Is 1080p worth it? (1 Viewer)

[bernard_m]

Hi,

I am looking at buying a new HDTV and wanted some opinions from this forum on the 1080p format. Does anyone think it is worth the extra cost? Since there are no 1080p commercial content yet, how will the picture look if it is getting a 480p, 720p, or 1080i input signal?

Opinions would be welcome.

 

[John S]

Resolution is a good thing not a bad thing. I don't care what resolution you're sending to it.

I would expect you can sit a lot closer to a much bigger screen with it.

The question of how will the picture look? Depends on how good the scaler is. A top notch scaler will produce a top notch picture, if the display uses quality digital panel, electronics, good color decoding, and accurate grey scale.

 

[John Alvarez]

The question I have is which sets actually accept a 1080P signal?

 

[willyTass]

Not many at the moment, I think most HDMI ports are configured for a 1080i pass through only

Shortly we will be seeing TV's that accept 1080p like samsung's New DLP widescreen TV, SED etc

this is a deliberate part of the manufacturers ploy to get you to upgrade relentlessly and its usually the early adopters who get screwed

 

[bernard_m]

Okay. Now that I am completely confused, let me try some specific questions.

I have an HD satellite tuner that can output in 720p or 1080i. I also have a DVD player that can output in 480p.

If I output a 1080i signal from my satellite tuner, will the 1080p TVs on the market display this in 1080i or will they convert it to 1080p?

If I output a 720p signal from my satellite tuner, will it display in 720p or be converted to 1080p?

If I output a 480p signal from my DVD, will it be displayed in 480p or be converted to 1080p?

Finally, if I have one of the 1080p TVs currently on the market appear to accept 1080i and convert it to 1080p, what will these TVs do with a 1080p input signal if devices start outputing in that format?

Thanks for any help I can get.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

If I output a 1080i signal from my satellite tuner, will the 1080p TVs on the market display this in 1080i or will they convert it to 1080p?

All of your questions depend on the type of HD display you buy. Any fixed-pixel system (LCD, LCD projection, DLP, SED, Plasma, LCoS - basically anything other than CRT) can only display material at its native resolution. A 1080p display of this type will upconvert all inputs to 1080p, a 720p display will down-convert all its inputs to 720p.

I believe CRT-based devices should be able to display all sources in whatever resolution they are being fed, although I believe they can also upconvert such signals to their native resolution. Those who know more about HD CRT displays will doubtless correct me or expand on this if I've got this wrong or left out anything important.

Finally, if I have one of the 1080p TVs currently on the market appear to accept 1080i and convert it to 1080p, what will these TVs do with a 1080p input signal if devices start outputing in that format?

The answer is either "no" or "nobody knows" or "maybe with an external adapter/processor".

It is strongly suspected that many current sets will not accept a 1080p signal. It is claimed by some manufacturers that their sets will but this hasn't been put to the test yet, because there are so few 1080p sources out there and standards are still evolving. Finally it may or may not be possible (or cost effective) to use an external device to mate future 1080p sources to current display devices.

Because of all this uncertainty, and because I had to replace my main HT TV this year and could not afford to wait, I elected to save some money and buy a 720p D-ILA (LCoS) set. I'm not going to get into hi-def DVD for at least a couple of years, so my primary sources are going to be 480i SDTV, 720p HDTV, 1080i HDTV and 480p DVD. With that mix 720p is probably the best compromise. With the money I saved i bought LCD TV/PC monitors my bedroom and home office. If I go to 1080p in the living room in a few years I'll move the D-ILA to the office, the bigger LCD-TV to the bedroom and give the other away.

Regards,

Joe

 

[bernard_m]

Thanks. This helps a lot with my understanding but unfortunately not my decidion

I can get some pretty good deals on Samsung 720p and 1080p models (2K for a Samsung HLR5667W, and 3K for a Samsung HLR5668W), but they both stand a chance of not being able to handle 1080p inputs down the road. Also I am uneasy about long term quality of DLP because of the light wheel (a moving part to break in 2 years) and the light (lots of heat, power, and replacement costs every 2 years). Plasma and SXRD are over my budget for a decent sized set.

Oh well, I have a Toshiba 55H70 that is still doing well, so I guess I will sit tight and see how things settle out.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

SXRD is Sony's implementation of LCoS. D-ILA is JVC's. They have a 1080p set available (though not all retailers are carrying it yet) in a 52" and 56" size. Even the 56" is cheaper than Sony's SXRD 50".

I've never had a chance to compare the two side-by-side, and Best Buy wasn't carrying the 1080p version when I was ready to buy in November (and it would have been over my budget anyway.) But I certainly lke my 56" 720p version, which I think looks great.

Regards,

Joe

 

[RAF]

A 1080p set that accepts native 1080p input will pass the signal directly through to the display with no scaling at all. This is a good thing if the source is a quality one and the display is a quality display. While there aren't a lot of 1080p sources right now (HTPC being one of them for demo purposes) this is going to change within a year. At CES it was confirmed that Blu-ray will output 1080p and I'm sure that others will follow suit eventually.

Remember, if you purchase a 1080p set which only accepts up to 1080i resolution that means that it must upconvert the image to 1080p in order to display it. This might not be a bad thing depending on the quality of the internal scaling. However, when 1080p sources become available in large quantities then you have the ridiculous situation with a 1080p set with only 1080i input capability of having to first scale down the 1080p source to 1080i so that the set can accept it and then the set having to upscale it to 1080p again so it can display it. That's two additional steps of scaling that introduce two places where problems can occur even with the best equipment and, therefore, that's not a good thing.

For the above reasons I chose to purchase an HP MD5880n 1080p, one of the very few 1080p sets that will accept 1080p input (at two HDMI inputs, no less). I saw this set at CEDIA in September and was blown away by the image (they were feeding it a 1080p source from a PC). Unfortunately, I've had the set almost a month now and it hasn't worked since Day #1. All the ugly facts are presented in this thread. Read it and weep.

If I ever get a happy ending here I'll be commenting on how the 1080p set looks with a variety of content, even some PC stuff. Of course, I've got to be able to turn it on first.

 

[JeremyErwin]

I think it's high time we dropped 1080p in favor of expressions like 1080p24, 1080p30, and 1080p60. The first two are actually part of the atsc spec. The last is not. Which of these formats will be supported by bluray? Which formats can be accepted by current 1080p sets?

 

[Allan Jayne]

I would not buy a 1080p TV without 1080p HDCP compliant input capability (other than a Sony SXRD).

On average the conversion from 1080i to 1080p in TV sets is fair to poor. At least with a 1080p input you can connect up an external 1080i to 1080p converter if you feel that is an improvement in the future.

480p to 1080p, and 720p to 1080p are almost no-brainers in keeping good quality.

480i to anything else varies widely in quality from one make and model to another.

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

 

[RAF]

Actually, My HP MD5880n will accept all three 1080p formats at the 2 HDMI inputs so I'm covered. For some reason it will only accept 1080p24 and 1080p30 at the VGA input, but that doesn't impact me. As it is, the recently announced (for 4Q 2006) HP MD5883n will include 1080p60 at the VGA input so it must have some relevance for some people.

But I understand your point. Not all 1080p is the same without the frame rate spec.