32" 720p vs 1080p

ElliorR

ElliorR

ElliorR

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I have just ordered a new TV to replace my old and huge 44" rear projection TV and have a question.

I am down sizing to a 32" as my current TV is far too big, not just physically but screen size as well (for my living room). I was going to get a 37" but a friend of mine just bought a 32" TV and when I saw it I was surprised how big it actually was.

OK to the question.

My mates TV is 720p and mine is, when it gets delivered, 1080p. A friend of ours said to us that on a 32" TV having 1080p over 720p is negligible and not worth the extra cash. Is there any truth to that or is it just something our friend has heard that is crap?


cheers
 
Your friend has heard crap lol. 1080P means you will have a 1920 by 1080 resolution compared to only 1280 by 720 of 720p. You will be able to watch higher resoluton/qualities if you have blueray/skyhd etc. Plus if you were to use it as a monitor for a htpc you will get a higher resolution in windows aswell for browsing the web.

At 32 inch you really want to have 1080p.
 
Thats exactly what I thought, but his only comment was at that screen size you don't notice the improvement of things like 1080p blu rays over them at 720p/1080i.
 
r2d2 said:
Your friend has heard crap lol. 1080P means you will have a 1920 by 1080 resolution compared to only 1280 by 720 of 720p. You will be able to watch higher resoluton/qualities if you have blueray/skyhd etc. Plus if you were to use it as a monitor for a htpc you will get a higher resolution in windows aswell for browsing the web.

At 32 inch you really want to have 1080p.
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Wrong. His friend is correct, for TV usage at 32", there will be very little noticeable difference between 720p and 1080p. If you were to use the screen as a PC monitor, then you would notice a difference in that respect, purely due to the operating system appearance changing under different resolutions.

Unless you sit with your nose to the screen, you won't see much difference between 720p and 1080p (I know I can't on mine).

Although, with a 1080p monitor you usually get a better quality TV, since the 1080p 32"ers are usually better brands.

Also, 720p TV's actually have a resolution of 768*1366, so whether you input a 720p or 1080p source, there is a little bit of scaling there, which either means quality loss from upscaling or jaggies from downscaling. At least with a 1080p TV, you will get no jaggies from 1080p sources.

Does the TV say it actually has a resolution of 1080p, or that it accepts 1080p sources? My downstairs TV is a Sony Bravia 32" W5500, and my bedroom TV is a Bravia 32" S3000. Both said "1080p", but only my W5500 actually has a resolution of 1080p.
 
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Well there will be a diff, the numbers prove it, but i think your m8 is partly right, i think it would be tough to tell 720 and 1080 apart tbh, deff not a "OMG! that picture is pish compared to that one" moment.
 
Spyke_UK said:
Well there will be a diff, the numbers prove it, but i think your m8 is partly right, i think it would be tough to tell 720 and 1080 apart tbh, deff not a "OMG! that picture is pish compared to that one" moment.
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You are forgetting about the most important factor, the human eyes :)

If you could compare identical sets where one is 1080p and the other is only a 720p screen, I can say for certain that most people WILL NOT be able to tell the difference between them. Unless you go up to the screen and see which pixels are smaller (1080p screen).

I have comapred blu-rays on pretty much identical sets, side by side, where both sets were professionally calibrated and the only difference was the resolution. On both casino royale and starship troopers it took me about 10 mins, and going to 5 foot away (from the 50 inch screens) to tell. And this was with me trying very hard, and was only noticable when there was hardly any camera movement. How many films do you watch from this close, and how many have a lack of significant camera panning ;) ;)

Forget the mareketing crap, the difference between 1080p and 720p is a lot lot smaller than most people realise. Go for it if you sit very close to a set (say around 4-5ft on a 32/37) or about 6ft on a 50 (to avoid seeing the pixels structure), or if you plan on using it as a pc monitor and sitting close.
 
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Thanks for the info guys, sounds like my mate was right. I shall be hooking my PC up to it so thats the main reason i went 1080p.
 
The "experts" say 32" is okay at 720p, 1080p is negligible

40" or above go 1080p

I have a 42" and prefer the resolution at 720p for desktop, use and media centre. 1080p and the icons are tiny and I sit a way from the tv and have excellent eysesight.
 
Its no specific size, its the combination of size and distance, 42inch at 5.5ft you really want a 1080p resolution, by 12Ft, the difference between 720p and 1080p on a 42inch is negligable, 60inch at 12ft you want 1080p.

Stretch that out to 18ft, and even the 60inch might as well be 720p.

The only "bugbear" is the scalers. If the TV has a poor scaler, downscaling from 1080p to 720p can introduce jaggies and artifacts, which will be more noticeable than the lack of resolution. However the best scalers dont really suffer with this. Panasonics scalers for example are exceptional.

The bigger the TV the farther away you can sit before you "lose" the benifits of the resolution. The actual pixel grid itself.. should be able to get pretty close before thats a problem even on a 720p set.

PS, screens to big for room, at 12ft, you can get away with an 80 inch picture, to get a experience fairly close to mid row seats in an average cinema.... There's pretty much no such thing as too big for movies :)
 
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GWillow said:
at what screen size does 1080p become noticable?
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spirity said:
There's no definitive answer, but as a rough guide, 40" and above.
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THFC said:
The "experts" say 32" is okay at 720p, 1080p is negligible

40" or above go 1080p

I have a 42" and prefer the resolution at 720p for desktop, use and media centre. 1080p and the icons are tiny and I sit a way from the tv and have excellent eysesight.
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Read my post again, it's not only about the distance.

One thing i didn't factor in is eyesight too ;)
 
Depends on how far away you sit, my 1080p 22" monitor is 2 feet away and my 26" 720p bravia is 3 feet away to my left, and the dark knight definitely looks better on the 1080p, HOWEVER....i'm searching for it. So its not a big difference at all at these sizes, but it is noticable.

oh, I wear glasses too.. lol
 
Golden Ape said:
You guys might find this site of interest: http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/ The graphics show a nice plot of viewing distance vs screen size with lines indicating at what point you can start to see the difference in resolution (i.e. at what point someone with 20/20 vision can resolve pixels of different sizes)
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It's used a lot, and fairly useful. But it only really shows differences with regards to pixel size, and won't take account for the loss of detail as soon as there is camera panning. This is what kills detail (on ANY screen) and makes the difference very slight indeed, taking into account normal viewing distances.
 
on my 23" with a native 2048x1152 I can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p extremely easily...? It's a computer monitor but how should it be any different with a TV?
 
gurusan said:
on my 23" with a native 2048x1152 I can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p extremely easily...? It's a computer monitor but how should it be any different with a TV?
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How far away do you sit from your PC monitor? Because I don't think many people sit similar distances from their TV.
 
oli collett said:
How far away do you sit from your PC monitor? Because I don't think many people sit similar distances from their TV.
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indeed - and in some ways negats the need for a 1080p screen for a PC when its a HTPC, you wont see the icons at distance on 1080p 32"

i now have a 50" 1080p, and from our viewing distance 1080p looks good, but not "awesome". the 720p on the old 37 it replaced from similar viewing distances looked only marginally better than an upscaled DVD, but still better enough to justify it (primarily for gaming reasons tbh)
 
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