1080i or 720p
 

Hey

I have a 1080i DVD player hooked up to my panasonic plasma. The TV can display up to 1080p, but the DVD player only converts up to 1080i. I have it set up at 720p, and cannot tel the different between 1080i and 720p.

Question is should I leave it at 1080i or at 720p to get the best picture quality?

i prefer progressive over interlaced so 720p

1080i for movies, unless it's fast motion or get an Oppo 1080p upconverting player.


Or an HD-DVD or Blueray player that doesn't true 1080p. :D

I'm not surprised by that statment. Your plasma is going to take whatever it gets and put it in its native resolution.

^ :werd:

I'm also a progressive guy... so I prefer 720p over 1080i... especially when it's an action packed flick.

That said I generally stay away from upconverting DVD players and let the TV do the converting...

This is interesting. Fox broadcasts NFL at 720p and CBS at 1080i. I think the 1080i is a sharper picture.

^^ Do you have cable or sat?

DirecTV

:werd:

FOX, NBC, and ESPN all broadcast in 720p and I prefer to watch a game on those channels over CBS any day.

It looks good on CBS, but whenever the camera moves quick, sometimes you get motion blur (briefly). I never see that on any of the 720p networks...

:agree:
The shots from the blimp look great on CBS but the moment players run around they get a little fuzzy.

ESPN/ABC chose 720p b/c they broadcast a great deal of sports.

dang 5 minute edits

http://hd.espn.com/hd/pdfs/playbook.pdf

if your TV is 720p, watch 720p.

i would only watch 1080i if i had a CRT TV or a 1080p TV and a REALLY REALLY REALLY good external de-interlacer.

I have a 2 year old Samsung. Are you suggesting I set the resolution on my receiver to 720 instead of 1080?

how much better is 1080p? my tv can only do 720p/1080i and i'm pretty happy with it, but just wondering on what i'm missing.

ie of an external de-interlacer?

the general consensus on this board is that 50"+ is where it really makes a difference. Otherwise, your display is fine.

ftr, I've never seen a true 1080p presentation. I have a Toshiba 52" with native 720p and can display 1080i. A buddy has a 62" Sammy that'll do true 1080p, but we don't have access to a PS3 to push that. :tongue:

"when you say motion blur" is what they mean by "screen door" effect? Cause I know they've (DLP) always advertised "NO screen door" effect from 1st gen.DLP... but I get that brief motion blur too... and I've always thought that was the screen door effect... :shrug:

They are two different things.

If you want to know what screen door effect is find a door or window with a screen in it and stand back and look at it. Ok now you can see outside. Start walking closer to the door/window. When you are close enough that you can see the lines in the screen stop. That is screen door effect. Now do the same to your TV. If you don't see the "screen" then you don't have any.

Doopster's reply basically covers it. Screen door effect is only an issue on RP LCD's.

DLP's do not have this which is why I hated my Sony 60" LCD last year and returned it b/c the SDE bothered the heck out of me.

My 50" Samsung DLP was purchased in May of 2005... so it's almost 2 years old. And since the set is native 720p we have our cable box set to output 720p.

.

:werd:

Unless you have a PS3, BluRay or HD-DVD player, upgrading to a 1080p set really isn't necessary. If you put a 61" 1080p set and the comparable 720p 61" set side by side and watched, say Monday Night Football in HD the differences would be minimal. The 1080p set would only look slightly better b/c the TV upconverts the signal to 1080p whereas your set would be 720p (since ESPN broadcasts at 720p). The 1080p sets really shine when you have a true 1080p signal from one of the devices mentioned above.

Bottom line, unless you're planning to get one of the 3 components above... you don't need a 1080p set right now.

I tried toggling between 720 and 1080 for both a 720p and a 1080i signal and just didn't see any difference. I decided to leave it at 1080. I have noticed the blur effect from 1080i sports, i.e. CBS and NBC. During Eagles/Cowboys last night the graphics box was beautifully crisp, but the action was pretty mediocre. I even saw some pixellation. :what: I hope 1080i will be obsolete very soon.

^ Yeah, you really won't see much of a difference. The only thing that would happen would be when I changed channels, the TV would flicker, then aquire the signal. When I set the cable box to output 720p exclusively, that flickering went away. Plus, I like the 720p b/c it removes any blur effect from since progressive is better then interlaced. I will get it once in a while on a CBS game... but that's it.

Turns out the reason it was doing it was b/c the TV was taking the 1080i signal from the box, then converting it to 720p since that is the TV's native resolution... so the flickering was the TV trying to convert and synch with the box. Setting the box to 720p removed that completely and now it's smooth as butter :)

Sit and watch any 720p or 1080i TV set, let''s even say nothing huge, just a 40". Then put a 40" Sony Bravia XBR LCD HDTV in 1080p and I don't know how you can say there isn't really a difference. I notice a big difference. The Sony looks a lot better to me.

Not that a tv in 720 or1080i doesnt look amazing, it just can't match a 1080p HDTV, especially one that is such high quality like the Bravia XBR.

Then, playing XBOX360 or PS3 side-by-side can't really be compared. You'd just have to see, if you havnt allready. Its night and day to me.

Honstly, almost all LCD or plasma tv's Ive seen have great pictures. Just depends on what you want to spend and the size you want.
I would personally take a 40" Sony Bravia XBR over almost any TV, no matter how much bigger, if it is 720 or 1080i.

:werd:

like Dr. Ruth says... "bigger isn't always better" :biggrin:

I'm not a huge fan of the Sony sets, especially after our experience with the RP LCD which we returned. The Bravia is actually one that I like. I still sayed away when buying our sets... but that one is the only Sony that gets a second look from me.

Given the choice of just 720p, or 1080i, I would pick 720 in a heartbeat. I'm a huge fan of how progressive just handles everything right.

Interlaced is sort of like a scratch on a white wall. Once you notice the scratch, you can't look at anything beyond it, and wind up obsessing over it. Any sort of motion/action/sports under interlaced just makes my skin crawl.

I had to smile when I was reading some of the other posts. 720p to 1080p is a big jump in quality, but odds are you won't notice how big it realy is until you go from 1080p back down to 720p. Once you get used to something better, you wonder how it never drove you nuts in the first place. I had to use a VCR recently for an instructional videao....wow. We are crazy spoiled talking about HD.

There are more factors than just merely 720p vs 1080i that determines motion blur. Some sets will not have any on a 1080i picture. LCD most definitely has a lot more issues with it over plasma or other technologies though (although they are getting much better)

Not a really fair sentiment, IMO.

While Sony is certainly not the Sony of yester year, you can't brand them based solely off one recent product.

Their RP LCD's came at a time before DLP hit the scene, when CRT RPTV's were still the norm. They fell behind quickly, but you can't fault Sony completely for you buying what was/is essentially an out-of-date technology.

There was a small period in which I was equally unimpressed by Sony. About the time when their last generation Plasmas sucked, they vowed to stop manufacturing plasma, they put all their might behind what were sub-par LCD's, and they didn't have a single desirable product.

That all changed quickly though.

These days they've got Bravia LCD's and Grand Wega SXRD's. These are two display lines which are really hard to match let alone beat.

I'm a big Samsung fan as well, but it's hard to give them much more credit then Sony, if any at all. Especially when, now, they're sharing product lines and production facilities with Sony.

The difference between these two companies is less apparent then ever, and it looks to be continuing that way for at least the next several years.

If it weren't for the fact that Samsung makes DLP TV's and Sony LCOS TV's, it'd be almost impossible to tell them apart.

the only thing i give sony credit for in this day and age is their line of televisions, everything else they make has went to shit

yea, pretty much. one of the few spaces i'm still finding them competitive in is the consumer HD camcorder market.

I'm not sure I'm tracking on your point. 1080i is by nature introducing blur (even if you don't notice it). Picking a progressive format will assure you that any blur you do experience is related to something beyond the format.

At the time I purchased the set, it was the latest and greatest (and most expensive) thing from Sony. I know it's not completely a completely fair sentiment, but it's a pretty normal reaction.

Have you ever had a bad experience with something and get a bad taste in your mouth from it? You know, like the guy who bought a Hyundai over 10-years ago and swore he'd never buy one again, regardless of what they are all about and how far they have come now. Kind of an extreme comparison... but I think you see where I'm going. That's where I am with Sony. Had a bad experience in the past and at this point, I still shy away from them.

I'm 99.9% sure 'Bean is a major stock holder with Samsung. :)

I know exactly how it is. I did not have a great experience with my last Sony plasma.

I was down on Sony for awhile, but you have to give credit where credit is due.

All companies fuck up. All companies have had bad products.

The Hyundai analogy is pretty funny too. Considering Samsung *IS* the Hyundai of the consumer electronics world. :rofl:

Is the Screen Door Effect another way of describing when there's a fast moving picture and it gets "pixelated" or looks like a bunch of small boxes for a split second? I think that's what it is, i've just never heard that term before.

Either way, my friend has a Sony RP LCD tv and it does that all the time. I have a Sony RP non-lcd (as in the huge box that sits on the floor and weighs about 150 lbs) and it rarely does the "box" effect and I've had some people say it's the best HD picture they've ever seen :shrug:

:nod: But my needs have been met by other companies... so I haven't really had a need to look at Sony again since my last experience. Believe it or not the SXRD sets were on my list recently when we were shopping for a 1080p new set, but I was leary... and since we already had a 50" Sammy DLP that we absolutely loved, we knew we'd also love the 61" Sammy... so it was an easy purchase. Maybe next purchase we'll look Sony... although that won't be for a very long time :)

hehe... nope... I actually don't own any stock outside of what I got from my company when I was full-time...

No.

That's simply macroblocking and is usually the result of either the contents compression OR the TV's video scaler.

The "screen door effect" is the result of large margins between low PPI LCD screens. These large margins give the effect of looking out of a screen door, hence the name.

This effect is largely diminished in high PPI LCD's like 1080p sets in the 60-in and below range.