Tv resolution questions

[Patroclus]

I'm about to buy a new tv (32", 40" or 42" for my room) , and after reading I feel a little lost whether to buy HD-Ready or Full-HD TV. Here is why.

My old Samsung tv is 32" and the spec says max resolution is 1360 x 768. With this, I have a tv cable with both HD & SD channels. Confusion starts when I set the set top box/ decoder 's remote to display resolution 576i, 720i & 1080i (this is done from the settopbox's remote....not tv remote).

The result on the tv :

- Set at 576i, the picture looks blurry with jagged text. I suppose this is normal because it only displays lower resolution than the tv's capable resolution.
- Set at 720i , both the picture and text looks sharper. I assume this the max resolution of my tv.
- Set at 1080i, both the pic & text looks even sharper than 720i. Now this where I get confused....

Does the tv automatically downsamples the incoming 1080i signal to the tv's max resolution 720i ?
If the answer is Yes, then why do I still see quality improvement in both the picture & text over 720i ?
There should not be improvement becuase at 720i & 1080i , the tv still displays 720i because the 1080i signal is still downsampled to 720i.

Last question, I read some people's comments about fuzzy picture when watching lower resolution video with a Full-HD TV than HD-ready TV. Is this true ? Does it mean when I watch SD channels with 40" Full-HD TV , the picture will look a lot fuzzier than watching it on 32" HD-TV ?
I still watch many SD channels, so will I get bad experience when watching it on 40"-42" Full-HD TV ?

Can someone give me advice ?

 

[mdram]

I feel a little lost whether to buy HD-Ready or Full-HD TV. Here is why.

get a tv that can do 1080p, at a min, heck go for a 4k if you can. just look at models in the store and see which has a picture you like
And for some info about diferences from

http://eng.faq.panasonic.com/app/an...between-full-hd,-hd-ready-1080p-and-hd-ready?

What is the difference between 'Full HD', 'HD Ready 1080p' and 'HD Ready'?
Full HD or HD Ready 1080p means that the television is able to handle a High Definition signal of 1080 lines of information across the screen, and may mean that there is a HD tuner, such as Freeview HD or Freesat HD, built in to receive HD channels without having to add an extra box.

HD Ready means that the television is able to handle a High Definition signal. It produces 720 lines of information across the screen which is not Full HD. It does not have a High Definition tuner built in, so the HD services would come from an external source such as Sky, Virgin or a recorder with HD built in.

 

[Mike64]

My old Samsung tv is 32" and the spec says max resolution is 1360 x 768.

1360 x 768 is a computer monitor resolution, not a "television signal" resolution as such at all, but that does mean your existing set is "High Definition" aka "HD" aka "720p".

The result on the tv :
- Set at 576i, the picture looks blurry with jagged text. I suppose this is normal because it only displays lower resolution than the tv's capable resolution.
- Set at 720i , both the picture and text looks sharper. I assume this the max resolution of my tv.
- Set at 1080i, both the pic & text looks even sharper than 720i. Now this where I get confused....

Does the tv automatically downsamples the incoming 1080i signal to the tv's max resolution 720i ?

720p, your set's actual highest "TV resolution" is actually a bit "better" than 720i (which is the cable signal resolution, not the TV's) but as far as the down-scaling question is concerned, the answer is "yes". (The "i" stands for interlaced scanning versus the progressive scanning of the p versions of each resolution.)

Wikipedia's "High-definition television" article goes into all of this in detail, maybe more detail than you really care about, but in any event, it's worth at least skimming to get a better general understanding of the subject if nothing else. And this article ("What is HD? The difference between 720p, 1080i and 1080p") might be of more practical relevance, since it's limited to the 720p vs 1080p vs 1080i question, but does go into at least some detail.

If the answer is Yes, then why do I still see quality improvement in both the picture & text over 720i ?
There should not be improvement becuase at 720i & 1080i , the tv still displays 720i because the 1080i signal is still downsampled to 720i.

Here, I'm basically guessing since I'm not at all clear on exactly how TV circuitry "converts" (rather than "scales") an "i" signal for a "p" display, but I think what's going on there is that while a 720i image is the same resolution (in pixels) as 720p, a down-scaled and converted 1080i signal, which carries more fundamental image data, produces a better image on a 720p set.

I'm about to buy a new tv (32", 40" or 42" for my room) , and after reading I feel a little lost whether to buy HD-Ready or Full-HD TV. [...] Can someone give me advice ?

Strictly speaking, whether you'll see a clear difference between 720p and 1080p "(Full HD") or 1080i (which is a sort of bastardized/cut-rate version of Full HD) depends on the resolution of your video source and the viewing distance, but for a main/primary TV, I don't think it makes any sense at all to bother with a 720p set at this point. For small "utility" sets (like in a kitchen, workshop, etc), you can save a few bucks in smaller TV sizes by going with 720p, but I think the price difference at 32" or greater is pretty minimal at this point. Whether to jump to 4K resolution is less obvious, and really depends on the video sources you're likely to use. If you're not going to use anything more than cable or a BD (much less DVD) player, there's not really much point in spending the money for 4K since those sources are 1080p at best anyway, but if you watch a lot of streamed video or a have a BD player with good upscaling capability, it might make some sense to go with 4K if you don't plan to buy a newer set for a good long while, or if the best possible picture quality is important to you... (Which, given that you still have a 32" 720p, I suspect is not the case...)

Before most everyone else jumps in urging you to get nothing less than 4K, I'll just say that personally, I'm the total opposite of an "early adopter" where TVs (and for that matter, most technology) are concerned, so when I recently bought a new TV, I just got an inexpensive 1080p set to hold me for a couple/few years while, hopefully, 4K OLED settles in somewhat and comes down in price a bit. The image quality of a decent 4K set is truly amazing, but when I watch TV, I'm just "watching TV". I'm really not into the whole "home theater" Thing, so the cost wasn't worth it to me, for now anyway... (I still have standard cable and "just" a BD player, though I very strongly suspect that by the time I replace this current TV, if not before, I will have definitely "cut the cord" and 4K may well become more of a necessity and less of luxury for me by then.)

Last question, I read some people's comments about fuzzy picture when watching lower resolution video with a Full-HD TV than HD-ready TV. Is this true ? Does it mean when I watch SD channels with 40" Full-HD TV , the picture will look a lot fuzzier than watching it on 32" HD-TV ?
I still watch many SD channels, so will I get bad experience when watching it on 40"-42" Full-HD TV ?

I can't help with that one at all, but I do wonder if those are recent comments/comments about newer sets, or older ones. In general, I'm a little surprised to hear that, but I suppose a set with less-than-wonderful resizing circuitry might screw up the down-sampling versus displaying HD at its native resolution? As for the Standard Definition sources issue, I think that for practical purposes that's really moot at this point. As far as I know anyway, there are no "native SD" TVs on the market at all, so the issue is whether SD will be up-scaled to 720p, to 1080p, or higher. I'm not at all sure there's much difference as far as that's concerned, but someone else will have to address that question...

 

[Patroclus]

Thank you for the explanation. I think I will buy 40-42" with Full HD. It seems more people tend to choose FullHD over HD-ready now, so I will just go with the mainstream.