Official "1080p Vs. 720p" Thread Discussion - Page 4

Honestly, this is the best post in this entire thread. Excellent summary of some important points.

I've had both sets and can't tell a difference

Yea good stuff, thanks for all the posts and questions answered! I learned alot in here in just a couple days, I never though buying a tv would be such a process. Now onto the review threads!

So my situation is this:

- seating distance is going to be 8-10 feet
- I'm hooked on Pioneer plasmas (love the design and PQ) but do not want to spend the big $$ on the 1080p set

The question now is whether to go for the 42" or the 50"?

What say ye?

50". No question. I had a 46" LCD at 9 feet and felt I could use bigger.

I agree. But I would also like to add that 1080p is in no way synonymous with better picture quality (aside from considerations of screen size and seating distance). There are many more important aspects to consider than whether a set is 720p, 768p, or 1080p.

In your opinion what would some of the other important aspects be? I am not questioning you..just curious.

Man, is anybody actually reading this thread from the beginning? All the crucial info is in the original post.

I think it was said earlier in this thread that all else being equal, 1080p is better, but all else is never equal. Other, potentially more important factors are color, contrast, scaling ability, etc.

Go as MASSIVELY BIG as you can and sit as RIDICULOUSLY close as you can to realize the true value of 1080p!

Color accuracy, (real) contrast ratio, sharpness, absence/presence of artifacts, noise, response time, de-interlacing and scaling capabilities, adjustability, and non-picture quality attributes like size, price, weight, and display type.

To me, 1080p is a spec that doesn't mean much by itself -- it is only one piece of the puzzle. When comparing the picture quality of different displays, I compare the overall picture quality, not the number of pixels each display has. I ended up choosing a 768p display over a 1080p display, and to me, the 768 display had a definite edge in picture quality. I could not distinguish the difference in resolution (pixel count) unless I was very close to the display. From my viewing distance, the 768 display showed more detail, especially in dark areas of the picture, and had better color rendition.

1080p is better, when all else is equal.

And you are sitting close enough to notice the difference.

Within 6 months this will be a moot point since the price premium of 1080p will be less than 10% over 720p (if that). At that point, it's a "might as well 1080p" proposition. Surely no one will argue that the extra resolution hurts in any way.

Anyone who doubts this, keep an eye for Vizio announcing a sub $2K 47" LCD+tuner 1080p panel shortly. http://www.viziotv.com/news/detail.aspx?nid=53

That is an extremely optimistic timeline that will not reflect reality. And this is especially true with respect to plasma displays.

That said, you are correct in that it will eventually be a non-issue. In the meantime this thread has some real value.


The have, the do, and they will continue to. I refer to the SD scaling arguments - specifically that SD will look worse on a 1080p display than a 720/768p display. This debate has calmed down now, but it has spawed its share of flamefests in the past. Much of it is FUD. However, the key to a good picture is the quality of the scaler. A poor scaler could certainly ruin what would be an otherwise good display. In general, though, the quality of the scaler is getting better and certainly there is no evidence to suggest that - on average - 720/768p displays have better scalers than 1080p displays.


LCD is one half the story, and plasma is the other half.

I feel the choice to 1080p or not to 1080p comes down to a couple things.

1) If you plan on viewing 1080p content on your 1080p HDTV in the near future, then Yes. It will look better. Unless you are 12 feet from 23 inch monitor. Content could be HD-DVD, Blu Ray, or teh Xbox 360 or PS3. Other than that why would you bother.

2) "Future proofing" is, as we all know in this forum, like trying to nail jello to the wall. So you "future proof" your resolution, but what about advancements in scalers, video processors, chips, HDMI (v1.3 etc. etc.), color reproduction, shadow detail, etc. TV's each year will make improvements in these areas, so you have only future proofed one aspect of the display.


I bought a Sony KDLXBR1 40 in. LCD 6 months ago and it is already a "dinosaur". But I would put it up against almost any flat panel display with teh proper content of course. The set is a gem. Of course I would prefer a 1080 set to play my 360, but may I have to give up some other picture qualities to "get into" a 1080p TRUE HD set?

My plan is to let the 1080p technology mature, let prices drop, HDMI v1.3 kick in, and then go 50 inch or above with a great 1080p flat panel display. I feel no hurry because I don't own a next gen DVD player, and the difference between Gear of War on my TV and a 1080p set doesn't justify the expenditure right now.


Bottom Line: If you want to watch 1080p content, buy a 1080p TV. Of course their is always the trade off between waiting for the next advancement and having a 1080p now.

Have there been many reports of stuck pixel problems on the 1080P panels?. Does the higher resolution make them less noticeable and therefore less distracting than stuck pixels on comparable size 1080 Interlaced panels?

I was asking it within the context of this thread's debate about the merits of investing in a 1080P panel. I thought that it might be worthwhile to determine if a stuck pixel would be less of a distraction on a 1080P set, and that could be added to the benefit column. Since what we are really talking about is distance and perspective, I will give you a wee Irish Poem that captures the concept of how distance banishes blemishes. The poet is James Simmons.


Art and Reality

From twenty yards I saw my old love
Locking up her car.
She smiled and waved, as lovely still
As girls of twenty are.

That cloud of auburn hair that bursts
Like sunrise round her head,
The smile that made me smile
At ordinary things she said.

But twenty years have gone and flesh
Is perishable stuff;
Can art and exercise and diet
Ever be enough

To save the tiny facial muscles
And keep taut the skin,
And have the waist, in middle age,
Still curving firmly in?

Beauty invites me to approach
And lies make truth seem hard
As my old love assumes her age,
A year for every yard.


Perhaps, if we do not get much feed back about my question, I may start a dedicated thread to the subject.

Slainte, and Happy Holidays to all. Stay safe.

Good afternoon all. I am new to the forums, and especially to the technology of HDTV. I just recently bought a 42" LG Plasma (love it, btw!). It's native resolution is 1024 X 720, and it supports 1080i. My question is, if I get a deinterlacing/upscaling video processor in the future, could this TV display a 1080p signal in all its glory?

I'm nearly certain that the resolution is actually 1024x768. I could be wrong. However, its a minor nitpick either way and really not that important with respect to your question - I just wanted to give you the heads up.


No.

Your panel has its resolution fixed at 1024x768 and that cannot be changed. Any signals that are fed to panel are scaled to that resolution. Now that does not mean that adding a video processor to your setup won't produce a better picture for you - it may very well do so. It's just that if it does, it won't be because it somehow magically increase the resolution of your set. Rather it will be due to the fact that the video processor has a much better scaler and deinterlacer than the one built into your display.

If someone produced a 960p plasma set wouldn't SD look great because there would be a perfect multiple? Why 1080p or 768p or 720p--how about the answer to all SD scaling problems--960p?!

You're right...it is 768. I may be getting hung up on the term "resolution". My TV will display a 1080i picture. Couldn't it display a 1080p (which is the same # of lines, right?) with a deinterlacer or video processor doing the work instead of the TV? It confuses me, because it technically is the same # of lines, but they are being drawn progressively instead of interlaced, right? Please excuse my ignorance, this stuff is new, but very interesting to me! Thanks for the help!

Your set can not "display" 1080i. It can receive and manipulate the signal. 1080i (when properly deinterlaced) and 1080p do contain the same number of lines. Your TV can not display either 1080i or 1080p. It receives these signals and then scales the image down to 768p. It makes no difference where the signal is processed (internal or external to the tv) everything that is input to your set will be scaled to 768.

So then 1080i and 720i should theoretically look the same on my TV because they are both being compressed to 768? I guess overall the best resolution would be 720p in my case then. Thanks for the help!

These graphs you guys are tossing around mean nothing. They are neither authoritative nor absolute. I can produce a prettier graph than that in my Excel spreadsheet that shows different data and post it. Anything posted on the Internet without credible data to back it up (and by credible I mean something beyond some guy in some magazine or web site coming up with a theory and becoming an instant "expert") is a waste of time.

For the record, I will buy 1080p because there's already at least one source of 1080p material out (PS3) and I expect more to appear in the 5-7 year projected lifetime of my panel. The price difference between 1080p and 720p will siginificantly shrink in 2007 and soon there will exist no good reason why I shouldn't buy a 1080p.

SD performance gets worse you say as you scale it up more? Doh, no kidding, a Yugo gets more shaky as you run it faster. You don't go racing in a Yugo and you don't try to get good SD from a high-res HD panel. If you want good SD...buy an SD panel or screen.

True, pricing is becoming a non-issue for LCD but plasma pricing gap is bigger you say? Sure is but who wants to spend $3K and have to worry about burn-in? You don't have to play video games to be concerned. Watching 4:3 material leaves you with either stretching the picture and distroting everything (yak) or black bars on the side and risking damage. Ironically there are several people who tout plasmas because it makes their SD content look better!!!

Anyway, Merry Christmas.

Most people will not debate the fact there is going to be content in 1080p over the next 5-7 years. The debate is whether or not the distance from the panel will even show your eyes a better picture or not. Sure your 1080p panel will show more resolution than my 768p panel but will it produce a better, more lifelike, believable image? Maybe not. There are a lot more factors than just panel resolution that go into a panels PQ. All of them have been mentioned already in this thread. All this talk about future proofing is nonsense as well. My non-high end LCD panel can accept 1080i which all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs provide and will convert it to 768p. 1080i provides the same resolution as 1080p and my panel has an excellent de-interlacer. Doesn't this mean my panel is future proof too?

This will be a moot point by next year but it sure is fun to have something to think/talk about.

Bottom line: you have to go MASSIVE and sit close--if you don't you're just watching TV.