1080p, when will it be common? (1 Viewer)

[Jonathan Dagmar]

Everytime I think about buying an HDTV I keep coming back to the same issue. Every single HDTV on the market right now is a transitional product with only a partial feature set. None support 1080p signals, which for now is ok, as no 1080p sources yet exist. But few nativley support 720p, and the more I am learning about 1080i, the more i dislike it, and resent a tv "upsampling" to a format which is actually inferior to 720p. To add even more insult, I am shocked at how many HDTV don't even support the full 1920X1080 resolution.

Since I am never going to subscribe to anything other than basic cable, I also can't really justify spending thousands of dollars on a TV to watch DVDs that won't even take advatage of the resolution the tv offers. Sure, I would get progressive scan, but that alone isn't enough to convince me to spend a boatload on a transitionary product.

I suppose if I was a very wealthy person I might think differently, but I am not, and as it stands the complexity of the situation really irritates me.

My only real hope is that at such time as HD-DVD becomes a reality, it's native format is 1080p, and at the same time, 1080p is the norm for HDTVs rather than the exception, and that that 1080p is downconverted for all other displays, such as 1080i and 720p.

It would really suck if we end up with the same situaton we have with DVD where the native format must be upconverted.

 

[Richard Paul]

It would be, to say the least, horrible if in 10 years 1080p is still not used on HD channels. At the same time though I believe that a form of pre-recorded HD-DVD will soon support 1080p and eventually even HDTV channels will broadcast in 1080p. Also you are mistaken when you say that 1080p doesn't exist since several HDTV programs, though broadcast in 1080i, are recorded in 1080p (I've heard that several prime time HDTV shows are recorded in 1080p). All movies recorded in HDTV are recorded in 1080p as well. Within 5 years there will be many displays using LCD, DLP, LCOS, Plasma, and SXRD that will have a native resolution of 1080p.

It is a bit discourteous to tell all the HDTV owners that they own a "transitionary" product since it doesn't have a 1080p resolution. Though 1080i is considered by some to be worse than 720p in truth both are about equal. 1080i is better at reproducing details in slow moving scenes while fast scenes are clearer in 720p. If you truly like 720p than you could buy a HDTV that does that. At 3 times the number of pixels compared to NTSC it looks MUCH better than a NTSC television.

For complex issues irritating you I have a good one. The standard pixel array for digital tv has been 480x720 for many years and is used by DVD. Yet even though it was a studio standard the ATSC members selected 480x704 meaning all those nice DVD compressions can't be broadcast. Also 480x640, 720x1280, and 1080x1920 use square sampling which is computer friendly so why did they even include a non-square pixel array of 480x704? The extra 10% resolution over 480x640 is laughable compared to the 600% resolution increase with 1080p.

 

[Paul Pratt]

Every single movie that is recorded "digitally" (I.E. Star Wars, Oceans 11, etc.) are all filmed in 1080p. Movies are progressive because film is not a "video" standard. It doesn't use lines of resolution to create picture.

Really it boils down to any professional digital video recording. Including all your favorite TV shows and stuff. Hollywood is a standardized format of 1080p, but because of the consumer disarray at the moment they have to reformat everything. Once TV's have become native 1080p, which will happen, all DVD's that are shot, or mastered in HD ARE 1080p and ready for that. As all Films will be in the future as they get mastered or shot like that. I believe that is also one of the hold ups to HD DVD, and as a forum of folks who like film, and home theaters i think it's us who have to demand that HD DVD not be released until it is 1080p compatible. Compatible. Not until everything is standardized 1080p, that won't happen all at once, but HD DVD players need to have the future ability of outputting 1080p to a compatible set when everything does level out again. In my opinion.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

It is a bit discourteous to tell all the HDTV owners that they own a "transitionary" product since it doesn't have a 1080p resolution.

Why should you take offesne to that? Sorry, but I fail to see how that is in any way "discourteous", it's just fact. All HDTVs on the market are transitjonary products supporting a partial spec of what will eventually become the standard.

of course I could buy a TV that does 720p. But that in itself present the same problems for me that 1080i does. I just cannot wrap my mind around buying a product that has fewer pixels than the best HD sources will have.

And just to clarify what I said about HD DVD. What I do not want to see if a format that is, say, encoded for 1080i, and then must be reconstruicted by the player do display in 1080p, as is the case with current dvds encoded in 480i, to be later reconstructed i n 480p.

Rather, all HD DVDs should be native 1080p, and players should be capable of downcoverting them on the fly to 1080i or 720p for people who own transitionery HDTVS that do not suport 1080p.

And that, is why I will not buy an HDTV until 1080p is the norm. And it has nothing to do with being discourteous.

 

[EdR]

Personally, I'm enjoying my 'transitional' projector quite a bit. I expect to enjoy it for a few more years while the industry sorts out the next big thing.

One could argue that most technology sectors are in perpetual 'transitional' stages, since better/faster tech is always under development.

 

[Carl Johnson]

Everything on the market is a "transitionary" product, it's not like 1080p is the end of video evolution. By the time 1080p is the norm something even better will be coming soon. Just buy the best stuff that you can afford and enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Every single movie that is recorded "digitally" (I.E. Star Wars, Oceans 11, etc.) are all filmed in 1080p

Ocean's 11 was Super35, not digital.

You won't see 1080p until the studios are happy with the copy protection and there are devices to support it

In other words, you're probably buying a new TV before the issue will arise

 

[Paul Pratt]

Yep, you're right, sorry about that Oceans 11 was distributed on a limited basis, digitally. Sorry about that.

 

[Allan Jayne]

1080p needs 74 MHz of bandwidth and currently most HDTV sets don't have half that which is needed for full display of 1080i.

Actually 37 MHz of bandwidth is overkill for 1080i in most cases today too, since most TV sets can't make a spot as small as 1/1920'th the screen width. However it is all needed for 720p.

Most HDTV's today do paint the real 1080i on the screen, it is just that the beam spot is large enough so scan lines are too fat and overlap, and the circuitry bandwidth won't let the beam change from dark to light and back as quickly as needed for details in adjacent pixel positions to not be smeared together.

1080p is defined in the ATSC HDTV formats, but at (approx) 24 or 30 frames per second rather than 60. The regular 1080i and 30 fps 1080p are the same in terms of transmission content except for flags to enable the circuitry following to tell them apart if desired. The difference in visual content is that 1080i has the odd and even scan lines snapshot'ted alternating at 1/60'th second intervals while the 1080p has both odd and even scan lines snapshot'ted together, at 1/30'th second intervals.

I was told that 704x480 was chosen over 720x480 for more efficient compression.

When the same pixel dimensions are used for both 4:3 and 16:9 programs, the concept of square pixels cannot be maintained. I really don't think there is any benefit to having square pixels.

Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

 

[Richard Paul]

To computers it is very important to have square pixels since it makes everything from creation of the image to upsampling both easier and better. In other words computers can work with square pixels better than they can with non-square pixels.

 

[Mark Hedges]

I am very pessimistic that 1080I (or 720P) will ever become standard, so I don't think we will see 1080P for broadcast channels anytime in the next 15 years.

Mark

 

[Allan Jayne]

Some compression schemes take blocks of pixels 32 across. If this is done in the 720 x 480 format, the first 704 pixels across will be used.

16:9 in 480p is for DVD. You could say it is for laserdisk also but back when laserdisk was the latest and greatest, 16:9 had not been established as a standard yet.

 

[Daniel Becker]

Here's my prediction.


Yes, I own a "transitionary" poduct right now. However, as someone else already pointed out, you could technically say that every product you currently own is "transitionary". We all know new technology is on the way and that will pretty much never stop. However, that is all irrelevent when I pop a dvd into my player and watch movies in 480p RIGHT NOW. Yeah, it looks awesome and someone I know i'll be watching movies, tv, and videogames in 1080p. As for when I think they day will come. Well, I think your looking at about 2010. So, in the meantime I will enjoy my "transitionary" tv and my "transitionary" dvd player and videogames systems.


If you want the latest and greatest your best off buying yourself a reasonably priced HDTV right now and in about 5-7 years when plasmas have taken over the market we will all be able to move up another step. I personally think that right now is the perfect time to buy an HDTV. They're getting more and more reasonably priced by the week and the next big technology change over will occur in about 5-7 years when you'll likely be really wanting that next big piece of the action.


Dan.B

 

[Rob Buonpastore]

You sound like Jack from Fight Club, trying to be complete. I have the same problem and it sucks. Trying to buy the best, and if the best isn't out yet, then waiting for it.

 

[James^Brian]

I found this thread kind of interesting, although a bit more about philosophy than technology. I think all on this forum would agree that home theater equipment items are transitory as far as being state of the art. Daniel hit it on the head when he enjoys his equipment NOW. We, as humans, are in a transitory state, we will not always be here, so what are you waiting for. NOW is the time to enjoy it, money is not wealth, and tomorrow will always be a day away. Do you think that you can't enjoy something that's not 'the best'--i.e. 1080p. Well, thats not the case. Heck, if 1080p does become the standard in 5-7 years, I bet each of us will find the resources to upgrade then----don't worry about that now.

Hope this wasn't to philosophical.....peace

 

[Rob Tomlin]

What, no response from David Boulet?

:wink:

 

[dan fritzen]

the more I am learning about 1080i, the more i dislike it

does 1080i look so unbearable that 480i looks better to your eyes?

You have to learn to crawl before you can walk.

 

[Adam_Reiter]

Bottom line is, if you feel the need to wait 10 years until the right TV comes along.... do it!

I will sitting here enjoying 1080i and 720p all day long for 10 years whilst you wait.

There is always the next best thing looming on the horizon.

 

[MikeKaz]

Every single HDTV on the market right now is a transitional product

I partially beleive in this statement not because of the lack of 1080p support in displays, but because of the lack of a digital connection on some of the HDTV's that came out in the last couple years. Perhaps even worse are the new TV's that (horror of horrors) have a DVI input but do not support HDCP. Having a fully digital HD broadcast spec in this country, it is just silly to have an analog video cable connecting the tuner to the TV, ESPECIALLY if you have a fixed pixel display that supports either of the two HD resolutions natively. In a way it has taken many years for them to finally come out with a "complete" HDTV product with a digital path from source to display, and I believe that complete product (that next big thing looming on the horizion) is HDCP (and it will be for a while), since it will make the movie companies happy and finally allow the source material to come through in all it's full glory in widespread applications. HDMI would just be icing on the cake. Are there any DLP/LCD/Plasma owners out there that have a digital input and are ticked off that HDCP finally came along and might make their displays incapable of recieving digital signals from new equipment utilizing HDCP? I probably would be.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Here I am!

It is a bit discourteous to tell all the HDTV owners that they own a "transitionary" product since it doesn't have a 1080p resolution.

I would hope that anyone intending to engage in any sort of intelligent discussion would be a "big boy" and be prepared to handle frank discussion of evolving technology. Those who aren't are welcome to lurk

Anyway...

There are 2 issues:

1. 1080P displays.

2. 1080P content.

1: We'll have affordable (under $5K) full-resolution 1920 x 1080 progressive displays within a few years. Really. SXRD, LCD, and DLP technology will bring this to both front and rear projection displays. TI already has a 1920 x 1080 DLP chip "ready" but is just holding off so they can gain momentum later when they have to compete against the host of 1080P LCOS/SXRD/LCD options that will soon be on the market.

Having said all that...

2: One thing to consider is that *all* film-source material that is "1080 I" encoded can be 3-2 pulldown reversed for proper 1080P playback. In other words, every 1080I film-based signal is a potential 1080P signal with the right playback equipment. The Sharp 10000 DLP projector is the first consumer piece of which I'm aware that does proper 3-2 reversal for 1080I film-based material (though it only offers 1280 x 720 resolution).

Also keep in mind folks...1080P at 24 fps or even 30 fps take less or the same bandwidth as it takes to broadcast/transmit/store 1080I at 60. And natural progressive "frame" based signals compress much cleaner than native interlaced signals, so it might even take *less* bandwidth all thing-being equal.

Just wait. I think 5 years from now 1080P will be as common as progressive-scan DVD players and 480P is right now.

-dave