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Budget is tight - how bad of an idea is 720p?<
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WHAT YOU ARE FAILING TO UNDERSTAND IS THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!
FUD
I posted FACT that most HD content is 1080, I even included your PBS stations. I posted WELL KNOWN FACT that film based sources are exactly the same at 1080p film based sources. I used your own link to show you that the majority of content is 1080.
I don't mean to be rude, but facts are facts and truth is truth. It's this kind of misinformation that is so spewed around the intarweb that must be stopped. Then again last I heard a plasma will kidnap your kids and force them to watch the few 720 sources there are until their eye exploud, catch fire and live their life consuming 1000 watts of power ever hour.
Stop the FUD.
I don't necessarily disagree with that. I don't know if I'd say "most" HD content is 1080, but a good chunk of it is. But your first post in this thread basically said that 720p is dead, which implies that its dumb to buy a 720p set. Both of those statements are false.
The point of this thread is that the OP is on a tight budget and looking for a set, and asked whether 720p is something he should be looking at. The answer to that question, is without a doubt, yes.
Till dispelling misinformation with facts came in.
I know I come off as an ass. But it is so tiring time after time hearing folks talk on the internet, coworkers, friends, etc spewing what they "heard" as fact. There is so much misinformation going on I can only keep up the good fight of facts and hope that others will listen to reality rather than what they "heard" or "read" on the intarweb.
Throckmorton
Lifer
There is no such thing as a 720p TV anymore. They are all 768p and upscale the 720p video. That looks bad. Want proof? Open up photoshop and resize a 1280x720 picture to 1366x768
Throckmorton
Lifer
1080i video is still 1920x1080 pixels
TerryMathews
Lifer
Hopefully I'm avoiding controversy enough here that the Spidey senses won't start tingling.
To me, the deciding factor of whether it's worth spending the extra $$ for a 1080p TV is what your sources are going to be.
If you're buying for mainly broadcast or HD cable TV, depending on your area you might have a larger majority of 720p content or of 1080i/p. 720p looks better on a 1080p than 1080i/p does on a 720p set. Both are, of course, light-years ahead of standard def.
If you're interested in other sources though, that's where the real deciding factor lies.
Xbox 360? 720p. Some games do native 1080p, but most use the ANA/HANA chips to upscale 720p to 1080p. All games are capable of rendering at native 720p and are gorgeous.
PS3? Supposedly all games can render at 1080p. A wash since it's supposed to be able to render at 720p as well. Blu-Ray movies are 1080(p?) though, so a 1080p set would be better.
HTPC? This is the real tricky one. A good HTPC can make even standard def look good on an HDTV. Trick is though, you need some hot hardware to do VRM9 with filters at 1920x1080. You can get great video at 1366x768 on a 2.5-3GHz P4 with a GeForce 6600GT (my rig). I've got PVR-250x3 for standard def and a HDhomerun for broadcast HD.
Clear as mud?
To me, the deciding factor of whether it's worth spending the extra $$ for a 1080p TV is what your sources are going to be.
If you're buying for mainly broadcast or HD cable TV, depending on your area you might have a larger majority of 720p content or of 1080i/p. 720p looks better on a 1080p than 1080i/p does on a 720p set. Both are, of course, light-years ahead of standard def.
If you're interested in other sources though, that's where the real deciding factor lies.
Xbox 360? 720p. Some games do native 1080p, but most use the ANA/HANA chips to upscale 720p to 1080p. All games are capable of rendering at native 720p and are gorgeous.
PS3? Supposedly all games can render at 1080p. A wash since it's supposed to be able to render at 720p as well. Blu-Ray movies are 1080(p?) though, so a 1080p set would be better.
HTPC? This is the real tricky one. A good HTPC can make even standard def look good on an HDTV. Trick is though, you need some hot hardware to do VRM9 with filters at 1920x1080. You can get great video at 1366x768 on a 2.5-3GHz P4 with a GeForce 6600GT (my rig). I've got PVR-250x3 for standard def and a HDhomerun for broadcast HD.
Clear as mud?
RandomFool
Diamond Member
I feel like I learned something today.
To open another can of worms...
Yes, many broadcast sources are in 1080i, but, is it really a big deal?
importance of resolution
I've read this before but I cannot find the ISF (Imaging Science Foundation) link that actually states it. It's quoted elsewhere too.
Anyway I bring this up because, even if broadcast sources are in 1080, they usually don't look as good, or even as sharp, as blu-ray on a 720p projector (from my experience with both). Compression artifacts and black levels just make it look worse to my eyes. Of course, the cable source (DirecTV or Comcast or OTA or whatever) makes a big difference.
The OP seems to be talking mainly about broadcast television and not blu-ray so I wanted to make the distinction between a 1080i broadcast and 1080p blu-ray. The source matters. With a 1080p TV, you could "take advantage" of all 1080 lines from a broadcast, but it may or may not actually look that much better than a 720p TV because of the other factors.
Of course this is not to say that 1080i/p isn't important. It is. But there are other things, too. It's easier to say "need TV, must be 1080p" than it is to say "need TV, must have excellent contrast, color accuracy, etc."
Yes, many broadcast sources are in 1080i, but, is it really a big deal?
importance of resolution
I've read this before but I cannot find the ISF (Imaging Science Foundation) link that actually states it. It's quoted elsewhere too.
Anyway I bring this up because, even if broadcast sources are in 1080, they usually don't look as good, or even as sharp, as blu-ray on a 720p projector (from my experience with both). Compression artifacts and black levels just make it look worse to my eyes. Of course, the cable source (DirecTV or Comcast or OTA or whatever) makes a big difference.
The OP seems to be talking mainly about broadcast television and not blu-ray so I wanted to make the distinction between a 1080i broadcast and 1080p blu-ray. The source matters. With a 1080p TV, you could "take advantage" of all 1080 lines from a broadcast, but it may or may not actually look that much better than a 720p TV because of the other factors.
Of course this is not to say that 1080i/p isn't important. It is. But there are other things, too. It's easier to say "need TV, must be 1080p" than it is to say "need TV, must have excellent contrast, color accuracy, etc."
The point was later in the paragraph, but it wasn't clear so I edited it. The source matters. The programming could be 1080 but that doesn't mean a 1080p TV would look significantly better than a 720p TV.
And blu-ray on a 1080p projector would only look better than on a 720p projector if everything else was equal or close.
Let your own eyes be the judge. When I started shopping for my flat screen, I had no preconceived notion of what was good, better or best. I just shopped around and compared actual TV's in actual stores with a variety of HD Content. Without even knowing whether it was 720P or 1080P, LCD or plasma, I chose a Panasonic Viera "720P" plasma as my first choice because I thought it looked better than anything else - except the Pioneer Kuro which was almost twice as expensive, but only 10% (very subjectively) better.
Granted, I was looking for a 42 inch... if I was shopping for a 60 inch, it might have been a different story.
Moral of the story... if it looks good to you and is in your price range, go for it.
Granted, I was looking for a 42 inch... if I was shopping for a 60 inch, it might have been a different story.
Moral of the story... if it looks good to you and is in your price range, go for it.
themisfit610
Golden Member
Okay. Just stop.
Listen to someone who works with high definition video every single day - for a living.
First of all, 720/1080 refers to lines of vertical resolution. Not horizontal.
1280x720 means 1280 horizontal lines and 720 vertical lines
1920x1080 means 1920 horizontal lines and 1080 vertical lines
720p is a perfectly good choice for several reasons
1) There's not much real 1080p content out there, excluding HD optical discs and (some) game consoles. If you're watching OTA or cable HD, they broadcast 1080i the majority of the time. They typically over-compress it to the point of absurdity.
At these high levels of compression, the extra spatial resolution offered by 1080p becomes moot.
A 720p panel can bob deinterlace true 1080i to 1080p60 internally, and then downscale that to 720p60, preserving full temporal resolution (motion fluidity). In other words, you loose nothing - except some nonexistent spatial resolution.
The quality of this process depends highly on the scaler chip inside the TV. Some are good, some are absolutely terrible. Read reviews before buying!
1080i movies (which are really 1080p24 with telecine to 1080i) can be processed to recover the original 1080p24 and then downscaled to 720p. Again, the heavy compression prevents any meaningful loss.
What other HD sources are there aside from OTA, Cable, Satellite (all the same in this regard), HD optical discs (outside the realm of discussion) and game consoles? There's Vudu (shameless plug) which is awesome 🙂
Real 720p content will look great! 720p always delivers 720 spatial lines, whereas 1080i can be subjectively a lot less in high motion due to the interlacing.
Plus - lots of folks are hard pressed to tell the difference between DVD and HD - especially if sitting on the couch.
I'm not one of those people. I watch BluRay on my PC at 1080p from about 2 feet away. I have a hard time watching SD now, because I'm so used to the resolution, wonderful film grain textures, and improved color precision. Even old films look fantastic when processed well.
NOW - that being said there are bargains to be had on 720p sets. I think you can't really loose, as long as you don't mind upgrading to 1080p later when you can afford a really nice, big set. It sounds like you're mentally prepared to do that. So it's all gravy.
As long as you're not watching HD discs, there isn't a huge problem with getting a 720p set IMO. Heck - a good BluRay still looks very nice at 720p - certainly much better than a DVD!
Spend more money on audio equipment - thats where people always skimp out 😉
~MiSfit
When I was in a market for a tv, I initially was going to get a 1080p, but then I finally settled for a 720p. From what I learned when researching was that 1080i is really bad for sports.. lots of pixalization. The interlacing caused the pixilazation. Not enough bandwidth since each "snap shot is only half the picture". When you try to interlace two pictures to get the 1080 resolution, its blurry. 1080p would solve the blurriness, but 1080p which involves each snapshot taking the "whole" picture, the bandwidth is extremely high and not a lot of broadcasters are willing to use their allocation of bandwidth on one channel.
People have said that watching sports, having a 720p broadcast is a lot better then 1080i which is a lot more common than 1080p which isn't even that much common to begin with.
I am not an expert, by the above were my 2cents 🙂
I'll leave it to Spidey to defend the 1080p vs 720p but think about what your saying.
Actually the 1280 lines are vertical and the 720 lines are horizontal. Now...the 1280 lines are the horizontal resolution and the 720 lines are the vertical resolution. However, Spidey was merely describing the direction of the line. His description was perfectly fine. Your's, however, is flawed.
themisfit610
Golden Member
Your terminology is incorrect. It's not the direction of the lines, it's the opposite 🙂
Horizontal lines are scanned vertically - hence vertical resolution.
I understand your confusion.
Vertical resolution matters much more (to the human eye) than horizontal resolution. Hence - when people say - 720p has 720 lines of resolution, they refer to the vertical resolution.
~MiSfit
Horizontal lines are scanned vertically - hence vertical resolution.
I understand your confusion.
Vertical resolution matters much more (to the human eye) than horizontal resolution. Hence - when people say - 720p has 720 lines of resolution, they refer to the vertical resolution.
~MiSfit
Muadib
Lifer
Ok, I can't take it anymore.😛
The vertical resolution of an NTSC TV refers to the number of lines scanned from left to right across the screen. However, you count them from top to bottom, like you do rows on a spreadsheet, or vertically. The number is static, and does not change.
The NTSC standard for an analog tv is 520 lines. Loss occurs during the scan as the beam goes from the bottom back to the top of the screen. Since people are most interested with the visible lines, the reference resolution became 480i. 480, which is the number of visible lines after a scan, and i for the scan method used, which was interlaced.
The horizontal resolution, which is the number of vertical lines, is variable. They are your columns in a spreadsheet. It is dependent on the quality of the video source. The horizontal resolution of a VHS tape is about 240 lines, for analog TV it's 330 lines, for laserdisc it's 420 lines, and DVD is 540 lines. These numbers aren't exact, because the measurement methods weren't always the same.
It has become common to list a TV's vertical resolution without the horizontal when showing the capability of a set. Digital TV consists of formats accepted by the ATSC. The SDTV standard is 480i or 480p. 480 for the visible scan lines, and i or p for the scan method. i for interlaced, and p for progressive.
The standards for HDTV resolution are 720p, 1080i and 1080p. These refer to the visible scan lines, and the scan type. The ATSC formats for SDTV & HDTV are:
480i - 704x480 resolution, & a display rate of 30 frames per second.
480p - 704x480 resolution, & a display rate of 60 frames per second.
720p - 1280x720 resolution, & a display rate of 60 frames per second.
1080i - 1920x1080 resolution, & a display rate of 30 frames per second.
1080p - - 1920x1080 resolution, & a display rate of 60 frames per second.
They all also support 24 frames per second with progressive scan. Some of the newer sets can display this.
As far as content goes, 99.9% of Blu-ray disks are 1080p, as are most HD DVD disks for those still going that route. There are also PS3 & Xbox 360 games in 1080p
There is no network broadcasting at 1080p. ABC, Fox, ESPN, National Geographic, broadcast in 720p, everyone else uses 1080i. That might have changed, as I haven't checked in a while, but if it's off, it's only by a channel or two.
Content in 1080 resolution far exceeds what can be found in 720p.
The vertical resolution of an NTSC TV refers to the number of lines scanned from left to right across the screen. However, you count them from top to bottom, like you do rows on a spreadsheet, or vertically. The number is static, and does not change.
The NTSC standard for an analog tv is 520 lines. Loss occurs during the scan as the beam goes from the bottom back to the top of the screen. Since people are most interested with the visible lines, the reference resolution became 480i. 480, which is the number of visible lines after a scan, and i for the scan method used, which was interlaced.
The horizontal resolution, which is the number of vertical lines, is variable. They are your columns in a spreadsheet. It is dependent on the quality of the video source. The horizontal resolution of a VHS tape is about 240 lines, for analog TV it's 330 lines, for laserdisc it's 420 lines, and DVD is 540 lines. These numbers aren't exact, because the measurement methods weren't always the same.
It has become common to list a TV's vertical resolution without the horizontal when showing the capability of a set. Digital TV consists of formats accepted by the ATSC. The SDTV standard is 480i or 480p. 480 for the visible scan lines, and i or p for the scan method. i for interlaced, and p for progressive.
The standards for HDTV resolution are 720p, 1080i and 1080p. These refer to the visible scan lines, and the scan type. The ATSC formats for SDTV & HDTV are:
480i - 704x480 resolution, & a display rate of 30 frames per second.
480p - 704x480 resolution, & a display rate of 60 frames per second.
720p - 1280x720 resolution, & a display rate of 60 frames per second.
1080i - 1920x1080 resolution, & a display rate of 30 frames per second.
1080p - - 1920x1080 resolution, & a display rate of 60 frames per second.
They all also support 24 frames per second with progressive scan. Some of the newer sets can display this.
As far as content goes, 99.9% of Blu-ray disks are 1080p, as are most HD DVD disks for those still going that route. There are also PS3 & Xbox 360 games in 1080p
There is no network broadcasting at 1080p. ABC, Fox, ESPN, National Geographic, broadcast in 720p, everyone else uses 1080i. That might have changed, as I haven't checked in a while, but if it's off, it's only by a channel or two.
Content in 1080 resolution far exceeds what can be found in 720p.
themisfit610
Golden Member
Well said. The distinction between analog lines and digital pixels is extremely important - I neglected to mention it.
And yes - there is no 1080p60 content out there that I know of, and much more 1080i (either true 1080i or telecined 1080p24). Would you agree, however, that most if it is so poorly compressed that it doesn't really take full advantage of 1920x1080 pixels, and wouldn't look much worse downconverted to 720p?
Heck - I've done tests with heavily compressed 1080p24 where I downconvert to 720p and then back up to 1080p and notice no difference! I have damned sensitive eyes, too!
Oh, and
Surely you meant 720? We're talking about horizontal resolution (number of vertical lines), and DVD is 720x480 pixels, which roughly equals 720 vertical lines. Also, AFAIK your precise numbers for the various analog sources aren't always so precise. I could be wrong - analog video is not my specialty!
Exactly. You don't say 1280 horizontal lines. None of this really matters anyway 🙂
And if you don't believe me that vertical resolution matters a lot more than horizontal resolution, ask anyone over at AVSForum or Doom9. It's widely known that the human eye is much more sensitive to vertical resolution.
~MiSfit
And yes - there is no 1080p60 content out there that I know of, and much more 1080i (either true 1080i or telecined 1080p24). Would you agree, however, that most if it is so poorly compressed that it doesn't really take full advantage of 1920x1080 pixels, and wouldn't look much worse downconverted to 720p?
Heck - I've done tests with heavily compressed 1080p24 where I downconvert to 720p and then back up to 1080p and notice no difference! I have damned sensitive eyes, too!
Oh, and
Surely you meant 720? We're talking about horizontal resolution (number of vertical lines), and DVD is 720x480 pixels, which roughly equals 720 vertical lines. Also, AFAIK your precise numbers for the various analog sources aren't always so precise. I could be wrong - analog video is not my specialty!
Exactly. You don't say 1280 horizontal lines. None of this really matters anyway 🙂
And if you don't believe me that vertical resolution matters a lot more than horizontal resolution, ask anyone over at AVSForum or Doom9. It's widely known that the human eye is much more sensitive to vertical resolution.
~MiSfit
Contrary to common human nature, I don't immediately believe anything until factual data backs it up. Right now, I fail to see why, if it were the case, we would have increased horizontal resolution from 640ish to 1920 😉. If I went off popular opinion I could find you plenty of people that claim that cable risers helped their systems sound...or that a new fancy power cable "tightened" their bass. Too many people accept opinion as fact.
And btw, you were the one that said 1280 horizontal lines.
Which is what I was pointing out was incorrect.
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