1080p... worth it?

[the.bigd]

Hey guys,

I'm currently looking to purchase a new tv. For the longest time I had my mind made up on a particular set. Then today, talking to a guy at work (who is pretty big into a/v stuff) he suggested basically not to wholly discount 1080i tv's.

So here is my dilemma and I'm curious as to what some other people think.

I dont own a blu-ray player nor do I plan on purchasing one any time soon. That being said, I will probably never have a 1080 source available. I dont plan on purchasing a blu-ray anytime soon. The majority of its use will be just watching tv, divx movies, and serving as the monitor for when listening to music via media center.

I was just over at the local AV store and even looking at the giant bank of TV's, all displaying the same signal - when you step back, it was very difficult to see detail differences between the 1080 sets and the 720 sets. When you get up close, different story... but who watches TV 24 inches from the screen?

Just curious as to other's thoughts.

Cheers

[jrandeck]

I think it also depends a lot on the size of the screen. If you're sitting 8 feet away from a 50" screen you may see the difference (assuming you have good source material) but if you're looking at a 30" screen it won't make any difference.

If you're connecting a PC to the TV, you have another issue to consider, though. The 1080p set will have a native resolution of at least 1920x1080 pixels while a 720p set (which us usually what's sold as a 1080i capable TV) will be closer to 1280x720 which means the Windows UI and browser text, etc. will be much smaller on the 1080p screen. Windows has ways to help with that, but not all applications follow the standards or let you select larger fonts. In my case I need to be about 6 feet away from my 50" 1080p screen to comfortably read standard Windows text, and I'm using the large fonts option. Maybe I just have bad eyes, but that's my experience. The monitor I'm using now is a 23" with the same resolution and it's fine reading standard text with my nose 18 inches away, but I'd want to back up a bit to watch a movie on it.

On the other hand with large fonts on a 720p display as I used to run, web browsing was difficult since not as much info fit on the screen.

[Bigbird999]

As long as the 720p set you get will support the input of the native resolution (usually 1366x768) via HDMI and/or VGA, you can set your pc to 1366x768 and get perfect 1:1 pixel mapping with a crystal clear desktop. I use older plasmas with 1024x768 rectangular pixels and the display is outstanding for desktop, video and gaming. Lots of 720p TVs support only standard HD resolutions 720p and 1080 i or p over HDMI, so you can't get 1:1 mapping. The only way to be sure is research the specs of the chosen TV. You can probably save a couple hundred bux by getting a 720p set. Just do your research.

BB

[Eric3a]

Well if you push the reasoning is HDTV worth it?

After all if you sit far away from your TV set and it's relatively small, then you get absolutely nothing out of HDTV vs SD.
I have been to many people's places where the HDTV is smallish and has simply replaced the SD. The sitting arrangements have remained the same so they're now watching a 27" or 32" HDTV from 15 or more feet away.

I took the problem from the other direction: What size screen and distance shoud I sit away from it so I would get the full benefit of my (expensive) HDTV purchase?
I ended up with a 67" at about 10 to 12 feet. Which meant we re-arranged the furniture to fit the new TV watching distance.
The bedroom has a 46" at about 8 feet.

Even so the difference between 720p and 1080p isn't "blinding" but it is there. Basically 720p is plenty good enough, but 1080p is slightly better. I did a "blind" test by alternating the same movie on 720p and 1080p to see if we could tell the difference, and we could. I am not sure we would for all types of movies or sources though.

I think the best quality I get to my eyes is using the playstation to upconvert anything I throw at it. It just does a great job and image quality is amazing.

Eric

[jrandeck]

Originally Posted by Bigbird999

Just do your research.

Good points that forgot to check out before I bought my current TV.

Interestingly enough, my TV which has 1920x1080 native resolution only allows up to 1366x768 (or something close to that) via the VGA port, so I was pretty disappointed. (I didn't buy an HDMI cable with the TV.)

Luckily, after getting the proper cable and much tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth I found a combination of settings on the TV and my video drivers that gives me 1:1 mapping at 1920x1080 resolution over HDMI.

It annoys me that with most settings the TV wants to scale a digital signal over HDMI at the display's native resolution to some other resolution. It just seems wrong somehow.

[tscales]

Originally Posted by jrandeck

Good points that forgot to check out before I bought my current TV.

Interestingly enough, my TV which has 1920x1080 native resolution only allows up to 1366x768 (or something close to that) via the VGA port, so I was pretty disappointed. (I didn't buy an HDMI cable with the TV.)

Luckily, after getting the proper cable and much tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth I found a combination of settings on the TV and my video drivers that gives me 1:1 mapping at 1920x1080 resolution over HDMI.

It annoys me that with most settings the TV wants to scale a digital signal over HDMI at the display's native resolution to some other resolution. It just seems wrong somehow.

Then your TV doesn't support 1080 resolution natively. It's a 720P set. Manufacturers like to talk about 1080i, but that's useless.

I'm sure it is a nice set, but if it was sold to you as a 1080 TV, then you were misled.

[jrandeck]

Originally Posted by tscales

Then your TV doesn't support 1080 resolution natively. It's a 720P set. Manufacturers like to talk about 1080i, but that's useless.

I'm sure it is a nice set, but if it was sold to you as a 1080 TV, then you were misled.

No, I'm sure the resolution I'm getting over HDMI is 1920x1080. I can run test patterns and see individual pixels at that resolution (need to get up close to see that). This replaced a 720p set with the same screen size that gave up the ghost so I can see the difference, especially when displaying Windows.

Another litmus test that I've found is to drag a window full of text across the screen. If the display is scaling the output, you'll see the text ripple as it moves across the screen.

I don't know why the VGA input doesn't support the full resolution, though. The TV is a Panasonic Viera 50" plasma, but I don't have the model number handy.

[Bigbird999]

Yup, there are a bunch of 1080p sets that cripple VGA (TV manufacturers call them computer inputs) to 1360x768 or even 1024x768. This forces you to use HDMI to get "true HD" (1080p) resolution. Just the reverse of those sets do not support 1360x768 native resolution over HDMI and force you to use VGA. It is just another one of the many roadblocks that Hollywood has put in place to prevent/make it difficult for people to capture and/or playback their precious 1080p content from the dreaded PC, without complying with all their HDCP, DRM, HDMI, copyright, content protection Bullshit! Sorry for the Rant!

BB

[PaulF]

If you are going HD to impress a woman, you should listen to this first:

6/16 - Battle Of The Sexes On HDTV
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 4:50 PM
Dan and JG talk about and take calls on why woman aren't as obsessed with watching TV on HD.

Maureen Dowd article that started the discussion:
Women are faking it in bedrooms all over America.

[josephz2va]

I bought a 25" 1080p computer monitor instead of an HDTV. I'm not all keen on size and stuff. I have a TV tuner that broadcasts the signal to the computer and then to the monitor.

It also depends on where you place the tuner at. I tried to watch it in my bedroom but can only get 720p. When I placed it back where I was at my desk, I got 1080i and 720p. So faulty wiring or long distance for the signal to travel may have cut that off.

[HomeyFour]

Originally Posted by josephz2va

I bought a 25" 1080p computer monitor instead of an HDTV. I'm not all keen on size and stuff. I have a TV tuner that broadcasts the signal to the computer and then to the monitor.

It also depends on where you place the tuner at. I tried to watch it in my bedroom but can only get 720p. When I placed it back where I was at my desk, I got 1080i and 720p. So faulty wiring or long distance for the signal to travel may have cut that off.

Hmm, that I'm confused here... its a digital signal! They either broadcast in 720p or 1080i... its like if you can't receive the 1080 you get 720 all of the sudden... I assure you, wiring and/or distance from transmitter is quite irrelevant. Either you get the signal as sent... or you get nothing. The beauty of digital.

[josephz2va]

I know. But it's how I got it. When I watched it in my bedroom, only FOX and ABC broadcast as 720p. Every other channel is 1080i and I only get 1 frame per 10 seconds until I went back to my desk to watch it and it's near perfection. There's some breaks but not as worse. I get a break every few 10 seconds, but get a lot more frame rate.