or two on a 720 and more and more 1080 pictures may be released, you might be kicking yourself in the a$$.

As I understand you are correct, if you define "best" as "best bang for the buck." As an example, for the 50" size, you will see a benefit of 1080i/p over 720p at distances below 9.8ft. Below 6.53ft, you would start to see the benefits of increasing the resolution above 1080.

It also depends on what you're using the display for. As I pointed out earlier, there are PC images where I can detect resolution artifacts on a 23" 1080 monitor at 5 to 6 feet. If you're using the screen as a PC monitor, the numbers above are misleading.

Finally, for a given display technology, 1080p sets typically have additional better features. It's usually not everything else being equal.

What type of 1080p sources are there? I cannot seem to justify the extra cost of a 1080p set vs a 720p set currently. HD Cable won't be 1080 for like another 5 years, if that. So basically the 1080p sources are PS3/X360 and HD-DVD/BluRay?

Will having a 1080p set make the 720p HD broadcasts look better?

Thanks for the help.

RishiD

Don't assume a 1080p TV requires 1080p sources. The problem is that everyone and their brother is labelling their TVs 1080p and there's a variety of things that could mean (displays 1080 lines of video progressively, accepts 1080p sources).

Most of the time when someone mentions a 1080p set, what they mean is what it can *display*. That it physically has 1080 lines it can show on the screen.

There are plenty of 1080i sources out there (HD DVD, XBox 360, etc). The i means the 1080 lines of video per frame are broken up (interlaced) into two separate (540 line) frames and shown quickly one after the other, which fools the brain into thinking they're a single picture.

Modern TVs which have 1080 lines of resolution (generally called 1080p by manufacturers) can take in 1080i sources and piece the two frames back together into a single 1080 line picture. So really, any 1080 source (whether i or p) will look better on a 1080p set than it will on a 720p set (which has to "throw away" some of the picture to shrink it down to 720 lines of video).

Cable actually has plenty of 1080i channels... I don't know exactly which are which, but I'm pretty sure NBC, Discovery HD, and Fox are all 1080i. Those will almost always look better on a 1080p set than a 720p set.

A 1080p set will not make a 720p signal look any better, in fact, in general it'll make it look a little worse. That's because it has to stretch the picture to fit in the bigger resolution. Whether or not you can actually tell that the picture is stretched depends on a lot of things. But no, a 1080p set will not make a 720p picture look better.

-Nate

Re: article Interesting article at hometheatermag/hookmeup (I cannot quote the url).

There is something I am not getting: If the HD I see is just an upscaled 540-line field, It should be only marginally better than 485-line SD. Yet there is a huge difference.
What am I missing here?

Most HD broadcasting today is done in 1080i with only a few broadcasting 720p

You must have misunderstood the article or you confused the discussion on CRTs and flat-panels. You NOT watching an upscaled 540. LCDs and most plasmas receive the first 540 line field, hold it in memory until the next field arrives. Then both fields are joined and displayed as a complete 1080p/30 picture.

Hm. Going off that distance chart, 1080p's a complete and utter wash for me (living room, about 9' from couch to screen; bedroom, 11' from bed to screen)...

Thanks, Nmlobo. What confused me is the earlier comment (to which you answered with the article link) which seemed to imply that some TVs discard every other 540-field and upscale the other one. I thought the new deinterlace test in the article was meant to detect those.

What is a resolution artifact? a bloch in the picture?

My last comment was meant to explain what you read in the article. You are correct in believing that the test was meant to detect those sets that sets that do not properly deinterlace. I posted the link to help you identify those sets which do properly deinterlace. My comment was meant to tell you that "if" you purchase a set the properly deinterlaces, you are not seeing an upscaled 540 but a full 1080. Sorry for the confusion.

So, does anyone have any LCD vendor projections about having only 1080P panels on the market. It would seem like they might be trying to use the 1080P as a selling advantage on their 40inch down sizes, since it appears that it is would be much harder for Plasma manufacturers to cost effectively, produce similiar size panels. Regardless, if someone is planning on making a long term investment, would it not be prudient to go the future proofing route by getting a 1080P display.

I hesitate to mention this, since the very mention of SED tends to provoke a similar reaction from many people, as the mere hint of something that may even sound like sexual innuendo does from Surgeon Todd on the SCRUBS show.

Regardless, it looks like Toshiba/Canon are planning on introducing SED as a 1080P HD display. To those who have seen the 55inch SED 1080P, demonstrated, what was the farthest viewing distance you observed it from and did you experience any sense of wasted resolution, and if you did, at what viewing distance did you begin to observe that effect?

Finally: Henny Youngman used to tell of a Man who goes to the Doctor. The Doctor asked him what was the matter, and the Man said: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this", to which the Doctor replied: "Don't do that!".
So, perhaps if you are sitting too far away from your 1080P display, "Don't do that". Kathy Bates is designed for a distant perspective, Scarlet Johansen can withstand a closer ogle.

Can someone post pics comparing a HD-DVD/BD movie side by side 720p and 1080p? Or are there any links that show similar comparisons?

I am really having a hard time deciding whether i should get 1080p lcd or a 768p plasma.

[quote=kuv]What is a resolution artifact? /QUOTE]


??

[quote=kuv]
In this case, a.k.a. pixelation.

While I do not have pics I can tell you that I actually purchased the Sony KDL40V2500 1080p lcd and the Panny 42PX60U plasma and had then working side by side. Connected to SA 8300 HD DVR via HDMI, Sony Upconverting DVD via HDMI and Xbox 360 1080i via component.

Viewing distance ranged from 6 to 10 feet. We actually have company and kids so many times viewing angle came into play.

In the end we could not tell the differnece in PQ between the resolutions. LCD has pluses and plasma had their pluses. In the end I went with the plasma mostly because of price (<1300 delivered) and somewhat because of better picture although both were great.

Did you try it out with 1080p source material?

[quote=furboo]
Thanks bud.