What's Better: 720p or1080i? (1 Viewer)

[Dalton]

Which is the better resolution? My TV has native support for both and even though i have had it for almost 3 yrs i have only used it with a progressive scan DVD player and occasionally for Digital cable which doesn't look to good. I was just wondering which resolution would "WOW" me more.

Thanks,
Dalton

 

[JohnTKline]

I would say 720p looks better to me, especially for sports on tv and xbox games. Unfortunatley most rptv's upscale...

John

 

[Richard Travale]

I would think, and someone correct me if I'm way off, that 720p would be way better than 1080i. Afterall, isn't 1080i the same as 540p?

 

[RobertR]

The way I've seen it expressed, 1080i is better for relatively static scenes and 720p is better for scenes with lots of motion.

Personally, the best HD I've ever seen was 720p.

 

[Parker Clack]

According to Joe Kane of the ISF foundation and author of the Video Essentials disc it is 720p.

Parker

 

[Citizen87645]

Can anyone confirm this is what the Toshibas do?

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

You will find industry people that champion either format.

Some prefer 1080i because of the 2 million pixels of information ... versus 720P and its 1 million pixels.

Regards

 

[Rick Guynn]

1080i is not the same thing as 540p. It uses the same bandwidth, but the resolution itself is twice 540 (hence the 1080). The reason 720p is usually preferred for more motion-oriented programming is that it displays 40% more information in the same time frame. This is still different from the resolution, however. 1080i has roughly 50% more resolution which is why it is generally preferred for less motion-priented programming.

It's actually a bit more complicated than what I am explaining, but that is the best that I can put it at the moment.

RG

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Toshibas upscale 720p to 1080i.

 

[Richard Travale]

Thanks Rick. Now I'm better informed.

 

[RAF]

Others here have given some fine answers regarding the differences between 1080i and 720p - a subject where there is no clear cut winner. A lot depends on the equipment being used and the source material.

I can give you a personal experience regarding this issue. I've just installed a new Runco CL-710 DLP front projector and one of the sources that I am using is a Dish Network Model 6000 HDTV receiver. The Runco will take the progressive output from this HD source and automatically switch to accommodate whatever is being sent to it. On the Dish 6000, in the HD setup menu I have a choice of outputting either 1080i or 720p (both of which the Runco handles) and I have looked at some HD material that I am very familiar with - The Dish Network ~12 minute demo loop. After comparing the two I definitely prefer the 1080i picture to the 720p in this case (although both look very good). The 1080i picture is more detailed, at least with my installation (which also includes a Stewart StudioTek 130 16:9 screen - 110" diameter).

At first this surprised me, until I read some of the explanations here and now I know why I'm seeing more detail. However, if your equipment doesn't handle both formats with equal ease, then one resolution might look better than the other - and there is no definite answer as to which one that would be. To repeat again, it's all about the source material and how it's handled by the hardware.

Make sense?