why purchase a 1080p over a 720p?

B

beencounting

500+ Posts
don't know much about HDTV but want to buy one this summer before the football season. Some questions:

- since networks broadcast in 720p (true?) what difference does it make to buy a 1080p set? Does a 720p broadcast look exactly the same on a 1080p and 720p screen?

- over 95% of my viewing is network broadcast, so the only advantage of a 1080p set is when viewing Blu Ray discs, true?

- SD broadcasts on a HDTV look worse than SD broadcasts on a SD CRT, IMO. Why is that ? How to reduce pixelization? You get the bigger screen, so this seems to satisfy people, sacrificing size for quality.

- some buy the HDTV set over the internet and have it delivered to home, but what if you are not home in the day and at work? They don't just leave it at the front door do they? I'm guessing the post office doesn't have a whole lot of storage space either. I buy things off the internet all the time but nothing this massive and I don't think any vendor schedules a delivery window.

- does professional calibration (expensive) really make a difference? I'd say the overwhelming majority of HDTV owners don't do this, but their HD pictures look great regardless.

- when do the networks plan to upgrade to 1080p broadcasts? Seems like the smart thing to do is buy a 720p now and then upgrade to 1080p when the networks follow suit, and when 1080p will presumably be less expensive with more features.

thanks!
 
There are some sources that are 1080p now (Blu-Ray) and there should be many more in the future. This is why I would buy 1080p - future proof. I have not seen huge differences in price.
 
don't know much about HDTV but want to buy one this summer before the football season. Some questions:

- since networks broadcast in 720p (true?) what difference does it make to buy a 1080p set? Does a 720p broadcast look exactly the same on a 1080p and 720p screen?

current network broadcast HDTV in 720p and 1080i. The screen is upscaled or de-interlaced to 1080p in a 1080p TV. In a 720p TV, 720p broadcast is shown natively but a 1080i is deinterlaced and scale down. So 1080i broadcast will look better on a decent 1080p TV in my opinion.


- over 95% of my viewing is network broadcast, so the only advantage of a 1080p set is when viewing Blu Ray discs, true?

1080p is universal across different standard so I expect things like video on demand will be in 1080p whenever and whereever bandwidth become available.

1080p has twice amount of pixels for the same size of screen so the size of pixel is halved. It allows you to sit closer to the set without seeing the netting effect.

- SD broadcasts on a HDTV look worse than SD broadcasts on a SD CRT, IMO. Why is that ? How to reduce pixelization? You get the bigger screen, so this seems to satisfy people, sacrificing size for quality.

US SD broadcast is 480i so it is needs to de-interlace and upscale to match a higher resolution screen. A higher quality TV has better a technique to do those processes and should produce better images and less pixelation.
CRT has no pixel reslolution so it is immuned to that but its size can't get bigger without increditely heavy so it gradually dispappear from market.
You don't have to sacrifice size for quality. People can produce high quality screen at large size at very high cost. What you see in the market is a compromise of all three factors to market demands.

- some buy the HDTV set over the internet and have it delivered to home, but what if you are not home in the day and at work? They don't just leave it at the front door do they? I'm guessing the post office doesn't have a whole lot of storage space either. I buy things off the internet all the time but nothing this massive and I don't think any vendor schedules a delivery window.

Because large TV is so heavy and fragile so post office, UPS, and FedEx won't handle it. It is shipped through trucking companies probably you have not heard about. There are two types: curbside delivery and white-glove. curbside as it meant it is dropped and it is up to you to get help to get inside the house or upstairs. Drivers won't be authorized to get inside the house so extra tip won't work. White glove includes bringing it inside and setting it up to make sure it works properly so it will be around 200-300 extra. They do call you to set up delivery window.

- does professional calibration (expensive) really make a difference? I'd say the overwhelming majority of HDTV owners don't do this, but their HD pictures look great regardless.

If you read avsforum.com some people there say it is essential. But in my opinion it is more fun to do it myself. The default setting is already 95% of what it can deliver.

- when do the networks plan to upgrade to 1080p broadcasts? Seems like the smart thing to do is buy a 720p now and then upgrade to 1080p when the networks follow suit, and when 1080p will presumably be less expensive with more features.

FCC probably won't do another standard in next 20 years. But it won't prevent enterprise to do new services to home with different quality than broadcast. In 5 years, probably Super Bluray will be in 1440p so 720p vs. 1080p debate will be irrelevant. Buy what is best for you in next several years, enjoy, and wait for the next great thing. It will come.

thanks!
 
CNET if full of crap.

First, they are factually incorrect. LCD panels don't come in 1366x768 resolution. That was common for plasmas. I'm not aware of any LCD panel ever having that resolution. HDTV LCD panels come in 1280x720 and 1920x1080.

Take the Pepsi challenge. Compare a 1080p and 1080i signal on a same-size 720p TV and a 1080p TV. Despite all the silly math people do that claims to conclusively "prove" otherwise, I found that I see a noticeable difference. If you don't notice a difference, buy the 720p, save a bit of cash, enjoy it and don't look back.

What I meant by finding out about the LOST upsampling was that I've noticed LOST just didn't look as good as Office or 30 Rock or news broadcasts (all true 1080i) to me. The fact that it's a 720p signal upsampled to 1080i may explain why I noticed that.
 
Oh the irony of that first sentence.

- Most LCD HDTVs come in 1366x768
- When you're talking less than 40" at most normal viewing distances, it is pretty much impossible to distinguish 720p and 1080i. On a good Blu-Ray its actually distinguishable at less than 40" but not that much.
- Never heard so much praise for NBCs HD. Lost looks damn good, and if you had no idea of the res of any of these shows, I bet you'd be hard pressed to point out what is what
 
720p is not always worse that 1080i: 720p dominates 1080i when it comes to when objects (on screen) move rapidly. sports, for example.

1080p broadcast is not going to happen in the USA. probably ever. 1080p requires mpeg4 encoding to be compressed into the same bandwidth as 1080i or 720p. most of today's tv (and decoder boxes) can only do mpeg2. changing over to mpeg4 would mean today's tv would no be able to watch the new signals. (there is not enough bandwidth to carry both signals)

so, the leap from 720p/1080i to 1080p in broadcast is unlikely. we may jump to a completely different format in 15-20 years.
 
wow what a thread. Hear are a few things that I would say.
If you are looking for a lcd panel that is over 40" you are might find just a handful of 720p units, most manufacturers are dumping there 720p and jumping to the 1080p units. In plasma you will still be able to find both units and the price difference is usually going to be about 500-800.
If you are going to take advantage of 1080p, it is all going to depend on the size of TV you get, and the distance you are going to sit. I find that if a customer is within 8-9 feet on most TVs that they do notice a difference between 720 and 1080p, you can post all the info you want from different forms, but I show this to people on a daily basis and place them at different distances to find out where they see the difference and that is it.
SD on a HD set really depends on the video processing of the set, you take a Pioneer plasma and run it next to a lg plasma put both on a sd broadcast and the Pioneer is going to look much better, good thing to do when looking is have them put the TV on a sd broadcast and see how it does.
Calibrating a TV all depends on you and how critical you are going to be over your new TV. One thing that you will notice though, most calibrated TVs are going to have a darker warmer look to them, not the bright torch mode look that you will see in the show rooms. So be aware of how it is going to look.
Don't know when but if you look at the FCC guidelines for HD broadcast it is 1920x1080p but when do we get there who knows.
Most sets that are 720p native resolution is 1366x768 most 720p plasma panels will be 1024x720
 
In reply to:
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current network broadcast HDTV in 720p and 1080i. The screen is upscaled or de-interlaced to 1080p in a 1080p TV. In a 720p TV, 720p broadcast is shown natively but a 1080i is deinterlaced and scale down. So 1080i broadcast will look better on a decent 1080p TV in my opinion.



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Does the following from the CNET link contradict?:


In the real world, it's difficult to tell the difference between native resolutions once you get into high-def. For example, despite the fact that a 37-inch LCD with "only" 1,366x768 pixels has to throw away a good deal of information to display a 1080i football game on CBS, you'd be hard-pressed to see more detail on a similar 37-inch LCD with 1,920x1,080 resolution.


about the ABC LOST, if it is being sent by ABC in 720p and WFAA Dallas converts it to 1080i, how is anything being lost? I thought if it went the opposite way that it was "lost" (no pun intended).

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CNET is wrong when they think innovation has been stopped in display technology. They thought TV set received 540x1920=1036800pixels per 1/60th of a second for 1080i( or 720x1280=921600pixels for 720p) from broadcast signal and it won't know how to display better on a 1920x1080=2073600 pixels of a 1080p screen.
Original program (Lost or your favorite) is likely filmed with full 1080p camera. Studios have to "throw away" some information when they format to 1080i or 720p to fit the broadcast bandwidth before sending to your home.
An expensive TV like Sony XBR, Pioneer Kuro, or top of the line Samsung include "digital video engine" tried to reverse the process and get back as much as information of the original program as possible.
How they are succesful in doing that would depend on the eye of the beholder. As a technologist, I knew all of the details of possible modern techniques but wouldn't want to bother this public audience for additional details. As a consumer, I spent ungodly amount of time gawking TV screens at Frys, Bestbuy like everybody else trying to justify which feature would worth extra.
Curently I am aiming at Samsung LN52A650, google it for details, but wait for its price to drop a bit hopefully before Aug 30th.
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Of course, CNET also ranked A650 highest in HDTV this year
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I don't know why they chose 1366x768. Perhaps its a better scaling match between HDTV resolutions.

Upscaling is not that difficult to do, especially on sets with good scaling chips, and especially if you're running an HTPC in addition.

Any oversaturation you're seeing on lost is likely self perception of their artistic vision. 720p shows from ESPN and Fox, and even other ABC shows don't have the same look as Lost. Even on a 1080p set, 720p doesn't look that different from 1080i.
 
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