720P plasma @1080 res?

[thescreensavers]

I just purchased a LG 42PN4500

with the distance 720p was fine everywhere said that it was 720p. I decided to plug my laptop in via hdmi and it defaulted to 1024x768, but the picture on the screen was stretched. I set my computer to maintain aspect ratio(TV only had 16:9 or 4:3 settings no "just scan") . Which caused large black bars on the side.

Anyhow I went to the screen resolution area in windows and it let me go to 1920x1080 res and the TV went to that res. When I click info on the TV remote it says "1080P"

so I'm not sure what's going on, I though it could only do 720p res?

 

[sdifox]

It is telling you the signal is 1080p

 

[mmntech]

It's getting a 1080p signal and downscaling it to 720p.

 

[fralexandr]

it might be better to set your laptop to output 1366x768 and have the tv scale it.
many 720p plasmas use 1024x768 panels with rectangular pixels.