1080p vs. 720p display

[AngryStamen]

First off, yes, i know that 1080p is better than 720p What i'm wondering is, is it worth getting a 1080p HDTV right now, when there is no content being delivered in 1080p, except for BluRay and HD-DVD's, which I'm not planning on getting for a good while ($500 for a dvd player? no way!!)

So, my reasoning is, it would be better to spend, let's say, $1000 on a good quality 720p dislpay, vs. the same amount on a most-likely-lesser quality 1080p display...what do you all think?

Also, I WAS looking at a great deal on a Westinghouse 1080p LCD HDTV at Best Buy for $1100, and it has pretty good review, anyone know much about it?

Thanks to all!!

 

[Neutron]

I'm all about future proofing if possible. This is why I went with a 1080p set.

This way I will be ready for when broadcast 1080p comes along, as has been rumored to be coming sometime soon.

 

[harshness]

A 1080p TV should do a better job of displaying 1080i content than your run-of-the-mill 720p set; especially if the 720p set isn't really 1280x720 (the LCDs typically aren't).

Something to watch out for on "alternative" brands is that your remote controls will work with them. Having to use two remotes or kick out dozens of dollars on a fancy remote might make an inexpensive TV not so cheap.

As always, it comes down to what looks best with the source material you like to watch. You must also confirm that the TV doesn't barf on an SD source as many of the LCD models blow chunks with SD content.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I agree with "harshness's" comments!

I have a 37" Viewsonic LCD that is great, accept for the extra remote I had to purchase, which makes me have to use three remotes with my Dish Network 622 to make all the adjustments. It's saving grace is it displays all signals, HD, digital SD and analog, perfect with very little readjustments.

I have two other LCD's (One HD) the don't do digital SD and analog well at all.

I need to replace an old 20" CRT with a 23 to 26" but don't have clue as to what to buy. Looking hard but the only thing that does all signals good, is within $100 of what I paid for the 37" Viewsonic, a year ago.

Smoke

 

[tigerfan33]

First off, yes, i know that 1080p is better than 720p What i'm wondering is, is it worth getting a 1080p HDTV right now, when there is no content being delivered in 1080p, except for BluRay and HD-DVD's, which I'm not planning on getting for a good while ($500 for a dvd player? no way!!)

So, my reasoning is, it would be better to spend, let's say, $1000 on a good quality 720p dislpay, vs. the same amount on a most-likely-lesser quality 1080p display...what do you all think?

Also, I WAS looking at a great deal on a Westinghouse 1080p LCD HDTV at Best Buy for $1100, and it has pretty good review, anyone know much about it?

Thanks to all!!

No need to waste your money right now unless you want a expensive dvd display. There are no plans right now to broadcast in 1080p. Let the prices keep falling. By the time they do broadcast in 1080p, The tv will be outdated without some new device you might want or need.

 

[Peter Parker]

Ther is no single best answer. Neutron did a good job of presenting the case for purchasing the best set possible. Others might tell you to purchasea 720p or 1080i set and wait for the prices to drop on 1080p sets (and hardware that can delivera 1080p picture).

 

[2x10]

At this point, you will more than happy with a 720p TV. I am a long time Dish Network customer and have had HD ever since Dish offered it. It (HD) started out outstanding then got bad and now the clarity is coming back again. The best picture I ever had was HD OTA from CBS. NFL football OTA HD is amazing, and this is on a 1080i JVC DILA 52". I also own a Panasonic 720p 100xu projector on a 136 Grey wolf screen and a Samsung 42" 720p DLP and my family is overjoyed with the clarity and color.

To make a long story short ----- go with 720p or 1080i and I promise you, you will be satisfied until the 1080p craze kicks in. Get an OTA antenna if you are close enough to major city towers

The Samsung 42" DLP we own, I referred two of my friends to the same TV and WE ALL love this Television. The colors are by far the best of the 3 TV's we own and I'm telling you this cause my friend just purchased this TV 2 weeks ago for $700 and no shipping. The TV weighs 68lbs.

Good luck

 

[TheForce]

I disagree with Jason on technology. It changes too fast and seems everytime I followed his plan I lost money and features.

Having seen the 1080P product for two years now and even did a TV show on pros and cons from a dealer perspective, I would say this-

The advantage of 1080P monitor is marginal over a good 720P one, UNLESS, you are looking at a 1080P source which is BluRay or HDVDV. Then the 1080P shines!

If you have nothing now, and the 1080P is not too far out of budget than go for it. It may just spur you into the BluRay or other sooner than you are thinking right now. However, if you have a nice 720P now and think that 1080P will add something to your 720P sources, I'm afraid you will be disappointed. Plus, buying a 1080P that has to sit by waiting for when you go BluRay or HDDVD, you will find that when you finally make the move the monitors of the future will be lower cost, better features, and better quality.

My motto Never buy future technology with today's $ In this case the 1080P would be future usage for you.

I plan to go into 1080 front PJ when I move to Blu Ray or HDDVD which ever wins. Plus I add another part to that which is personal. I want the HD DVDs to be available at my rental store for cheap with good turn on inventory since I don't plan on owning the disk! I guess you might say, 1080P is a way's out yet for me. The change plan would be if the projectors got so good and so cheap, It would move me to buy one, or my present one fails.


Jason- also I don't mean to be the negative one on this but the only way broadcast ATSC could squeeze the 1080P 60 signal into the present channel space with DD5.1 audio would be to compress the crap out of the video. This would bring "HD LITE" to the 1080P format. Do the math. ATSC and the FCC did the math years ago. If you are talking about non-broadcast then all bets are off. For the next 5-10 years the best we can hope for is the disk formats and maybe some emerging DBS technology.

 

[TheForce]

Ther is no single best answer. Neutron did a good job of presenting the case for purchasing the best set possible. Others might tell you to purchasea 720p or 1080i set and wait for the prices to drop on 1080p sets (and hardware that can delivera 1080p picture).

one note geronimo- The 1080i set as you called it is a CRT technology. Are these even made anymore?

 

[Peter Parker]

There were certainly 1080i sets that were not CRTs. projection TVS were often 1080i and there were plasmas and LCDs sold as 1080i (but there is some room for argument there).


FWIW here is an ad for a SonyLCD that at least calls itself a 1080i set. Sony KDL-26M3000 26" 1080i LCD TV 16:9

And i have not seen an HD CRT in a few months. Perhaps those are discontinued.

 

[brantlew]

I think it all comes down to screen size. Unless you are planning to use your tv as a computer monitor and sit 2 feet from it, I don't think you can really distinguish the pixels on a native 720 screen less than 35 inches across at normal television viewing distances. So for the mid and smaller size screens I think 720 will always be fine - even if you have 1080 content. Now above 35 and especially into the large sizes (50+) the pixels become large enough to differentiate and 1080 will make a difference.

Does anyone have actual experience with this? With true 1080 content and a 32" screen size can you actually differentiate between a 720 and 1080 resolution from 10 feet away?

 

[diogen]

It all depends on how "scientific" you want to approach the dilemma 1080 vs. 720.

On one hand, there is a limit on human vision: 1 minute (1/60th of a degree) with 20/20 vision.
That means you should sit as close as 10' from a 50" 720p TV to allow your eyes to resolve this resolution (and about 6.5' from a 50" 1080p TV).
Sitting further back would "waste" the resolution (can't see every pixel), sitting closer - you will start seing the pixel structure (and screendoor on most LCDs).

Here is the article and the graphic representation:

On the other hand, if you are after the "theatre experience", you should sit not further than
- seeing the picture in a 32 degree field of view (SMPTE)
- seeing the picture in a 36 degree field of view (THX)
- three picture hights (depends on the AR of a particular movie; 33 degrees for 16:9)

Here is a good calculator.

If you want to satisfy both those requirements - see every pixel and enjoy the "theatre experience"
(the first puts a floor and the second a ceiling on the seating distance) - than you have to have a 1080p TV!

How "religious" you want to be about it, is up to you.

Diogen.

 

[8bitbytes]

1080p lets you sit closer to the screen. In projectors, this means a bigger screen from the same seating distance. If you are sitting 8 feet or more away from a 50" display, you may not see any difference.

Now, some of the newer 1080ps are also including higher bit decoding, better video processing, and HDMI 1.3 so the advantages go beyond the resolution factor.

If you don't care about the new technologies, 720p can be very satisfying.

 

[diogen]

The resolution/distance issue gets very murky as soon as you consider different video material.

If you'd watch only HD/BD movies, it'd be simple: get a 60" 1080 TV, sit 8' from it and you will never go to a cineplex again.

What if you want to play DVDs, VCD, WMV-HD, camcorded footage, some DivX/XviD stuff?
And maybe use the TV as a monitor to check e-mail, watch YouTube, Picassa, etc.

Those were the reasons I went with HTPC as one and only playback device and never regretted it.
Strongly recommended.

Diogen.

 

[8bitbytes]

The resolution/distance issue gets very murky as soon as you consider different video material.

If you'd watch only HD/BD movies, it'd be simple: get a 60" 1080 TV, sit 8' from it and you will never go to a cineplex again.

What if you want to play DVDs, VCD, WMV-HD, camcorded footage, some DivX/XviD stuff?
And maybe use the TV as a monitor to check e-mail, watch YouTube, Picassa, etc.

Those were the reasons I went with HTPC as one and only playback device and never regretted it.
Strongly recommended.

Diogen.

The HTPC is very powerful tool to resolve a lot of these issues. If you have a pc you can dedicate to this function and you are techincally inclined you will be rewarded for your efforts.

Good point!

 

[loves2watch]

If you sit 10' or more away from the screen you can not tell the difference between 1080 and 720 no matter what anyone says. Buy a good 720 set and you will be very happy with it both now and in the future.

 

[riffjim4069]

IMO go with the 1080p set if you are going to get a PS3/BD player. Additionally, if this is going to be your primary set larger than 55 inches, then go with 1080p since the price difference is a lot less these days. However, if this is a smaller/2nd set then 720p should be fine for the most part.

 

[diogen]

If you sit 10' or more away from the screen you can not tell the difference between 1080 and 720 no matter what anyone says.

...unless the image is 80" or more (i.e. projector) and the source has 1080 lines of resolution (i.e. HD/BD). Then you will.
And this was exactly what my post #12 was all about...

Diogen.

 

[120inna55]

In July 2004, I purchased a 61" Samsung HL-N617W, 720p DLP set. A truely beautiful set. It crapped out on me earlier this year (long story). It was warranty replaced with a contemporary set, 61" Samsung HL-S6187W, 1080p DLP set.

Of course the newer model does many things better such as better blacks, etc. But speaking only to resolution, I don't notice much difference. My sources are OTA / ViP 622 (HDMI), XBOX360 (component), relatively old Samsung upconverting DVD player (HDMI), standard (non-progressive) DVD player (component), Dish 721 (S-Video). As you can see, there are no 1080p sources.

FWIW, I did notice that on the 720p set, the ViP622 looked marginally better set at 720p. However, the same ViP622 looks eons better when set to 1080i on the newer set.

I sit/sat 9' from each set.

Although I usually agree with future proofing, that mainly applies to a pretty generous budget. If you're constrained, I don't thing the resolution kick will outweigh the benefits of better built set.

 

[diogen]

It is hard - and of questionable value - to do a comparison of different resolution TVs with different video material. What can be scientific in enyojing (or not) a movie?

Risking to state the obvious, we want to see the picture the way the moviemakers intended.
If every footage would be 1080p and every player would be able to pass it to the screen, a TV/projector with the same resolution/refresh rate would be enough to get to our goal.

Unfortunately, 1080p material is hardly 1% of the footage available, i.e. HD/BD. Most of the movies/shows are in DVD format 720x480i, HD satellite/OTA are 720/60p or 1080/60i, also a miriad of other resolutions exist: from DivX, XviD to YouTube.

Given that current digital TV/projectors have fixed resolution (mostly 720, 768 or 1080), some rescaling has to be performed. The quality of this rescaling defines the quality of the picture we see.

To make the story short: if rescaling has to be done, try to leave it to the most competent device (or use a standalone scaler). TVs themselves are probably the least competent scalers.

If you are into computers, try ffdshow: a free piece of software that can match or beat all but the best standalone scalers available.

Diogen.