1080P - Worth it?

[kanedaa]

Hi all,

I've currently got a 37" 1366x768 resolution LCD that I'm completely satisfied with. I have however got the opportunity to upgrade to a 1080P resolution LCD at no cost - my question is - is it worth it?

1080P sets seem to have there own set of issues, the whole 24P thing, quality of upscaling needs to be much better (not fussed about freeview, but my Wii is important). I have both PS3 and Xbox360 for Blu-ray and HD DVD - would I see a marked improvement over my current set which is fed a 1080i signal and downscales to the native resolution?

Thanks.

[zantarous]

Why do you feed your set 1080i, why not give it the native res to begin with as you have far too much upscalling and down converting going on.

As for 1080p being worth it, I waited till 1080p was available before jumping on the HD bandwagon but to be honest I can not really tell the difference between my set and my uncles 50" Pioneer that does 720p. If it is a upgrade at no cost you have not lost anything and it certainly not look worse.

I did notice that SD channels did not look great till I got a V+ box which upscalles and now even SD channels like Paramount and Trouble look great. Bottom line I am a tech whore and would still get a 1080p set.

[kanedaa]

Why do you feed your set 1080i, why not give it the native res to begin with as you have far too much upscalling and down converting going on.

I've tested both 720P and 1080i and find the latter looks slightly better. Either way there's some scaling going on, as the set's native resolution is inbetween.

[FEvans]

at 50 inch you will not notice the difference.

the difference becomes aparent when you get over 100 inch ie when using a projector

[MKIKE]

I was all for getting 1080p a couple of weeks ago, but after seeing a Samsung 40m87 next to an R87 (i think?) i wouldn't bother. As said above, you would either need to be sitting very close to a 50" or have a bigger screen to notice any real difference.
If the screen your upgrading to is worth more then do it, but if you happy with the quality you have I wouldn't bother.
Do you watch much SD tv? some 1080p screens i've seen didn't look to good with it.

[kanedaa]

Nah I never watch freeview and don't have sky.

I've basically got the option to return my 18month old Toshiba 37WLT58 which cost £1500 when I bought it, all because it has a fault I never even notice (a sound crackle) as I don't use the speakers. I thought it would be a good opportunity to "upgrade", but the more I read and look around I'm starting to think it's not worth the trouble (even though I could get a bigger screen, 1080P, and some money in my pocket given how cheap the equivalents out there are today).

[zantarous]

Well mate put it this way, if you get a bigger screen, with a better spec and money in your pocket you would be mad to pass it up. Like you said you don't watch Freeview or have Sky so you mainly use it for games and DVD's. Both the PS3 and 360 both do 1080p, and your DVD's won't look any worse on the screen if you have a decent upscalling player.

[zenza]

I would personally get a Sony D3000.

Blows some of the 1080P sets out there like the Samsung M87 out of the water.

I had set my heart on getting the Sammy M87 but now am heading towards the Bravia D3000 even though it's not 1080P it still has an awesome picture if you look at the thread on the AVForums and the review on HDTVTest.

[DeadKenny]

The way I look at it, in a few years time 720p sets won't exist. They'll all be 1080p. Best to get 'proper' HD as it was intended rather go for a half way house which is why I held out for 1080p.

720 is barely HD really when you consider that PAL is 576.

But if you already have a 720 set, then maybe wait until the backlight dies (if it's an LCD) and then upgrade (as I bet getting it fixed will be costly anyway. Probably got a set lifespan of 5 years in the things ;). Though if it's Sony it will probably die in half the time due to shockingly bad production quality ;)).

[MKIKE]

Seeing as you can get a newer model with money back it's a no brainer, but don't expect to see an improvement in picture quality from 720p (or 1080i) to 1080p.

[Refrenz]

Seeing as you can get a newer model with money back it's a no brainer, but don't expect to see an improvement in picture quality from 720p (or 1080i) to 1080p.

Precisely. All those saying go for a 1080p set are forgetting to add another requirement, which is ensure you buy a 60 inch+ screen as well, otherwise you won't be able to tell the difference between 720p/1080i and 1080p unless you sit less than 3 feet away from the screen.

[BiscLimpkit]

I didn't know that. So I'd be wasting my time looking for a 1080p HDTV (50" or under)? Is getting a 720p a better (cheaper) option?

[Panavision]

I wouldn't worry about 1080p - it's all about the processing, some handle 720 exceptionally well, and others at 1080 don't look vibrant enough.

I'd check out the panasonic and pioneer plasmas.
The quality is exceptional at 720p and it handles SD material very nicely. I was all gung-ho for LCD until I watched the plasmas.

[kanedaa]

Thanks for the input everyone. I think i'll definitely reconsider some 1366x768 res sets, particularly the Sony D3000 series for all round greatness (albeit at a big price) and Tosh C3030D series for great performance at a great price.

[DeadKenny]

Precisely. All those saying go for a 1080p set are forgetting to add another requirement, which is ensure you buy a 60 inch+ screen as well, otherwise you won't be able to tell the difference between 720p/1080i and 1080p unless you sit less than 3 feet away from the screen.
Telling the difference between a 720 image on a 720 display and 1080 on a 1080 display may be limited yes.

However, display 720 on a 1080 or a 1080 on a 720 and you're scaling away which potentially introduces flaws.

It depends if you can get the right source for your display as I see it.

Certainly wouldn't say you have to get 1080. However if you were buying a TV now from scratch I'd go for 1080 as they are so cheap and look set to replace 720s completely.

Thanks for the input everyone. I think i'll definitely reconsider some 1366x768 res sets, particularly the Sony D3000 series for all round greatness (albeit at a big price) and Tosh C3030D series for great performance at a great price.
Problem I have with 768 sets is they are not 720. There's either scaling or some black-baring involved.

[cluderi]

I was planning on buying the new 1080p Samsung LCDs but after reading about the clouding issues with them I've decided not to bother.

I'm not buying either HD-DVD or BluRay until one of them wins the battle, knowing my luck whichever I buy will lose.

It's taken a while for 1080i/720p to get cost effective and I'm not convinced it's worth the extra to get full HD. Think I'll wait until 1080p is more mainstream before bothering. Plus I've been warned that SD can look pretty horrible on some full HD sets.

[zantarous]

Clouding issue, what clouding issue?

[DeadKenny]

Clouding issue, what clouding issue?
News to me too.

Got a spankingly nice 40" 1080p Samsung LCD right here (F71) and I get no such issues. It's really a gorgeous telly, even upscaling DVD (hell, if this is how good upscaling DVD is with the built in capabilities then a "proper" upscaler will have to be damn impressive to make me want one).


cluderi - what clouding issues?


Think I'll wait until 1080p is more mainstream before bothering.
It's getting pretty much mainstream now. 720p sets are really just for "budget" Goodmans kind of TVs now. 1080p is where it's at and prices keep falling. In fact the new models to replace mine (which is not that old either) are now cheaper than the price I paid for last years model only a few months back! (and they're even better quality).

Sub £1k gets you some damn fine 1080p sets. Unless you buy overrated Sony (and I say that as a former big Sony fan who's been let down by continually declining quality of Sony kit over the last 5 years or so).

Plus I've been warned that SD can look pretty horrible on some full HD sets.
Well,

1. Rubbish in = rubbish out. So the quality of SD depends on the original feed quality. My TiVo has a poor quality feed thanks to many stages of digital->analogue conversion. Result is rubbish on the HD set. My DVD player however looks fantastic. By all reports the same results are generally true of any fixed resolution pixel display, be it 720, 1080, LCD or Plasma.

2. A lot of what people read about LCDs / HD sets is based on opinions of TVs two or three generations behind the current TVs.

Best advice is to try one. Previewing in a store is no good. Find a friend who's just bought one (not someone who's had one for a few years), or otherwise order off the net and return within 14 days as per your rights if you don't like it.

[allan]

Uneven backlight, quite common on LCDs. Most of the time you wouldn't notice, but put a completely black image up and you'll notice that it's not consistently back lit, with some areas appearing lighter than others. My 32" Samsung and my 40" 1080p Sony both have the "issue" to varying degrees.

[Bender]

I'm waiting until affordable native 1080P resolution sets become more common before getting a HD set, not to mention the current lack of native 1080P sources to watch!

[DeadKenny]

Uneven backlight, quite common on LCDs. Most of the time you wouldn't notice, but put a completely black image up and you'll notice that it's not consistently back lit, with some areas appearing lighter than others. My 32" Samsung and my 40" 1080p Sony both have the "issue" to varying degrees.
Backlight issues are common to all LCDs yes, though I've not seen any uneven backlight issues on mine. Only thing is the classic issue of black levels and after some tweaking (and turning back on some of the stuff people said to turn off, as they are there to deal with the issue) the black levels are generally fine. You can deal with black level issues by dimming the backlight with the lights down, using the right movie modes that are optimised for films especially when watching in the dark, having a small amount of ambient light (which is apparently better for your eyes than having none anyway). Though it's not really a lack of black levels than the back light washing the detail out. The detail is there, just the back light needs dimming.

The replacement sets out now are even better and there are newer ones coming along with zone based backlight dimming (dim individual areas depending on the picture).

Frankly you get used to the small little issues and they're not really much of an issue (or can be worked around). For a price of £1k or less I wouldn't worry much. If I was paying £2k or more then I'd kick up a fuss. Really, once you start sitting down and watching films and TV shows rather than worrying you really start to enjoy the TV. Mine is certainly a lot better than my old Sony WEGA widerscreen CRT.


Bender - how affordable is affordable? Give it 6 months and they'll be around £500. After 12 months I bet all new LCDs are 1080p.

Native 1080p sources... Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Though there's also broadcast 1080i which becomes more relevant (it's rendered as 1080p by the TV). On 720p sets 1080i had different benefits (and disadvantages) as the interlaced broadcast was more relevant.

[allan]

I think price is a non-issue now. My Sony was £1500 and that's when it first came out as one of the first 1080p LCDs released in this country. Compare that to the same money my parents paid for a 32" CRT a few years back and things are put into perspective. The Sony is already available for just over a grand for what I would consider a luxury item.

[zantarous]

There is not really much left to say about LCD I think DeadKenny has said it all, I have noticed no cloudy issue on mine (same set as DK) I sat through a 150+ page thread on the AVforums before buying and not a single post came up about clouding.


The unevenness of the back light is more or less a non issue, when there is no signal on my screen like when the STB is off you can see the unevenness on certain parts of the screen but when you have a picture displayed it is not notable at all.

[Bender]

Bender - how affordable is affordable? Give it 6 months and they'll be around £500. After 12 months I bet all new LCDs are 1080p.

Native 1080p sources... Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Though there's also broadcast 1080i which becomes more relevant (it's rendered as 1080p by the TV). On 720p sets 1080i had different benefits (and disadvantages) as the interlaced broadcast was more relevant.

Under £1k is certainly affordable although I wouldn't buy a budget £500 unit if better models could be bought for a little more, but alot of the bluray discs I've seen were in 720p format on MPEG2 rather than using the better MPEG4 compression, on a 32" Samsung LCD unit the BR images sucked.

Both the HD/BR formats are obviously using 1st gen. hardware encoders, the IQ will keep improving ofc with every hardware revision.

[zantarous]

As much as I want to see Blu ray gets it butt kicked by HD DVD I will still point out that I do not believe that any Blu ray discs were ever done in 720p all are 1080p just like HD DVD. Earlier discs were done in MPEG2 and did not look as good as HD DVD early efforts but the current discs should be on par.

If you are going to get a screen to watch HD go for at least a 40” to really appreciate the difference.

[Bender]

Spec wise the HD-DVD format wouldn't stand a chance against dual layer BR discs but it's Sony here, Betamax, MD, PS3, BR... :D

[cluderi]

Clouding issue - I've browsed a few Oz forums about the new Samsung 1080p sets we're getting over here and quite a few people are now on their 2nd or 3rd set, they claim to get light clouding around blacks.

It *could* be backlight or it *could* just be picky people looking for something to complain about (I blame the purple snake problem on the same thing, I viewed some of the problem Panasonic sets and saw nothing at all).

I'm unsure on what to do now to be honest, do I buy a 46" Samsung and risk issues or do I buy a cheaper 50" Px70 and wait for the 1080p technology to mature.

One thing I don't want to do is waste money on a TV which I'll end up replacing any time soon, this really needs to be a long term purchase (had my last Sony 32" Vega CRT for close to 7 years and loved every day)

[DeadKenny]

Under £1k is certainly affordable although I wouldn't buy a budget £500 unit if better models could be bought for a little more, but alot of the bluray discs I've seen were in 720p format on MPEG2 rather than using the better MPEG4 compression, on a 32" Samsung LCD unit the BR images sucked.
As far as I know all Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are and have been 1080p all the way.

Now you could have been seeing them on a player that was only capable of 720p or configured badly.

As for MPEG4 vs MPEG2, that's arguable. It depends how well they're encoded. A less compressed MPEG2 could be better than a badly and highly compressed MPEG4, and vice versa.

Early BR discs have also been criticised (likely down to their encoding), as have early players.

Spec wise the HD-DVD format wouldn't stand a chance against dual layer BR discs but it's Sony here, Betamax, MD, PS3, BR... :D
Spec wise, BR just has a higher capacity. It's not really required though and HD-DVD is making advances in that department anyway.

Other than that the quality of encodings is theoretically the same as both have the same formats available. Interactive features differ but that's nothing to do with the physical media it's stored on.

Sony's stubborness causes most of the problems. The fact they've taken so long to get the interactive features in the spec signed off has led now to the same movies coming out on HD-DVD with interactive features but lacking them on Blu-Ray.


I'm unsure on what to do now to be honest, do I buy a 46" Samsung and risk issues or do I buy a cheaper 50" Px70 and wait for the 1080p technology to mature.
But there's hardly any difference in 'technology' as far as I can tell. Just one set has more pixels. It's like a higher resolution monitor that's all. There is the upscaling capabilities in addition but if you match the input with the display's resolution then you rule that out anyway.

Technology changes in LCD have mainly been in the form of contrast ratios, black levels and backlighting, and this applies to both 720 and 1080 sets.

As I say though, you could just buy a set online and return it within 14 days if you don't like it.

Biggest problem I found with picking a set was reading nitpicking reviews and rants on the Internet. Once I got my TV I wondered what all the fuss was about really.

One thing is a certainty though. Whatever you buy there will always be something better around the corner. It doesn't matter how long you wait :D

[Bender]

It was via a PS3, I'm pretty sure both the Bond and the Click discs were both MPEG2 720p only IIRC :thinking: the PS3 certainly does a good job upscaling for normal dvd discs.

At identical bitrate the quality difference between MPEG2 and MPEG4 is pretty noticeable the higher compression allow that much extra detail, the higher capacity of the dual layer BR discs (could any current standalone player even play it?) allow for higher bitrates, whether the difference is noticeable against HD-DVD is another matter.

[zantarous]

Click was the first dual layer Blu ray disc and again it is 1080p there are no 720p HD movies.

Also HD DVD spec wise are neck and neck Blu ray has a higher disc capacity and can manage a higher bit rate but when you see how good HD DVD actually is there is no difference in the real world.

[Bender]

Hmm I recall the darn PS3 was in 720P all the time and I couldn't switch to 1080P directly or via the console menu (it just plays at 720P, TV certainly supports 1080) but your right the disc is native 1080P, must have been an old firmware problem.

[zantarous]

Does the TV support 1080 or 1080p? As all 720 sets can take a 1080i signal and downconvert but most can not do anything with a 1080p signal.

[DeadKenny]

Hmm I recall the darn PS3 was in 720P all the time and I couldn't switch to 1080P directly or via the console menu (it just plays at 720P, TV certainly supports 1080) but your right the disc is native 1080P, must have been an old firmware problem.
PS3 had a firmware fix recently that added 1080p upscaling. Before that it wasn't even upscaling lower resolution stuff, so no wonder 720p would look awful.

However it should have been playing 1080p on Blu-Ray out of the box I think. If not then maybe that was another firmware fix.

Could be the resolution offered is based on what it detects from the TV if connected by HDMI.

[Tyler Durden]

A friend at works Dad (who is in his 70's) has just spent £1200 on a 1080P LCD because he "has to have the best TV money can buy", thing is, he's only using it for watching freeview and videos :cuckoo:

[Refrenz]

A friend at works Dad (who is in his 70's) has just spent £1200 on a 1080P LCD because he "has to have the best TV money can buy", thing is, he's only using it for watching freeview and videos :cuckoo:

Agreed. What a total fool. VHS must look shocking on an LCD TV.