720 or 1080?

epicstruggle

Passenger on Serenity
Veteran
We are planning on buying lcd tvs and wanted your opinion. For a viewing distance of 5-13 feet what resolution would you recommend for both a 32" tv and 42" tv. Im not sure if they even offer a 1080 version of a 32"tv.

thanks
 
1080p versions of 32" TVs are rare, but they do exist. For 42", definitely 1080p. For 32", if the premium wasn't huge, I'd probably go for 1080p now as well. A year ago though that definitely didn't make sense, and it's not an absolute requirement. But I do notice the difference from 2,5 meters myself.

In the end, the quality of the colors and contrast is important as well. If you can get 1080p for a 32" TV with comparable colors and contrast and the premium for 1080p isn't extreme, then today I would probably go for it.
 
There's a heck of a difference between 5 and 13 feet!

If you take the viewing distance in feet and multiply it by about 5.12 you'll get the optimum screen size in inches for a 720p display. "Optimum" means "a person with normal eyesight won't see any difference between 720p and an arbitrarily high resolution at that distance because his eyes aren't good enough".

Optimum screen inches for a 1080p screen (i.e. maximum benefit gained from getting 1080p rather than 720p) is viewing distance * 7.69.

So, for example, at 9 feet there is no point in buying a screen with >720p resolution unless it is at least 46". Optimum size for a 1080p screen is 69".

At 5 feet a 720p screen should be about 26", 1080p should be about 38". At 13 feet 720p should be about 67" and 1080p about 100".
 
You could also reference my recent thread, which also focused on size vs. resolution at a given distance. You're going to need to be much more specific that 5-13', though.

Short answer, only based on personal experience with a 42" plasma (and without consulting the handy graph that kyle linked in my thread), at 5' you may well want 1080p in a 42". At 13', you probably won't care.

As for the 32", I'm guessing 1080p won't matter much at 5', but it may be discernable. If a 1080p 32"er is in the same price ballpark as a 720p 42"er--and assuming contrast and color and pixel response are the same--I'd opt for the greater immersion of the 42". (42" is a pretty nice size for movie watching at 5'.) 13' sounds like it might be too far away from a 32"er to easily resolve even 720p.

My experience is with plasma, though. AFAIK you can see the extra resolution on an LCD with static scenes, but I'm not sure how that changes with motion at your distances, especially with a 32" set (which is relatively small even at 5' and 1080p).

Even if plasma isn't an option (though the newer ones, like the Panasonics, have anti-glare or anti-reflective [there's a difference, apparently] coatings that are supposed to help), you might be interested in a reference price. A couple weeks ago, when I was milking my thread for info, the latest Panasonic 42" 720p plasma was just $900 at CC (with discounts that have since expired), and I believe an earlier model was going for the same at Costco (both before tax).
 
part of my problem is that the lcd tvs will be placed in motel rooms. So we have a the tv has to cater to people who watch from the bed and those who sit closer. Id like to be able to go with 720s because of the price difference, but I also have to think that at some point 1080 will be the format that becomes the standard.
 
IMO, 720p is the safer bet. I just don't think most folks are going to be able to appreciate the difference.

Hell, in most hotels I still run across crappy CRTs, so yours will be quite the step up, even at 720p.
 
but I also have to think that at some point 1080 will be the format that becomes the standard.
If you can't make out 1080 lines of resolution at the intended viewing distance, I don't see how 720p is a liability, especially with video--provided the TV supports 1080p inputs. 1080p will cost more (and may well draw more power, which could be a long-term issue depending on how much these sets will be on) for little to no visible benefit at your distances (maybe not for 42" @ 5'). It would seem wiser to pocket the savings for the next upgrade (1440p!) or contingencies. If we're talking US TV, isn't ABC/ESPN native 720p? I wonder at what res cable and satellite pipes in their HD.

Unless we're talking reallll classy motels.
 
Nowadays, with the format war done, 1080p is the beter choice IMHO, especially if you don't want to upgrade your TV in the next two years.
 
Nowadays, with the format war done, 1080p is the beter choice IMHO, especially if you don't want to upgrade your TV in the next two years.

Why would you need to upgrade anytime soon? The only 1080P sources for TV viewing will be blu ray discs for a very very long time. Every thing else will be 720P 1080I or worse because of over compression. The major networks will be 1080i or 720p for atleast the next decade. Most cable companys can hardly deliver 720p on its channels with out compressing the hell out of it or starving its bit rate.

I tell people if you are mostly going to watch TV and play console games to get a 720P tv to save the money. If you are going to mostly watch blu ray movies sure get the 1080P set.
 
our source material will be what we get from sat/cable. We still are researching it, since we need to add a few channels to the stream, and we cant find the right hardware for hd signals.
 
Two reasons why it may not make sense to stress 1080p for (some?) cable/sat HD feeds. Sure, they may be sending you a 1920x1080 or 1440x1080 signal for many HD channels, but when its compressed to hell, the resolution becomes secondary. Dunno how HD PPV fares.

OTA locals might make a better case for 1080p, but downsampling them to display at 768p is probably less of a concern than the aforementioned extra compression.

DirectTV is sending up new satellites (and Dish is trying to), so this overcompression may be a temporary blip. I don't know how cable is getting the extra bandwidth, and I believe they're obligated to continue carrying bandwidth-hogging analog SD channels until 2012, so that's a crimp in their HD plans (though that doesn't seem to stop them from rolling out lots of HD channels themselves--Time Warner Cable is about doubling its offering at the end of this month).

Edit: Thanks for the info, BRiT.
 
The cable companies have many different technological approaches to take. Most of them are steps needed to migrate to SDV.

A) Cable companies are only obligated to carry Analog SD channels if and only if they do not provide for digital set-top-boxes for all their customers (for free). In some cities, the cable-co's have found it easier to provide these STBs in order to continue on with their plans of rolling out more HD channels.

B) Some cable-co's have upgraded to 1Ghz bandwidth. This provides room to carry more signals.

C) Most cable-co's have also upgraded to have fewer nodes within a cell. I believe they are aiming for 250 nodes within a service cell.

D) Once the cable-co's achieve steps A, B, and C, they will upgrade to SDV - Switched Digital Video. This opens up an entirely new realm of possibilities. Instead of always broadcasting every single channel offered regardless of it being watched, they only broadcast the tuned in channels. This is a significant bandwidth saver.

E) The cable-co's can upgrade to X.264 / MPEG-4 digital streams instead of using the current MPG-2 streams. Supposedly this becomes easier to do once they're on SDV.

SDV Info Summary.

~~~
My local cable company (Cox Cable) does not overcompress their feeds. They restrict the number of HD streams on a given frequency to 2 and use any leftover space for SD streams.
 
Nowadays, with the format war done, 1080p is the beter choice IMHO, especially if you don't want to upgrade your TV in the next two years.

Considering the vast majority of content is in 720P or 1080i I don't think BR vs HDDVD has anything to do with it. Lets face it, most of the content people watch on their TVs is broadcast no purchased on discs and certainly in a motel this will be true.

720p unless 1080p is cheaper!
 
Considering the vast majority of content is in 720P or 1080i I don't think BR vs HDDVD has anything to do with it. Lets face it, most of the content people watch on their TVs is broadcast no purchased on discs and certainly in a motel this will be true.

720p unless 1080p is cheaper!
The vast majority is 1080i, which can be turned into 1080P if it is film ;)
 
part of my problem is that the lcd tvs will be placed in motel rooms. So we have a the tv has to cater to people who watch from the bed and those who sit closer. Id like to be able to go with 720s because of the price difference, but I also have to think that at some point 1080 will be the format that becomes the standard.

IMO 720P is totally fine for what you describe. For me I will have a computer hooked to tv always so I would rather have 1080p regardless of size.
 
I'd recommend 1080p. You might end up doing other things with your TV eventually. Like HTPC or even gaming on it. It doesn't hurt to go for 1080p since that is what the standard is or will be from the looks of it. Although right now, non-HD channels suck on 720p and they suck even more on 1080p. But since you are looking onto HD content for your viewing pleasure, If you can afford it, might as well go for 1080p. But if every dollar counts, then go for 720p. If you go to those sites that list sales and stuff...

If you're from the US, go to slickdeals.net... that's where I go to penny pinch :) make sure you type ".net" not ".com". Go to the forum section and click on "hot deals". Sometimes, sale listings for 1080p and 720p TV sets don't vary that much and sometimes they're even at the same price. I've even seen them a little cheeper at one time.
 
Id like to be able to go with 720s because of the price difference, but I also have to think that at some point 1080 will be the format that becomes the standard.
Go with 768p. nobody makes 720p LCDs anyway. ;)

Also, you don't need a 1080p display to view 1080p signals. You only need a TV that which supports 1080p inputs, as pretty much all HDTVs released in the past year or so do, regardless of those display's native resolution. So, there is no future-proofing in buying 1080p displays, and when shopping on a budget you'll likely be sacrificing both build quality and overall image when buying a 1080p display over the 768p options in the same price range.
 
Yep, ive been using slickdeals to shop for these tvs. 60 lcd tvs add up, so every bit of savings is good.

If that 60 refers to 60", then 1080p no question about it. ;)

If I were to buy an LCD today, it would definitely be 1080p. Probably a 94cm (37"?) Sammy or something like that (they are now cheaper than the 768p 82cm / 32" Sammy I bought January 2007 - still happy with that though!)
 
Back
Top