Years ago when I first heard about HD being 1920x1080 I was psyched. But when I saw the HD screen at Best Buy I noticed that nearly all of them could handle a 1080 signal but in fact were only 1024x768. New standards are hard to embrace when there are variables. It would have been nice if we all just made the jump from standard NTSC to 1920x1080 in one fell swoop. So now this begs the question, if most of these new TVs are 1024x768, is it worth shooting in 1920x1080? Are there nasty artifacts from down-sizing the images? Will the world ever truly embrace 1080?
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the 1080 v 720 debate
- Thread starter Mike
- Start date
Barry_Green
Moderator
You ask a good question. The truth of the matter is, the landscape of HD is an overwhelmingly confusing place to be. You've got D-ILA sets, LCD sets, Plasmas, CRTs, and probably some other technologies...
... then there's the question of what qualifies as HD... some plasmas out there are 1024x768, some are 1024x1024... some LCDs are 1280x720, some are 1366x720, some are... well, you get the point.
A CRT is about the only way to get native 720p and native 1080i in the same set.
And nobody wants a CRT.
What's hot, what's selling, is flat-screen LCD and Plasma sets. Nobody cares about picture quality, they just want that flat hang-on-the-wall screen. And it seems like the *vast* majority of those sets can currently display a max of 1280x720 (which is, by the way, a fully-recognized HDTV standard signal, as per the ATSC). Of course, that's only for the LCDs and Plasmas that are actually HD-compatible, because there's an awful lot of them out there at 853x480 resolution, called EDTV, which don't have any HD capability at all (although some of them *do* accept and down-rez HD broadcasts and show them on standard-definition displays!)
But how does 1920x1080 look squeezed into 1280x720? And do some sets do a better job than others? And what happens if you get a 1920x1080 LCD, and you want to watch Fox or ESPN or ABC, all of which broadcast in 1280x720? Does it up-rez decently? Or does it all look like your laptop computer when you set the wrong resolution for the LCD?
The HD situation is a mess.
And then you ask the other key question: Will the world ever truly embrace 1080? Japan sure did, and some of America has (NBC, CBS, PBS are all 1080). But it looks like Europe's going 720p (they'd prefer 1080/50p, but that doesn't exist, and so they're faced with the question of interlaced or progressive, and they're leaning towards progressive).
And, of course, even though the resolution is the same, Europe and America clung to using different scanning frequencies, so it's 720/50p in Europe, 720/60p in America... no compatibility there...
... then there's the question of what qualifies as HD... some plasmas out there are 1024x768, some are 1024x1024... some LCDs are 1280x720, some are 1366x720, some are... well, you get the point.
A CRT is about the only way to get native 720p and native 1080i in the same set.
And nobody wants a CRT.
What's hot, what's selling, is flat-screen LCD and Plasma sets. Nobody cares about picture quality, they just want that flat hang-on-the-wall screen. And it seems like the *vast* majority of those sets can currently display a max of 1280x720 (which is, by the way, a fully-recognized HDTV standard signal, as per the ATSC). Of course, that's only for the LCDs and Plasmas that are actually HD-compatible, because there's an awful lot of them out there at 853x480 resolution, called EDTV, which don't have any HD capability at all (although some of them *do* accept and down-rez HD broadcasts and show them on standard-definition displays!)
But how does 1920x1080 look squeezed into 1280x720? And do some sets do a better job than others? And what happens if you get a 1920x1080 LCD, and you want to watch Fox or ESPN or ABC, all of which broadcast in 1280x720? Does it up-rez decently? Or does it all look like your laptop computer when you set the wrong resolution for the LCD?
The HD situation is a mess.
And then you ask the other key question: Will the world ever truly embrace 1080? Japan sure did, and some of America has (NBC, CBS, PBS are all 1080). But it looks like Europe's going 720p (they'd prefer 1080/50p, but that doesn't exist, and so they're faced with the question of interlaced or progressive, and they're leaning towards progressive).
And, of course, even though the resolution is the same, Europe and America clung to using different scanning frequencies, so it's 720/50p in Europe, 720/60p in America... no compatibility there...
thisiswells
Retired
The truth of the matter is that all of Panasonic's three HD cameras right now use a
strikingly similar CCD chip whose output is processed in very different ways to come up
with both 1080i in one camera and 720p the other two. But, the same basic information
is there from the get go. My opinion is a camera with a good dynamic range and good
color reproduction will look excellent, whether on film, HD, or VHS.
strikingly similar CCD chip whose output is processed in very different ways to come up
with both 1080i in one camera and 720p the other two. But, the same basic information
is there from the get go. My opinion is a camera with a good dynamic range and good
color reproduction will look excellent, whether on film, HD, or VHS.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Um... Brian? Think you jumped the gun. This thread wasn't about cameras at all, or CCD resolution, or anything like that.
He was asking about 720 vs. 1080 and how that's playing out in televisions and broadcasts worldwide.
He was asking about 720 vs. 1080 and how that's playing out in televisions and broadcasts worldwide.
thisiswells
Retired
Okay. No more straying Off Topic.