1080P vs 720P HDTVs

Kimberly wrote on 8/22/2010, 11:48 AM
Hello Everyone:

This question is somewhat off-topic, but I bet someone can share some quick insight.

In shopping for a HD television, I'm seeing sets marked 1080p and 720p. Mostly I'm looking at the Sony brands that you find at Costco. How does the 1080p or 720p affect what we are seeing on-screen? How would it affect the display of my output from an HDV 1080i camcorder assuming I burned it via DVD-A 5.0 on a Blu-Ray disk using an appropriate template, etc.

For now I am still using my trusty old Panasonic 30" tube TV, but at some point I'll have to come into this century with a new TV and the related doo-dads.

Thanks everyone.

Kim

Comments

richard-amirault wrote on 8/22/2010, 1:02 PM
The difference between 1080 and 720 is twofold:

First: the size of the TV and
Second: the distance you are watching from.

For instance many "smaller" TV's (like, say, a 26") are 720 not 1080. Why? Because at that size (and assuming you are at a 'normal' TV viewing distance) you can't tell the dfference between 720 and 1080.

There must be some "formula" to tell you about when you can tell the difference, but I don't know it. The bigger screens are all pretty much 1080, and you can switch them down to 720 if you want so it really dosen't matter.
musicvid10 wrote on 8/22/2010, 1:25 PM
A commonly accepted rule of thumb is that if the screen is 42" or less, you won't notice much of a difference between 720 and 1080 screen resolution when viewing 1080i material.

Screens larger than 42" will benefit from 1080 resolution.
Eugenia wrote on 8/22/2010, 2:06 PM
I suggest you go for a 1080p TV, not a 720p one (which is not even true 720p, but 1366x768, resulting in stretching which can have one more level of quality loss, lower resolution aside). Most cams now shoot at 1080p, and so it would be nice to view your video at 1:1 size, sometimes at full quality.