Do I need 1080p??

S

silenteye

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 9, 2006
Messages
415
Hi I dont know very much about resolutions and televisons, and progressive scan, and all those facts.

I'd like to get a tv (probably LCD) that is really clear quality (not crystal clear) that is really good for gaming


i know theres the whole 720i, 720p 1080p etc...

What does this all really mean? Also do I need a 1080p tv for nice clear gaming, I've heard people say that xbox360 and ps3's arn't even capable of it (or have any games that "truly" support)

any help and clarification would be nice, im a tv noob :p
i still use my 27 inch sony wega flat screen crt
 
you dont "need" anything is all preference, but most TV have 1080 i or P, P is the newest one and sony tries to push it as the ps3 supports it but it is not needed.
 
MrGuvernment said:
P is the newest one and sony tries to push it as the ps3 supports it but it is not needed.
Click to expand...
as does the Xbox 360...
Okay, between Standard Definition and 720P there is a pretty big difference in clarity.
There is almost the same difference with the jump from 720p to 1080p. Therefore, if you watch a movie in 1080p it looks AMAZING.
 
Rozal0 said:
as does the Xbox 360...
Okay, between Standard Definition and 720P there is a pretty big difference in clarity.
There is almost the same difference with the jump from 720p to 1080p. Therefore, if you watch a movie in 1080p it looks AMAZING.
Click to expand...

and going off of this, the difference between 720p and 1080i is really non-existant. The progress in 720p makes up for the greater resolution but interlacing 1080i has.

Some TVs will look better with one or the other though as they might support one better than the other. So its always best to just switch between 720p and 1080i a few times to determine what looks the best.

1080p is not necessary for gaming consoles though as most games are developed in 720p/1080i. Some TVs will switch the signal to 1080p and it can look a bit better, but it is not a HUGE difference.

The big difference is going from standard definition to HD (720p, 1080i, or 1080p).
 
arent somethings better in 720, such as sports shows / video ir ecall hearing some time ago, so if your a big sport fan 720 is more ideal for some reason?
 
no 720p is a lower resolution, but since it is progressive at 60 frames, it is better than 1080i but not 1080p.

The difference is HUGE, by the way, between 1080p and 720p. (When it comes to movies)

700px-Common_Video_Resolutions.svg.png


Most retailers have a 720p feed running through their display TV's, so many people end up trying to compare a 720p TV and a 1080p tv, and end up not seeing the difference between the two resolutions
 
When I'm buying a TV for gaming should I make sure that it has 1080p or will 720p be future proof enough???

I'm leaning towards 1080p btw.
 
720P will be fine for all games. However, given the big difference with the jump to 1080p, you defiantly want to future proof your television so in the future, if you want to watch 1080p movies, you can, or perhaps if TV programming becomes 1080p down the road. Also, if next generation consoles take advantage of the full HD 1080p resolution. (Xbox 3, PS4)
 
Ok thanks for the help, I think i'll probably be looking at 1080p since its price is not a huge step from anything 720p
 
1080P's features will only be shown on a tv over 47 inches
There is nearly no noticable difference in picture if the TV is less than that..
The difference in most cases is not worth the cost.. so unless you go large, dont worry about it.. 720p is still great

Most people think they gotta go all badass and buy a TV in the affordable range with 1080p just cause its the highest res, but your just wasting your $$ unless its of a certain size..
 
There are very few games that will run 1080p. HD movies are another matter, but 1080p isn't all that useful for broadcasts and games.
 
Evil Juggalo said:
1080P's features will only be shown on a tv over 47 inches
There is nearly no noticable difference in picture if the TV is less than that..
The difference in most cases is not worth the cost.. so unless you go large, dont worry about it.. 720p is still great
Click to expand...
How come can I see the difference on my 24" monitor? Just need to sit a bit closer, that's all.
 
Evil Juggalo said:
1080P's features will only be shown on a tv over 47 inches
There is nearly no noticable difference in picture if the TV is less than that..
The difference in most cases is not worth the cost.. so unless you go large, dont worry about it.. 720p is still great
Click to expand...

I notice a BIG difference between History HDs 720p and Discovery HD Theater's 1080i on my 40" Samsung. There is simply more clarity and sharpness. It may be the encoding each channel uses, but I know I'm not 'convincing myself' of the difference.
 
TexasAg05 said:
I notice a BIG difference between History HDs 720p and Discovery HD Theater's 1080i on my 40" Samsung. There is simply more clarity and sharpness. It may be the encoding each channel uses, but I know I'm not 'convincing myself' of the difference.
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I can also notice a large difference between HD Theater 1080i and HD A&E 720p - there is a difference of clarity and sharpness. 720p is great tho - 1080 i/p is better. True the 65" screen makes a big difference.
 
1080p on a PC LCD is a bit different from 1080p on a home TV.. based on the sheer fact you sit closer will make a difference in the picture..most people sit between 8 and 10 feet from an LCD TV in their living room, and at that distance there is a very slight variation in picture from 720 to 1080 on a less then 47" tv.. the picture clarity can also be affected by the contrast.. the best thing to do is experience a TV in a store, standing a distance relative to the distance youll be sitting at.. its the only true way to know whats right for you..
 
However people don't usually upgrade from a 720P LCD to a 1080p LCD. Selling these for a few years now, I know that most people who are even looking at High Def. are first time buyers or getting a second one. This is why I ask how far they sit from the TV so I can find the size of the TV that is right for them, based on which resolution they choose to go with. Silenteye is a first time buyer, so he can choose a 1080p at a size that would be perfect for his seating distance, and not loose any of the advantages of having 1080p. Granted, if he chooses 1080p, to see the effects at his seating distance, he will have to go an extra few inches on the TV(versus getting a smaller one with 720p), or he can save money by sitting closer to the TV, which is what I prefer because the TV actually takes up more of my view, further immersing me in the experience. It's whatever works for him when he goes shopping for a television.
That said, you can see the difference on sizes as small as a 19", but it all depends on distance and resolution.
And no, the tv clarity is not impacted by the contrast ratio.
 
I find a huge jump in quality when I watch a hockey game on 1080 over 720
 
Evil Juggalo said:
1080p on a PC LCD is a bit different from 1080p on a home TV.. based on the sheer fact you sit closer will make a difference in the picture..most people sit between 8 and 10 feet from an LCD TV in their living room, and at that distance there is a very slight variation in picture from 720 to 1080 on a less then 47" tv.. the picture clarity can also be affected by the contrast.. the best thing to do is experience a TV in a store, standing a distance relative to the distance youll be sitting at.. its the only true way to know whats right for you..
Click to expand...

I sit back about 12 ft. from the 65". I will agree with you that the difference between 720 and 1080 on a less than 50" screen is less noticeable. But I'd rather have a tv capable of a higher resolution that being capped, imho. And I've done the in store tv standing, the lighting is generally horrible, at least in the stores I've visited.
 
Goose said:
And I've done the in store tv standing, the lighting is generally horrible, at least in the stores I've visited.
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+1. Unfortunatley, in-store lighting general results in the sets being calibrated with extremely high contrast and backlight levels, which general differs drastically from in-home viewing. With home theater 'booths' like the Magnolia kiosks in Best Buys or the darker TV/HT 'sector' of Fry's electronics stores, retailers are finally creating better environments for reviewing PQ in a near-in-home setting. However, the potential buyer is still at a bit of a disadvantage in most places.
 
TexasAg05 said:
+1. Unfortunatley, in-store lighting general results in the sets being calibrated with extremely high contrast and backlight levels, which general differs drastically from in-home viewing. With home theater 'booths' like the Magnolia kiosks in Best Buys or the darker TV/HT 'sector' of Fry's electronics stores, retailers are finally creating better environments for reviewing PQ in a near-in-home setting. However, the potential buyer is still at a bit of a disadvantage in most places.
Click to expand...

I agree. The Magnolia sections are much better than tv's all in a row under horrible lights and set on settings that are not at all favorable to the sets! As I was looking of tv's, I always grabbed the remote and stood there for as long as it took for the tv to look as good as it possibly could under those conditions - always left them that way too :)
 
The differences some of you are seeing between 1080i and 720p across different networks could be due to many things, one of the most important being the amount of bandwidth being allocated to the signal on cable and satellite providers, not to mention what kind of content they are re-encoding or up-converting, which could also vary based on the quality of the source material they're using.

Lots of Cable/Satellite providers have an extremely low bandwidth allocated to their HD feeds (comparatively), it's usually very compressed, and none, repeat, none of it is offered in native 1080p. The only way you're going to get actual 1080p content is through a video game console, computer, or Blu Ray/HD DVD player.

Base your purchase on the amount of 1080p content you're going to have access to, otherwise save some money and get an excellent 720p panel.
 
1080p is not something you need now, and may even be detrimental to have in certain cases.

You want to see DVDs in the minority with Blu-ray/HD-DVD/Some other new format replacing it, because 1080p displays need 1080p sources and DVDs don't fit the bill.

You want to see the next-gen gaming consoles. Right now the Xbox360 and PS3 have the potential of displaying 1080p, but not the power to run a game in native 1080p. Most just have to upscale from 720p to 1080p. Those that actually do run games in 1080p do so by stripping the game itself down until it looks like crap...though admittedly high-definition crap.

TV streams are in 720p HD, they need new undiscovered cable infrastructure to provide the bandwidth for mass-distribution of 1080p signals, even better than fiber lines which are still not done rolling out over the country. So yeah, you won't be seeing 1080p broadcast signals for quite some time(However, point-to-point signals can do it, since it's not trying to send the signal live to every suscriber simultaneously like broadcast TV...but do you have IPTV?). Upgrading infrastructure is a multi-billion dollar endeavor. Not something that happens often or quickly, look at how slowly fiber is coming out. So I wouldn't expect 1080p broadcast signals within 8-10 years.

Which is not to say that 1080p is useless. It can handle 1080p signals from a computer. If you somehow have HD-DVD or own a PS3/Blu-ray player, those are also 1080p. It's just not a necessary feature for the next...5 or so years?(By which time you could probably get a new TV:p). Most importantly, when the display is produced to natively display 1080p, when you run standard definition stuff(and there's a lot of that around still, particularly the Wii for us in the gaming forum) depending on the HDTV's SD filters, it can look /worse/ than a simple SD TV.

You don't have to turn away from 1080p, but you don't need it either, and if you do get one, consider how SD sources look on it as well. Don't assume SD will look good just because HD sources look good. It can look worse than what you already have.
 
I say if you can afford 1080p, then by all means go for it, but in general, unless you are using a bigish screen, or sitting quite close to a smaller screen, you won't really notice much difference between 720p and 1080p.

Gaming is not something that would sell me on a 1080p screen right now, unless I was going to hook a PC to it (which I almost certainly would :p), very, very few console games actually play natively in 1080p, they run at 720p (or slightly lower in many cases) and then get upscaled, so there isn't actually much real increase in image quality above 720p (the GPUs in consoles don't have enough ram to truly support higher res/detail textures and models, so they render it at the lower resolution then run it through a scaling post process similar to how an upscaling DVD player does it), it's just bigger and a bit blurrier.

The principal value of a 1080p screen is for Media, HD TV and Movies, if those things are important to you too then, again, sure go for it.
 
It depends on what you will be using your TV for. If you don't have a blu-ray or HDDVD player then you aren't going to be watching DVDs in 1080p much of the HD content on tv is also upscaled. In addition consoles upscale to 1080 which is not true 1080p.
 
Evil Juggalo said:
1080P's features will only be shown on a tv over 47 inches
There is nearly no noticable difference in picture if the TV is less than that..
The difference in most cases is not worth the cost.. so unless you go large, dont worry about it.. 720p is still great

Most people think they gotta go all badass and buy a TV in the affordable range with 1080p just cause its the highest res, but your just wasting your $$ unless its of a certain size..
Click to expand...

Well, you're wasting your money NOW nonetheless if you go for anything other than 1080p if you have (or if you're planning to get) a PS3, or a High-Def movie player. More and more games will start coming out in 1080p in the future, and High-Def movies are going to replace DVDs sooner or later. You're just going to regret in the future not buying a 1080p tv when you had a chance.
 
MartinX said:
I say if you can afford 1080p, then by all means go for it, but in general, unless you are using a bigish screen, or sitting quite close to a smaller screen, you won't really notice much difference between 720p and 1080p.

Gaming is not something that would sell me on a 1080p screen right now, unless I was going to hook a PC to it (which I almost certainly would :p), very, very few console games actually play natively in 1080p, they run at 720p (or slightly lower in many cases) and then get upscaled, so there isn't actually much real increase in image quality above 720p (the GPUs in consoles don't have enough ram to truly support higher res/detail textures and models, so they render it at the lower resolution then run it through a scaling post process similar to how an upscaling DVD player does it), it's just bigger and a bit blurrier.

The principal value of a 1080p screen is for Media, HD TV and Movies, if those things are important to you too then, again, sure go for it.
Click to expand...

Well, being that the 360 was the first "HD" console, I would think it's safe to say this generation of games are 95% going to be in 720p. With the PS3 pumping out 1080p games now, it would be safe to assume that the next generation of consoles are all going to have a High Def movie player built in, and quite possibly putting out a much larger assortment of 1080p games. So buying a 1080p tv now would be a really good investment. That way you won't have to buy a TV for a long time, and you may end up regretting not buying one in the future.
 
One thing people are forgetting is 1080p makes for a MUCH better PC monitor than 720p or 1080i does. If you've ever considered hooking your PC up to the TV - 1080p's a must.
 
zamardii said:
.... you may end up regretting not buying one in the future.
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...because they are going to get more expensive?

Seriously, if the OP can afford one in a decent size now (40 - 50 inches), he may as well go for it, or if he isn't planning on having enough money to buy another TV for 5 years or something then it's probably worth getting one now, if he's looking at smaller sized screens, then he's probably better off buying a cheaper 720p screen and spending the extra cash on games or surround speakers or something.

Personally, for my big screen needs I use a 720p projector, and at 100inches the picture is still pretty darned sharp/crisp unless you're sitting right beside it, as in close enough that you can't see the whole thing without moving your head, I find it difficult to believe that on a screen smaller than say, 40-45 inches, one would notice much difference between 720p and 1080p unless you're sitting at PC monitor type distances.

Bear in mind that in a store you're generally looking at a tv much closer than you would in your own living room (in fact, TV stores often deliberately put shelving or another tier of TVs closer to the expensive ones to force you to stand a bit closer, so that you notice the quality more, because most of the time, the the image on the cheap ones and the expensive ones look pretty much the same at normal viewing distances :p)
 
i just bought my first LCD/HDTV this week, bestbuy has had some awsome deals all month. so i had a budget that i had to stick to so after reading and looking around i went for the Samsung (LN-T4042H 40") watching TV and DVD's is it only function, i don't own a console and i game on my pc. i have to say i am very impressed with this TV. I also bought a HD calbe box and i love the HD content everything looks amazing.

watching movies through my older RCA DVD player look amazing as well

The only thing i am not so happy about is the picture quality of regular digital cable. Samsung uses a digitial image enhancing technology that they claim make all signals cyrstal clear. but i don't really find that thats the case, now this being my first LCD TV maybe i am expecting to much it just seems to me that it would look better.

and as fas as 1080p the HD cable boxes sold by my cable provider only do 720p/1080i and since the HD DVD market is up in arms i am not willing to spend almost a grand on a Blue-ray player and a HD player right now.

but in two years i won't feel bad about buying a new LCD that is bigger and has full 1080p support.

So i say if you have to have 1080p and you think you will have content for 1080p then get, if not i would stick with 720p/1080i
 
Mac[X-D];1031804988 said:
The only thing i am not so happy about is the picture quality of regular digital cable. Samsung uses a digitial image enhancing technology that they claim make all signals cyrstal clear. but i don't really find that thats the case, now this being my first LCD TV maybe i am expecting to much it just seems to me that it would look better.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that a known issue with whatever that technology that samsung uses to cut down motion blur is called (AMP?), it works sort of like overdrive for PC monitors, I think the symptom that most people complain about, or so I've heard, is a sort of flickering on the edges of objects, on most of their screens I think you can just turn it off though.
 
At any appreciable size, on newly released television models using any extent of new tech, you can't buy a TV that's NOT 1080p.

Seriously, if you want top notch contrast, pixel response, LED backlights, 120hz refresh, etc... it's going to be a 1080p set... so it's a moot point.
 
Another thing: You do not need 1080p to enjoy Blu Ray or HD DVD. They look amazing at 720p/1080i

I don't know where that idea originated from, but it's a ridiculous concept.
 
in terms of size i think i wanna go some where around 32/37/42 range....

I would be sitting not very far from the screen, maybe 3 feet, 4 feet.
I think I will go with 1080p for futureproofing sake

one more thing though


how long do lcd tv typically last? i've heard many things about plasmas burning out, but what about lcds?
 
MartinX said:
...because they are going to get more expensive?
Click to expand...

No... b/c people don't buy new TVs every year. If he buys one now (since he's already looking), he might as well go 1080p now rather than buying a 720p tv, and regretting not getting a 1080p tv down the road.
 
Kahnvex said:
Another thing: You do not need 1080p to enjoy Blu Ray or HD DVD. They look amazing at 720p/1080i

I don't know where that idea originated from, but it's a ridiculous concept.
Click to expand...

I take it you don't have a 1080p tv. Because if you did you would not be saying that. Of course it looks "fine," but why the fuck would someone buy a HD-DVD player or Blu Ray player to play it at 720p? That's like buying the latest graphics card and putting it into a 3 year old computer. You're just limiting yourself a otherwise great experience. I've seen the difference between 720p and 1080p movies, and I can tell you i'm so glad I didn't just "settle" with a 720p tv.
 
Evil Juggalo said:
1080P's features will only be shown on a tv over 47 inches
There is nearly no noticable difference in picture if the TV is less than that..
The difference in most cases is not worth the cost.. so unless you go large, dont worry about it.. 720p is still great

Most people think they gotta go all badass and buy a TV in the affordable range with 1080p just cause its the highest res, but your just wasting your $$ unless its of a certain size..
Click to expand...

Only really true if you have awful eyesight. I can easily tell the difference between i and p on a 40" screen, and I imagine most people can.
 
As I said in my post above as well, another reason 1080i sometimes looks better than 720p or visa versa is because of the tuner and scaler electronics in your TV.

Some TVs will look better with one of the other, but in reality both will look the same if they are at their peak and on sets that work the best with them.

1080p is the step above and very amazing to see on a good TV. Many cheaper 1080p TVs are not as amazing though compared to 720p/1080i

Also to say why get HD-DVD or Blu-Ray if you only have 720p/1080i is kinda stupid. It is still HD and much better than Standard Definition 480i/p. Not all of us are buying TVs right now and many of us already bought LCDs and such a few years back. They are not bad and there is nothing wrong with them since they cannot handle 1080p. 720p/1080i is STILL HD and worlds apart from SD.
 
Domingo said:
One thing people are forgetting is 1080p makes for a MUCH better PC monitor than 720p or 1080i does. If you've ever considered hooking your PC up to the TV - 1080p's a must.
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+1, If you get a 720p HDTV it will look like complete ass as a PC Monitor. A 1080P HDTV looks superb however and I will be gaming on this westy for years and years from now. The different might be hard to see when watching movies or tv. Try to plug a PC into them both and see which one has the better image.
 
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