1080p: The Holy Grail of Video - Part 1

[Leprkon]

OTA sports looks much better with 720p compared to 1080i on our 37" LCD HDTV. No comparison. To me, it's going to depend on the content of the source. .

I'm with BEF on this one. I always watch high-motion programming (like sports) on 720P and the scenic or nature stuff from PBS on 1080i. The 720 display just looks much more fluid (ie no artifacts), even if the resolution isn't quite as good.

 

[Duffinator]

I'm with BEF on this one. I always watch high-motion programming (like sports) on 720P and the scenic or nature stuff from PBS on 1080i. The 720 display just looks much more fluid (ie no artifacts), even if the resolution isn't quite as good.

Well there's a lot more going on here than watching a 720P or 1080i signal. I doubt either Lep's or Buck's TV's ACCEPT AND DISPLAY both 720P and 1080i resolutions. So either your HD box or your TV has to do the scaling and deinterlacing and if you are not watching the signal in the resolution the TV was designed to display it in then you could be scaling and deinterlacing the picture twice. Scalers and deinterlacers have a huge impact on picture quality. While I agree that in theory 720P should be better with a fast moving picture what you are describing is not a good example of what both resolutions are capable of delivering.

 

[Amechwarrior]

I though I'd seen some flat screen HD CRT's labelled "progressive scan" (60fps) that would handle 720p. Is that incorrect?

Yes the TV does do 480p, but the same signal sent at 720p puts garbage on my screen. I figure, purely on a guess that the gun can shoot at 480p at 60 fps, and it can push out 1080i at 30fps but maybe the gun cannot shot even 1/2 that data at 2x speed for 720 at 60fps. I figure that it would be easier to get a larger interlaced display before a big progressive because the CRTs started as a interlaced technology, if adding 2x the data was so easy then why not earlier?

I belive some display tech is inherently progressive like DLPs, I do not think CRTs fall into that catagory, there must be a reason why.

The TV is about 4-5 years old, maybe newer CRTs can display a 720p without upsampling to 1080i, anyone see any 720p CRTs on the market, I have not seen any locally, ever.

If anything in the above is plain wrong please post a correction, I want to be sure I am understanding everything right and not getting my facts twisted.

 

[Wickerman1972]

I am yet to see a crt that will do true 720p, and believe me I HAVE LOOKED! I've spent the past week researching this stuff for hours each day ( Which is how I stumbled upon this thread on this forum. ). I have searched and searched for a direct-view crt that will natively do 720p and have turned up absolutely nothing, which convinces me that they simply do not exist. Sure, there are plenty of ones which will do 480p but none of them do 720p. Many of them claim to support 720p but reading the fine print always reveals that what they really do is convert a 720p signal to 1080i. And it really bums me out. I want a 720p display for my Xbox 360 and have nowhere near the loot it requires to go anything other than crt. For gaming there is no doubt that 720p is superior to 1080i because of all the movement in games if nothing else. If a crt does exists that will display true 720p I have not been able to find it and would love a link if somebody else does.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Wickerman, what is your budget, and what sizes are you considering?

 

[Wickerman1972]

I would say app. $700. But if I really got desperate and decided to save up a bit and struggle some I could maybe go close to $1,000. Size I'm looking for is at least 30 inches, 16:9

 

[The Chukker]

I would say app. $700. But if I really got desperate and decided to save up a bit and struggle some I could maybe go close to $1,000. Size I'm looking for is at least 30 inches, 16:9

Since you have been looking all over I won't insult you with links to tv's on ebay that you probably already know about...

or maybe...
http://cgi.ebay.com/MITSUBISHI-WD-52525-52-DLP-PROJECTION-TELEVISION-NR_W0QQitemZ5854790564QQcategoryZ61407QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

p.s. There are quite a few others as well. Good luck finding a panel in your range. Hell, I'd sell you my first gen Samsung DLP (HLM4365W) in my game room except that I need it for playing my 360 plus you wouldn't want it because of it's rainbow artifacting anyway...

All kidding aside, when you finally get your 360 running in 720p native you are going to LOVE it. (Try Call of Duty 2 or Condemned -- they are the best launch games).

p.p.s My gamertag is (get ready for this...) The Chukker

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

I would say app. $700. But if I really got desperate and decided to save up a bit and struggle some I could maybe go close to $1,000. Size I'm looking for is at least 30 inches, 16:9

Would something like this work, or is the response time too slow for games?

http://secure.syntaxgroups.com/products/specs.jsp?pid=lt37hvs

 

[Wickerman1972]

OK, I've given up on CRTs. I wanted a CRT because I had heard they had the best blacks and color but if they don't have 720p than I'm not interested. I hadn't even been looking at LCDs before because of what I had heard about the poor blacks but when weighing the poor blacks against not having 720p I'd rather have the 720p. So I'm looking at LCDs now instead. Turns out they are not as expensive as I thought, am finding 30" and 32" models roughly $100 to $200 more than CRTs of the same size. I've been using pricegrabber.com to browse around and I have a question. With nearly all the LCD HDTVs shown at pricegrabber the site says that the output resolution is 768p. I have not heard of that resolution before. I thought that as far as progressive scan went there was 480p, 720p, and 1080p. Should I just assume that this 768p spec is wrong and is really 720p? Or, if it really is 768p would incoming 720p signals be converted to that or left alone? I really am adamant about being able to play games on the TV in 720p without the set's tuner upscaling or downscaling the signal at all, but rather leaving it totally untouched at 720p ( Converting signals simply does not sound good to me. It seems to me that in a conversion something would have to be lost. Sure, I'm fine with the set taking a standard 480i signal from cable and upconverting that if it wants but as far as games or other 720p sources go I don't want the set's converter messing with that. ).

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Check out this thread, maybe #8 will explain things.

http://hdtvoice.com/voice/showthread.php?t=13825

Main site: http://www.hdtvoice.com

Another decent site:

http://www.highdefforum.com

 

[Wickerman1972]

Thanks for the info. Well, that did a good job depressing me. It seems that no matter what route I take there is no escaping this conversion thing. To me the whole thing is overwhelmingly GAY!!! Don't see why I can't just have the incoming signal display the way it arrived. I'm about an inch away from saying the hell with HDTVs altogether until the industry decides to make them in a way which makes at least marginal sense.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Are these games pc based, or XBOX 360?

 

[Wickerman1972]

They are 360.

 

[Wickerman1972]

But really I don't know if I'm making too much of all of this. For all I know the conversions might display so well that my eye can't even tell the difference. I might be getting too obsessed with stats and figures. But this would be a huge investment for me. Although I'm looking for a cheaper model ( Around 1K. ) that is a ton of money for me and will hurt my pocketbook in a big way ( I'm a blue-collar guy and anyone who has done that work knows that it doesn't pay much. ). So I'm obsessed with making certain that I make the proper decision.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Microcenter and HHGregg have been running specials on the Syntax Olevia 32" and 37", and Winbook 32" LCD's. You'd be extremely happy with one of those.

The Winbook 32" was running $799 with rebates, and the Syntax 32" - $699, and 37" HVS model - $999 (killer deal on that model). These were around Xmas and black Friday. I'm sure we'll see these prices again.

Tigerdirect.com always has decent deals on HD sets.

 

[PhillyDan1969]

Thanks for the info. Well, that did a good job depressing me. It seems that no matter what route I take there is no escaping this conversion thing. To me the whole thing is overwhelmingly GAY!!! Don't see why I can't just have the incoming signal display the way it arrived. I'm about an inch away from saying the hell with HDTVs altogether until the industry decides to make them in a way which makes at least marginal sense.

I think you are making too much of the conversion issue. The link that Buckeye fan posted was speaking directly about Plasmas which have a fixed display ratio. I don't think you will see the same issues with LCD or DLP, but I could be wrong!!!

 

[BMXTRIX]

Wickerman...

Go into Best Buy and look around. Every single display out there EVERY ONE that is digital, has a fixed pixel matrix. 1366x768, 1280x720, 1920x1080, 853x480, 1024x768... all of the digital displays are fixed pixel. This includes DLP, LCD, LCoS, SXRD, DILA, and Plasma. Front projection, rear projection, flat panels. They are all fixed pixel displays.

How do they look?

Keep in mind that almost every display will be getting the same HD generic feed that Best Buy offers to them and that many will have different resolutions than other displays. Yet, most will look really, REALLY good!

Conversion from one format to another is standard these days and the chip that is included in a $2,000 plasma would have cost more than $25,000 seven or eight years ago - and would have done less. Yes, you are making to big a deal over the issue and the comments in regards to Panasonics issues with not accepting what is an industry standard format is a big screw up by them. But, if it's an issue, get a plasma from someone else who doesn't have that issue.

Most people don't even know it's an issue because they set their HD box to output 1080i and it works great.

 

[jcsprankle]

Just saw this thread so I thought I'd jump in. Someone mentioned the HP TVs and their ability to accept true 1080p resolutions on their inputs. Here are some details:

The two TVs that can do this are the HP Pavilion Microdisplay DLP TVs in 58" (MD5880n) and 65" (MD6580n). They can accept 1080p native and compressed signals through their HDMI and component inputs (24/30/60 fps for HDMI, 24/30 fps for component). Also supports CableCARD.

I have seen the 65" version of this TV displaying some HD content of people snowboarding in the Swiss Alps or something and it took my breath away. When I finally am ready to purchase an HD TV, the 58" version is on my list.

In case your wondering, yes, I do work for HP but I'm in the IT department, which is totally separate from the entertainment department. I just got lucky enough to see one in person and have been sold ever since.

 

[Audioholics]

Yes, the HPs use "wobulated" 960x1080 DLP chips but they looked pretty darn good at CES.

 

[jcsprankle]

Wobulation...

Yes, the HPs use "wobulated" 960x1080 DLP chips but they looked pretty darn good at CES.

Yeah, wobulation is pretty sweet. You can stick your eye directly on the screen and not see a single pixel. It "blends" them together seamlessly.