HD Picture Resolution Question

[EdwardGein]

My sister just got a second HD TV that was a good buy for her on one of the Black Friday sales at Circuit City & she bought for $1200 Sony 40" LCD HD Monitor (KLV-40U100M)
www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sony-40-LCD-HD-Monitor-KLV-40U100M/sem/rpsm/oid/147993/catOid/-12867/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
She gets her HD service from Time Warner. What I'm confused about this TV is it says it has 720p resolution. Does this mean when she gets the HD broadcasts from her Time Warner hookup, she's not seeing the show at 1081 but at 720? I told her she could have gotten a similarly sized Sony HD with 1080 for $500 or so more but she said she didn't want to spend the extra money on it. So the fact that the other one was 1080 makes for a better picture, right, or does that just have to do with the built in HD Tuner & the HD Service from the Cable company gets the picture at 1081. Is that correct?
Thanks for any answers.

[N. Abstentia]

It depends.

First thing...no that TV does not support 1080i or 1080p. So forget about 1080, ain't happening with that TV.

The other part I'm sure someone else will chime in on...but I doubt the cable box outputs at 720 if it says it's 1080.

Question is..will the TV take that 1080i signal and scale it down to 720i? I don't know that one. So if not, she's only getting 480. The on screen info on the TV should tell you exactly what resolution it's displaying.

[edtyct]

In a nutshell, the native resolution of this Sony is 720p, which means that it must convert whatever material it receives--whether sent as 1080i, 480i/p or something else--to 720p. If the cable box has a setting for 720p, it can do the conversions instead and save the Sony the trouble. However, cable boxes often don't convert 1080i HD material to 720p particularly well. You might do better to set the STB at 1080i and let the display handle the scaling. Displays handle conversions to 1080i and 480i with relative ease, since they are the two most popular resolutions.

If your sister had no interest in spending extra to get 1080p, she obviously isn't the kind of person who gets palpitations about resolution specs. On a 40" panel, the benefit of 1080p is moot. A "better picture" isn't just a matter of getting the highest resolution. At normal distances, the difference between 720p and 1080p is imperceptible. Even at closer range, at that size, not much is at stake.

[EdwardGein]

Thanks for the info guys. I lucked out and both my HDTV's are 1080 which was sheer luck not intelligence on my part. After I read Absentia's post, I did some more research & found there was a 37" HD LCD by Westinghouse that my sister could get new for $950 with delivery from J&R or she could upgrade to a Sony 40" that was 1080 for $600-800 more at Circuit City but as Edtyct called it, she had no palpitations & just didn't want to bother & just stuck with what she bought. Her set has a good picture but not a fantastic one & for me that would make a difference but for her, it doesn't.

[JeffKnob]

I have heard people say they actually prefer 720p over 1080i because all of the lines refresh on each cycle. It is supposed to be the preferred resolution for fast moving video like action movies or sports. My TV will do up to 1080p and I don't notice any difference between a signal that comes in at 1080i vs. 720p.

[edtyct]

Jeff,

The problem is that not even 720p displays can manage much original material at their native resolution. If a STB happens to allow a default setting of 720p (that actually works) or broadcast material to reach a display in its native format for the display to process, or not process, on its own, then ESPN and ABC will arrive as 720p. However, since we live in primarily a 1080i TV world, much of the rare 720p content has already been scaled to a resolution that might negate any inherent advantage. In my experience, if it's any compensation, the benefit of 720p for motion is slight, if perceptible at all, and given the fact that most 720p displays are LCDs, which are prone to motion trails anyway, the entire matter is a tempest in a teapot.

Ed

[Smokey]

However, since we live in primarily a 1080i TV world, much of the rare 720p content has already been scaled to a resolution that might negate any inherent advantage.


IMO fixed displays such as LCD/Plasmas exuadurate the problem comparing 1080i vs 720p. As you said, we live in a 1080i world, and by time a LCD shows a signal, it might already have gone thru three scaling (720p native> 1080i transmission >720p display).

In their native format, 1080i is probably slightly superior in term of resolution not only vertically (1080 vs 720 scanlines), but also horizontally (1920 vs 1280 pixels). The only advantage progressive signal have over non progressive would be to reduce “flicker” (which is more apparent on larger screens) in high motion scenes.

[JeffKnob]

Jeff,

The problem is that not even 720p displays can manage much original material at their native resolution. If a STB happens to allow a default setting of 720p (that actually works) or broadcast material to reach a display in its native format for the display to process, or not process, on its own, then ESPN and ABC will arrive as 720p. However, since we live in primarily a 1080i TV world, much of the rare 720p content has already been scaled to a resolution that might negate any inherent advantage. In my experience, if it's any compensation, the benefit of 720p for motion is slight, if perceptible at all, and given the fact that most 720p displays are LCDs, which are prone to motion trails anyway, the entire matter is a tempest in a teapot.

Ed

I have my STB pass through whichever signal it comes in. What you are saying makes sense and would explain why I don't notice a difference between the two resolutions.