Community Newsletter: Q&A forum: HDTV buying advice: 720p vs. 1080p

Don't buy, they are expensive and unreliable.
Get the best LCD kit you can afford.
As for blue vs. red ray, I am going to sit on my hands until the twonks sort themselves out.

We were all playing nice and then you had to go and slap Sony across the chin by pointing out their propensity to fall short of reinventing the wheel. What did Our Father Who Art in Japan ever do to you!?

1080p will very likely be the standard, if your planning on owning your new TV more than a year, buy the 1080p model.

No matter what you are watching the more scan lines on the screen, the more detail you will see. Not only that, but hi-def cable can be as high as 1080i, so a 720p television will down convert the HD signal. You don't want that. Besides, with HD DVD players under $300 right now, don't bet you won't be buying one sooner than you think. Blu-Ray disk are outselling HD DVD, but not the players, it's the PS3 driving sales. Paramount just pulled out of Blu-Ray and went exclusive to HD, if Disney follows the war is over and HD will have won. If you buy a 720p TV now and next year Blu-Ray is a thing of the past and HD DVD players are $200 you might kick yourself for not having the full 1080p capabilities.

An up-converting HD DVD player will also give you a 1080p Standard DVD, not true HD but my Toshiba HD DVD player makes my regular DVD's as close to perfect as my HD cable signal. Well worth the investment.

The plain and simple of it is, more lines equals more details, don't make the investment on an already obsolete model. I bought my 42" 720p when 1080p wasn't available in a model that small, now I've seen the 1080p model and I wish I would have waited a year!

The HD standard is 1080p, not likely to change for some time since that's where the new formats are. Buy the TV that's going to give you best picture and not be obsolete for the longest possible time.

There are a few factors which govern "how good" your upconverted picture will be on your new HDTV either 1080p or 720p. On an upconvert player there probably won't be a big enough difference discernible enough to justify buying the 1080p over the 720p. Up-converting SD (standard definition/480) video to HD is more of a gimmick if you break it all down. Kind of like cars with traditional automatic transmissions that offer a manual shift mode. When it comes down to it..., it still has no clutch pedal, different gearing, and a torque converter that's still ECU/TCM managed. You'll never be able to just drop the hammer at the start or heel-and-toe an e-brake hairpin!! Oops, getting off track here..., but the bottom line is that, gimmickry aside its still a 480 line source, no matter how you dress it and will never fairly compare to native HD resolution when shown on a capable TV. There are some good upconvert players and some of the SuperBit movies make good use of them but like HD movies, a lot of them are only gonna show as good as the source no matter how many lines you throw at the screen and in some case you end up with a worse picture, especially in the shadows, rapid light changes,close proximity blues and reds and fast pans.
I.N.M.H.O., don't bother to half-step on HD if you're going far enough to buy a kickass TV like the one you're considering. I'm a Blu-ray myself but if you are scared of being collaterally damaged in the format war then consider getting one of the dual format players.

I must agree with many people posting here, after looking at a lot of screens out there, there is very little reason to worry about 1080P unless you are going to a 58" or bigger screen.

When viewing 50" screen a scientific test developed by the BBC shows that people can't see the difference between 720P and 1080P unless you are 6.5" or less from the screen, a distance almost no one would sit from a 50" screen. See the BBC data at:

http://www.hdtvsolutions.com/HDTV_Viewing_Distance.htm

For up-converting there is especially no reason to go to 1080P vs 720P, since the video processor has to interpolate the picture into something it isn't. It is actually more complex to interpolate to higher resolutions, and more likely for the results to be worse rather than better (especially on cheaper players).

Most people will notice right away that the contrast ratio of the picture takes a hit with higher resolutions, causing the 720P screens to be brighter with more "POP" in the picture in most cases. This is due to the fact it is easier to make fewer larger pixels bright, rather than many small pixels. The history of the Panasonic screens makes this obvious (one easy example of many is the older Panasonic Pro models for example, the 720P TH42PHD8UK was 3000:1 but the 480P TH42PHD8UK was 4000:1. The newer ones follow the same rule, the 720P TH50PX75U is 10000:1 vs the 1080P TH50PZ700U is 5000:1, half the contrast ratio). This actually makes the PX75U screen look a lot better when comparing them side by side from 7 feet or more. The rule of thumb recommendation I have found pretty accurate is optimal viewing distance from the screen should be 2x screen size. So for a 50" screen you should be close to 8 feet away.

The chances for 1080P broadcast/cable/sat channels is slim due to the immense bandwidth requirements needed. To move a single channel from 1080i to 1080P requires twice the bandwidth since you are going from 30fps to 60fps (as in 1920x1080x60 vs 1920x1080x30). I wouldn't hold my breath until you get a fiber cable into your house, which is far away for most of us. Due to the frame rate on the 1080i being half the frame rate on the 720P, you will see more motion related issues on the 1080i, especially on fast moving scenes and sports.

As for other screen types mentioned here. There are several downsides people forget about. The LCOS and DLP screens all have expensive lamps cooled with noisy fans. Lamp life is from 4-8k hours. Average lamp life of 6k hours (on the optimistic side) means if you compare them to Panasonic Plasma rated half life of 60k hours (LCD's are about the same), you will be buying 10 DLP or LCOS lamps over the lifetime of the set. With many of the lamps costing close to $300 each, you will be spending close to $3k on lamps alone. You can buy 2 Panasonic 50" plasma screens for little more than that. All RP TV's are going the way of the DoDo, being relegated to the biggest screen sizes now and are going to disappear completely in a couple of years as the LCD's and Plasma's price drops and they become cost competitive at the bigger sizes. You can already see the trend, DLP's used to be around 46", then 52", 60" and bigger. As the LCD's an Plasma become affordable at those sizes, you will notice the RP's disappering rapidly up the ladder.

Many of the newer LCD's have shiny plastic screens, (similar to the Brightview laptop screens) causing similar or identical reflections in bright rooms. Considering that Panasonic offers the excellent anti-reflective PX77U, I would be something I would look closely at before considering LCD's.

The bottom line I guess I am getting at is that anyone worrying about future proofing themselves 10 years into the future is fooling themselves. There is always going to be something bigger and better around the corner, and it is easier to upgrade from a $1500 screen couple of years from now rather than swallow the $4k screen.

I found this out the hard way when I bought my SD Sony 36" XBR flat CRT in 2000 for over $2000. Replaced it with my Panasonic Pro 42" in 2006 for $1200, and will probably replace that with something bigger in a couple of years for $?????

So the bottom line, enjoy the 50" 720P now, when 1080P finally takes off years from now, you'll be able to buy a 65" 1080P Plasma for about $1k. As a reminder of how things are progressing, count how many HD channels you have now, and how many are more than 720P. Last time I checked, I had about 18 HD channels vs about 300 SD channels. Last time I checked Blockbuster, they had a few thousand SD movies and about 100HD movies. You can get SD movies for about $15, HD movies are 2 to 3 times that. I think we have a long way to go before worrying about 1080P compatibility.

One last hint to many out there. Set your source output to match the screen you are using. Don't have your cable box take a 480i channel, up convert it to 1080i and then have your screen down covert it to 720P (or 480P etc. etc). Same with your up-converting DVD player. Don't convert a SD DVD from 480i to 720P just to have your screen re-convert it to higher or lower resolution. I noticed motion problems (hesitation, judder, etc) on many screens due to the double conversion. If your screen is 720P, set your cable box, SAT or up-converting DVD outputs to 720P, if your screen is 1080P set everything you have to 1080P as much as possible. It will make your video much smoother in many cases, as I found out first hand on my Plasma screen.

In response to emgesp above.

You are correct that contrast ratio is only part of the picture and it tends to be subjective between manufacturers. Since there really is no industry standard measurement, just like brightness ratings on LCD's have no standardized measurements, comparing the rated numbers between Panasonic and Pioneer for example is very difficult.

My point was more, that every manufacturer would almost certainly tend to measure contrast ratio using the the same method on every screen.

With that in mind, using Panasonic's numbers as a guideline, they claim their 720P screens have double the contrast ratio, (the radio between the darkest and the brightest point of the screen possible) of their 1080P screens. The 50" 720P screens are rated at 10000:1 and 1080P 5000:1.

Physics appear to play a role here since separating the same area of space into a greater number of cells, dictates that more area is used for cell walls which appear on the screen as the lines between the dots. The more black lines, the less brightness for the same area.

Moving the resolution from 720P to 1080P means you increase the dots from 2.76M to 6.22M for the same area (since each dot is 3 colors using argon, neon and xenon gas for each color).

So technically speaking 720P screens would tend to be brighter than 1080P screens. Whether that matters in the real world among other factors is a different story.

My experience when browsing electronic stores is when looking across the room, I have found the lower res screens look better. When you get up close (couple of feet away) you like the higher resolution better.

What you end up preferring when sitting around 8' away from a 50" screen in your living room is personal preference. If you sit closer you would tend like 1080P, if you sit farther you would tend favor 720P. At optimal viewing distance of 8.3' (as recommended by SMPTE) you would be hard pressed to pick and would probably be very happy with either one.

So unfortunately there is often not a simple answer as to whether 720P or 1080P is "better" than the other one. It all depends on the application (components to be connected), preferences and other factors.

Although this thread is not about LCD vs Plasma, I've found that once the screen size goes beyond 32" or so, the LCD displays can look almost cartoonish. It's my opinion that LCD makers were so anxious to jump into the market against the larger plasmas, they put out a product that is not quite ready or in some cases, even unacceptable. LCD is great for computer monitors, but when it comes to the big screens, nothing beats plasma. Walk around any store with a lot of both on display and you'll see what I mean.

Also I wouldn't be so harsh against DLPs. Sure, you have to change the bulb, but every time you do so it's like getting a new TV. No burnt out pixels. Just something to keep in mind. And the prices are extremely low even for large screens as compared to either plasma or LCD.

I have played the same DVD player through a 720p TV and a 1080p TV. There is no question that the same signal (player, cables, discs) played through the 1080p TV was considerably clearer and more realistic. With a 50" screen size at anything less than 15' from the screen, the increase in image depth and stability will be easy to see. If you are more than 15' from the screen, the resolution advantage of 1080p over 720p is more subtle but still noticeable until you are about 20' from the image. Over 20' from the screen, with normal vision, your eyes will still notice a difference in favor of the 1080p screen, but it will be more a sense of greater realism in the image.

All of the above assumes that you are dealing with TVs that have components of equal capability except for the difference in resolution. A poor quality 1080p set may not produce an image that looks as good as an excellent quality 720p set, especially with a 480i or 480p signal. Critical components here include the tuners, scalers, screen brightness uniformity, and color/temperature accuracy. Frequently, the 1080p screens get better components than those put into the 720p screens.

1080p HD DVD players can be purchased at a relatively low cost. They do a great job of upscaling regular DVDs, and the 1080p discs look even better. A good 1080p screen provides a better image in both instances than a good 720p screen. You can see this in any store where they demo the same brand 720p and 1080p screens side-by-side.

With HDMI1.3 being released the resolutions will go to 1440p in fairly short order. Buying a 1080p tv to futureproof your investment will not work.Your best bet is to look at the displays you are considering and make a decision.

50 inches with 1080p (TH-50PZ700) or the 50 inches with the 720p (TH-50PX75). Is there a difference? Absolutely!! the 1080 is going to have more pixels than 720, giving a more "colorful" view. I have seen every combination of tv out there from the simplest setup to the most complex and I can honestly say that uunless you have an HD signal, it really doesn't make a difference which tv you get, the picture is going to be about the same. Now a 1080 picture on a standard analog signal, does give you a clear picture, but it has drawbacks.....since the signal only has 480dpi and the tv is set for 1080, you get a "film grain effect" when viewing a standard analog picture.....in other words the picture is clearer but you'll notice the lack of pixels more easily with a higher dpi set than with a loower one. If you have HD signal however, thats a whole different ball of wax. With an HD or digital signal you're going to want the 1080 for sure, if you do not have HD signal available to you (via cable or satellite provider) then the 720 is going to work better overall. Hooking up a dvd player is the same story, they usually have the standard rca connections and possibly an s-video, some have the hdmi and for a dvd player, this does not give you any real advantage as the dvd you are viewing is in whater format its in and therefore the screen resolution is only going to be whaever the source is. If the dvd player has components then thats the better way to hook it up as it will give you the most options.
Now on to how to hook it up.
Everyone who sells hd tvs will tell you the only true way to hook up the hd tv is with an hdmi cable, they'll tell you it has the best throughput of all the connections. Truth of the matter is, however you receive your signal, be it through the air via antennae (hd or standard) or through the cable company (coax) or via satellite (digital)or via a dvd player with hd connections; whatever that signal is is the best its gonna get so the way the tv is hooked up to this equipment can but does not always, make a difference. The standard component cables are 99 times out of 100 the overall best way to hook up the tv to a set top box (hd tuner, satellite, cable, or dvd) and the cable or satellite company usually provides those so theres no additional cost to you. HDMI cables are expensive and really only give you one basic advantage, 1 cable and 1 hookup, rather than the 5 that the component cables use. Theres also a disadvantage of an HDMI cable has and that is its 1 connection instead of 5....with componant cables, if one of the connections goes bad, you don't lose everything and that one connection can be replaced fairly easily and inexpensively, if the HDMI cable goes bad (and I have seen alot of them go bad) you have to replace the whole thing.
In conclusion....1080 has more pixels than 720 but if all you have is standard reception 720 is the better choice; HDMI does not give you any special advantages and is usually just an option in connecting and , in my opinion, a waste of money; dvd players play the format the movie is in, and if the dvd player and tv can play in higher resolution it will.
I have been installing cable and satellite systems for years and have seen just about every possible configuration you could imagine and honestly, from viewing all these different options, it all boils down to what looks best to you.

In short, the answer to your question is yes.

When playing a 480 DVD signal through a 720 or 1080 monitor, the 1080 will show a cleaner image, but not neccessarily a sharper one. Here's why. Flat screen monitors create an image with pixels. The smaller the pixels are, the more seamless the image will look, even when fed by a lower resolution source. Even with no image fed into the monitor and just a blank white screen, you'll see the individual pixels easier on the 720 monitor than on the 1080 monitor.

If you feed in a 480 signal to a 720 or 1080 monitor, the upconversion does not increase the true resolution; it cant. What it does is interpolate the larger 480 pixels of the source and break then down into more pixels that are smaller, creating the illusion of smoother edges. That's where the 1080 screen works better than the 720. Of course, the 1080 monitor will cost you more than the 720, sometimes quite a bit more.

In the long run, it's better to get the 1080 monitor up front because your system will grow into it in the near future. Plus you won't have to make a second upgrade from 720 to 1080 sometime later. 720 is better than 480, but it still is not truly spectacular in comparison to 1080. Someday when you get a good camcorder that produces a 1080 image, you'll truly appreciate the better 1080 monitor.

On a side note, most Hi-def broadcasts are much more compressed than the images you get from a Hi-def camcorder. So when you finally play your Hi-def camcorder into your 1080 monitor, you'll see an even better image than you will when watching the Superbowl. The quality is motion picture film-like, and you'll be really glad you sprung for the extra bucks for the 1080 monitor.

I know you stated several times in you question that you do not intend to upgrade to an HD source "any time soon". From my point of view though, I spend about 3 grand on a top of the line 1080 full system (bought just over a year ago, so I'm sure prices are a little lower now) for one reason: future proofing. Unlike computers, PDAs, cell phones etc etc, the TV industry doesn't see wide spread improvements on a continuing basis. I think one of my university professors put it best when he said that he worked in the television industry for 25 years and didn't see a single technological change in that entire time!

Yes we are going through a period of continuing upgrades right now (480i, 480p, 720, EDTV, 1080i, 1080p) etc. There were a number of foces causing this slow roll-out, but now that we have hit the 1080p platue, I fully expect things to sit at that level for quite some time. It likely won't be another full 25 years before we see further improvements, but do not expect things to keep increasing year-by-year. For that reason, I recommend to anyone buying a new set to get something that can display 1080p.

The short answer to your question though is, if you really don't mind buying a TV now and replacing it in 2-3 years, then get your 720p TV. It will display your regular up-converted DVDs just fine.

~Pete

Yves, Buy the Panasonic TH-50PZ77u. It's a brand new model. It has ANTI-Glare with 1080P. You will see a difference in 1080P wih a big screen size of 50" and above. Check-out J&R Music World. My preference is Blue-Ray format. Blue-Ray picture quality is better than HD. I have both format and I did a side by side comparison. Blur-Ray is my choice for 1080P. I hope this is helpful.

stev:-)

Get the best that you can afford. 1080P will be the defacto standard for some time to come. If you can afford it...

As for formats, it's not such the deal that it once was. Expect to see hybrid players playing both formats, at a reasonable price, in the near future. One is already available. But it's quite expensive.

My line of thought, when making purchases like this is; if I even have to think about it (can I afford it?) I don't buy it. I only buy something when I can do it solely as a reaction (I don't even have to think about it). That's when I know that I have more than enough money and that it's an appropriate time... Always buy the best that you can afford.