Televisions

[Kid Chocolate]

So I'm in the market for a new TV.

I'm thinking about a 32'' HDTV.

Now I've been reading about how the best quality is 1080p. My question would be, is the difference really that much better or is it negligible on this size TV, since it's not 50'' + between 1080 and 720?

Any other input would be great. thanks!

 

[Denny Crane]

720p is going to look great on a 32" TV, but 1080p is obviously going to look much better.

You should be thinking of it as dots per inch. At 720p, you get 1280 dots per 32" or 40 dots per inch. At 1080p, you get 60 dots per inch, and it truly is 50% better.

Lazer printing is at least 300 dots per inch, for comparison.

32" is not exactly a tiny screen, but smaller than a 50" or whatever (obviously). The dots being the same number but over less inches will actually make a better picture on the smaller screen, but you have to sit closer to it for the same effect.

The higher the dots per inch, the less jaggy straight (non horizontal or vertical) lines and curves will be.

 

[CelticKing]

I think there's a big difference, so go for the 1080p and if you're looking for a good brand go for Samsung, I have the 40 inch, cost around 2500 from Best Buy, but when you have HD channels on, no matter what they have you want to watch it. Clearer than real life. lol

 

[Denny Crane]

Oh yeah, the 1080p version can be used as a very nice computer monitor if you have a good enough graphics card. 1920x1080 resolution.

That may also give you an idea of how close you can sit to it.

 

[Dumpy]

I think there's a big difference, so go for the 1080p and if you're looking for a good brand go for Samsung, I have the 40 inch, cost around 2500 from Best Buy, but when you have HD channels on, no matter what they have you want to watch it. Clearer than real life. lol

just to follow up on my PM, my rear projection TV cost a LOT less than that--enough to buy a stand, surround sound stereo system and upscaling DVD player. First figure out the biggest TV you have room for and then figure out the details, such as the technical stuff and what format. You will ultimately be disappointed with a smallish TV. My TV sometimes seems too small!

 

[Kid Chocolate]

I've been researching a bit online, and while I think it's obvious that a 1080p has more clarity than a 720p (duh), I'm not sure if it's worth it at a smaller TV size, such as 32''. Apparently they didn't even make 1080p for that size until recently, so I'm not sure how much of a difference it would really make, and if it'll be worth it.

I think I'll need some field experience.

 

[Petey]

The size and dimensions of the room, distance to TV, and quality of your vision are other factors. Go check it out in Best Buy, position yourself from the distance you plan to use/watch the tv at home or wherever you are using it.

If you have poor vision, and plan to position the TV 10+ feet from your couch, or bed, 720p and 1080p will not make any difference to you.

-Petey

 

[Kid Chocolate]

The size and dimensions of the room, distance to TV, and quality of your vision are other factors. Go check it out in Best Buy, position yourself from the distance you plan to use/watch the tv at home or wherever you are using it.

If you have poor vision, and plan to position the TV 10+ feet from your couch, or bed, 720p and 1080p will not make any difference to you.

-Petey

I thought I read somewhere that the best viewing distance should be double inches of the TV. So for a 32 you should be 64 inches back, or about 5 and a half feet.

 

[Denny Crane]

32" is fine for a small room. I watched 20" TVs for most of the 1990s.

Rear projection is not the way to go. You do get bang for your buck, but it's not going to be the best of the latest technology.

I wouldn't worry about 1080p being new for 32".

 

[Kid Chocolate]

I wouldn't worry about 1080p being new for 32".

I'm not worried about the technology per say.

I'm saying that it looks like they didn't make the 1080p for 32'' because the difference inquality between that and 720p is minimal.

I'm still gonna go check out a few and look at the pictures myself.

 

[Denny Crane]

I'm not worried about the technology per say.

I'm saying that it looks like they didn't make the 1080p for 32'' because the difference inquality between that and 720p is minimal.

I'm still gonna go check out a few and look at the pictures myself.

It's technically impossible for the difference to be minimal, unless you have vision problems. If you do go compare pictures, be sure you understand that the source format is 1080i or 1080p on both. You'll get 1080p from PS3 and XBox/HD DVD and from PPV on Dish Network; the best you get anywhere else (that I know of) is 1080i. That'll certainly change, and your 1080p TV won't be obsolete as soon.

 

[Kid Chocolate]

It's technically impossible for the difference to be minimal, unless you have vision problems. If you do go compare pictures, be sure you understand that the source format is 1080i or 1080p on both. You'll get 1080p from PS3 and XBox/HD DVD and from PPV on Dish Network; the best you get anywhere else (that I know of) is 1080i. That'll certainly change, and your 1080p TV won't be obsolete as soon.

Yea, but I'm talking from perspective's point of view.
Obviously the difference is clear cut with the pixels (480 to 720 to 1080, it's mathematics there), but when you look at it, the picture obviously would have more of a difference in quality on a bigger television, compared to a smaller one.

I just don't know how much, and if it's worth it.

I don't understand what you're saying about the source format though?

(I have cablevision, too, so Dish Network means nothing to me)

 

[cpawfan]

I don't understand what you're saying about the source format though?

A 1080i source isn't as good as a 1080p source so a 1080p TV viewing a 1080i source won't demonstrate everything the tv can do

 

[Denny Crane]

Yea, but I'm talking from perspective's point of view.
Obviously the difference is clear cut with the pixels (480 to 720 to 1080, it's mathematics there), but when you look at it, the picture obviously would have more of a difference in quality on a bigger television, compared to a smaller one.

I just don't know how much, and if it's worth it.

I don't understand what you're saying about the source format though?

(I have cablevision, too, so Dish Network means nothing to me)

The same picture is going to look BETTER on the smaller screen; you have more dots per inch on the smaller screen. The number of dots is the same if the picture is the same. The only negative to a smaller screen is that you have to sit closer to it for it to fill up as much of your range of vision. This is true for HD, or analog SD (old style TV).

The resolution does make a difference on the bigger screens because the dots are bigger. The more dots, the better the picture (no matter what size).

Source format: if you compare a 720p picture on a 720p TV to a 720p picture on a 1080p TV, you're not going to see much of a difference. With a 1080p source (like Blu Ray or HD DVD), you will see the difference. The 720p picture has to reduce the picture on the fly from 1920x1080 pixels to 1280x768 pixels; it's still going to look good, but obviously you're losing resolution and other information. The DirecTV box can output pictures in any of the major formats, though it's upscaling 1080i to 1080p at best. Regular DVD is 480p resolution.

 

[Denny Crane]

A 1080i source isn't as good as a 1080p source so a 1080p TV viewing a 1080i source won't demonstrate everything the tv can do

Not exactly what I meant, but a good point.

I meant, make sure you're comparing a Blu Ray disk on the 720p TV with a Blu Ray disk on the 1080p TV, or you're fooling yourself about the picture quality.

 

[GMJ]

heh, honestly KC the best advice given in this thread was by yourself. What's really being talked about is your eyesight and how you perceive the difference. Second to that is your own threshold in terms of finances. Even if you have determined that 1080 looks significantly better compared to a 780, this difference may not be as significant compared to the price difference between the two 32" ers. There are two scales at work.

Go to Best Buy, or Circuit City, or wherever, and look at a 1080 32" and a 780 32". Just in case it matters, do some comparisons between companies.

 

[Kid Chocolate]

heh, honestly KC the best advice given in this thread was by yourself. What's really being talked about is your eyesight and how you perceive the difference. Second to that is your own threshold in terms of finances. Even if you have determined that 1080 looks significantly better compared to a 780, this difference may not be as significant compared to the price difference between the two 32" ers. There are two scales at work.

Go to Best Buy, or Circuit City, or wherever, and look at a 1080 32" and a 780 32". Just in case it matters, do some comparisons between companies.

thank you.

all this technical mumbo jumbo is just confusing me. i just want to know if 1080p would really be that much better for an upkick in price compared to 720p on a 32'' tv. i'm guessing it wouldn't be THAT much because it's a smaller tv.

i'm still gonna go test it out, was just seeking other's opinions who might know more or have tested this out.

 

[cpawfan]

My question would be, is the difference really that much better or is it negligible on this size TV, since it's not 50'' + between 1080 and 720?

720p is going to look great on a 32" TV, but 1080p is obviously going to look much better.

I think there's a big difference, so go for the 1080p

If you have poor vision, and plan to position the TV 10+ feet from your couch, or bed, 720p and 1080p will not make any difference to you.

In an attempt to summarize, KC has a hypothesis that on a 32 the visual difference between 720p and 1080p won't be worth the price difference.

Denny and CK say the visual difference will be significant

Petey says that room and positioning factors are too important to give an analysis.

As a suggestion going forward, how about providing an opinion on the visual difference on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being extremely different and 1 being hardly noticeable.

 

[Petey]

I thought I read somewhere that the best viewing distance should be double inches of the TV. So for a 32 you should be 64 inches back, or about 5 and a half feet.

I know there are some suggestions, but most don't go with them if they plan to buy a smaller TV.

I noticed others made an important about viewing the technology with the proper source. It's a good point. People at Best Buy or Circuit City aren't always going to setup the units correctly for the optimal picture.

Make sure to ask the sales person if "this tv is hooked up via an HDMI cable, putting out 1080p", and likewise for 720p.

Other if they use an HDMI cable for the 720p unit, but not for the 1080p unit, the optimal difference will not be as great as it should be.

-Petey

 

[Kid Chocolate]

HDMI all the way. That's a must.

 

[JfizzleBlazer]

I have a 32 inch LCD 1080i 720p TV that I got 2 years ago and its still awesome. I love it and you couldn't beat the price of $479 I got it for on Black Friday. Either way you can't lose KC

 

[Kid Chocolate]

I have a 32 inch LCD 1080i 720p TV that I got 2 years ago and its still awesome. I love it and you couldn't beat the price of $479 I got it for on Black Friday. Either way you can't lose KC

Wait, you have a 1080i or 720p? or can it be both?

I think I've tried to process too much of this stuff too soon.

 

[Dumpy]

32" is fine for a small room. I watched 20" TVs for most of the 1990s.

Rear projection is not the way to go. You do get bang for your buck, but it's not going to be the best of the latest technology.

I wouldn't worry about 1080p being new for 32".

i don't know if plasma has caught up, but a year ago, in the larger sizes, the rear projection was FAR superior. In fact, they may not have made Plasmas and LCDs at the larger sizes at all. Every single unbiased tv quality ratings had the (large) rear projections at the top of the list. Every one. At the small sizes, that might not be the case.

I will stack my rear projection up against ANY plasma TV--I am guessing that the other posters here who have a Sony rear projection would gladly do the same, also.

 

[Dumpy]

Here's a thread from the other board when I first asked about advice on a big-screen HDTV:

http://www.basketballforum.com/new-jersey-off-topic-forum/365224-big-screen-tvs.html

Here's the thread when I discussed my choice of TV:

http://sportstwo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42271

Maybe that will help some?

 

[Denny Crane]

Wait, you have a 1080i or 720p? or can it be both?

I think I've tried to process too much of this stuff too soon.

It may be confusing, no doubt.

When you hook up to cable, your TV will receive SD (regular TV) signals, and HD signals in various formats including 1080i and 720p as well. It depends on the source! HD Sports tends to be broadcast in 720p, while Mark Cuban's HD Net broadcasts in 1080i. The TV, if capable, will show them all.

If the TV is 720p, it will resize a 1080 picture on the fly, much like how you can resize an image in a paint program.

The signal can be 1080 but the programming can still be SD. This makes sense if you consider that it's the signal that's HD and the signal is what matters. What you will see in this case is vertical bars on the left and right of the SD picture. These bars can damage some TV technologies (projection is one) if you watch lots of hours of TV with those bars on the screen - it's called burn in. The benefit of an HD signal is that the color information for all the dots is sent digitally so you get perfect colors and you don't have to do any adjustments on most TV's (projection you have to adjust convergence).

If you're comparing two TV pictures, and you can ask the sales guy to show Discovery HD Theater on both, you will be getting the same source and about the best picture quality available.

Something not mentioned yet is the sound. For a long time before HD was available, they've been making advancements in the sound. Many programs have Dolby Digital 5.1 sound tracks; if you have a nice sound system with front and center and rear speakers and a subwoofer, the audio effects are pretty amazing. You'll hear a helicopter fly from the rear to the front, or the music soundtrack from the back and the talking from the front.

If you don't have a sound system, then the sound put out by the TVs is something to compare, too. Many of the sets with awesome pictures have horrible sound - the sound isn't an issue if you have a sound system.

You mentioned HDMI. If you have XBox and PS3 and a cable/satellite receiver that all do HDMI, the TV needs 3x HDMI in if you want to use the TV to choose between them. Or you can use 1 HDMI for the PS3 and other kinds of video connections for the other sources. The newer sound systems also have HDMI and you can select the sound/picture sent to the TV using the amplifier; then only 1 HDMI on the TV is needed. Going forward, the more HDMI inputs the better!

HDMI does nothing for the picture that DVI won't do. The real benefit of HDMI is that it packages the DVI picture signal with the advanced audio signals in one cable. And some of the newest audio signals require the DVI connection.

Yeah, I know I'm putting a lot of info out there. Take it all in and use it for whatever benefit you can.

 

[Petey]

Wait, you have a 1080i or 720p? or can it be both?

I think I've tried to process too much of this stuff too soon.

Can be both. Any 1080p tv you get will be able to do the other resolutions.

-Petey

 

[Denny Crane]

i don't know if plasma has caught up, but a year ago, in the larger sizes, the rear projection was FAR superior. In fact, they may not have made Plasmas and LCDs at the larger sizes at all. Every single unbiased tv quality ratings had the (large) rear projections at the top of the list. Every one. At the small sizes, that might not be the case.

I will stack my rear projection up against ANY plasma TV--I am guessing that the other posters here who have a Sony rear projection would gladly do the same, also.

Nuts.

No matter what the rear projection technology, it is subject to moving parts that fail or lose alignment. Sony stopped making rear projection in 2007 altogether. Mitsubishi DLP TVs have a horrible reputation for the color wheel and lamp going bad at random times.

My choice of TV is plasma or LCD. I was leery of plasma for the longest time because of burn in issues and short lifetime. Any plasma TV made in the past 3 years will have a 60,000 hour lifetime (7 years if you leave it on 24/7), while LCD is 50,000 hours.

My current TV is a 58" Plasma Pioneer Viera series. Unless they make some radical change to HD format, it's going to last for me for 20 years (at 8hrs/day), and the picture is amazing. CNET's editor's choice for best picture for screen 50" or better.

 

[Petey]

You mentioned HDMI. If you have XBox and PS3 and a cable/satellite receiver that all do HDMI, the TV needs 3x HDMI in if you want to use the TV to choose between them. Or you can use 1 HDMI for the PS3 and other kinds of video connections for the other sources. The newer sound systems also have HDMI and you can select the sound/picture sent to the TV using the amplifier; then only 1 HDMI on the TV is needed. Going forward, the more HDMI inputs the better!

You can get a splitter. There won't be many 32 inch LCDs with 3 HDMI, or it'll come at a premium cost.

-Petey

 

[Denny Crane]

You can get a splitter. There won't be many 32 inch LCDs with 3 HDMI, or it'll come at a premium cost.

-Petey

I know, but it's something to consider. KC should think about what he wants to hook up (VCR, DVR, DVD, etc.) and how the TV has inputs for those things.

 

[Dumpy]

Nuts.

No matter what the rear projection technology, it is subject to moving parts that fail or lose alignment. Sony stopped making rear projection in 2007 altogether. Mitsubishi DLP TVs have a horrible reputation for the color wheel and lamp going bad at random times.

My choice of TV is plasma or LCD. I was leery of plasma for the longest time because of burn in issues and short lifetime. Any plasma TV made in the past 3 years will have a 60,000 hour lifetime (7 years if you leave it on 24/7), while LCD is 50,000 hours.

My current TV is a 58" Plasma Pioneer Viera series. Unless they make some radical change to HD format, it's going to last for me for 20 years (at 8hrs/day), and the picture is amazing. CNET's editor's choice for best picture for screen 50" or better.

I knew that about the Mitsubishi, and maybe the Toshiba, also. One of those brands received the highest rating from consumer reports, but it later turned out that the lamp was always breaking and it was taken off the market. Sony had by far the best reputation for quality and repair history. I have no idea why they pulled out of the market; I guess they figure that as plasmas and LCD keep dropping in price, the profit margins on the rear projections will continue to fall.

Again, I have no complaints with the sony rear projection. I'm thrilled with it.

Size/cost/quality are all factors that will come into play, of course. I think there is going to be little difference that a normal person will notice between a similarly sized rear projection, plasma, and LCD TVs with the same resolution.

ALWAYS REMEMBER that when you go to the store, they will have adjusted the settings on all the TVs to really pop out the colors. When you get home, you will want to change the settings; it won't look right under normal conditions, under normal lighting. There are about 60 or 70 different settings to adjust. There are sites like CNET that will recommend certain settings for a particular TV to make it look the best.

I just recommend looking through the consumer reports ratings and CNET reviews; they're usually pretty good.

[I'll disagree with Denny here; if you can get a Sony rear projection on clearance, I would jump all over it. You could possibly get a bigger TV at a much lower cost, and the quality will be comparable. It all depends on the amount of space you have]