On The Subject Of HDTV... 720, 1080 etc etc

[Ben]

whats all the talk of 1440x1080? That is a 4:3 resolution, 1080i should be at 1920x1080.

Same as Anamorphic DVDs, it's compressed horizonally and then stretched out again for display.

Id prefer 720p any day, looks better tbh with each image being 1280x720 rather than 1440x540.

so going by your 1440x540 assumption for 1080i material. We are currently getting 720x288 on BBC Broadcasts (probably other ones too)? (i.e. being 720x576i25 material)
Sorry, but I don't see Interlaced as half resolution. If you had 1080i at 100fps would you still think that 720p at 50fps is better?

 

[Energize]

Same as Anamorphic DVDs, it's compressed horizonally and then stretched out again for display.



so going by your 1440x540 assumption for 1080i material. We are currently getting 720x288 on BBC Broadcasts (probably other ones too)? (i.e. being 720x576i25 material)
Sorry, but I don't see Interlaced as half resolution. If you had 1080i at 100fps would you still think that 720p at 50fps is better?

Interlaced isn't as high quality as progressive though because the individual images are half res. If 1080i was 100fps I wouldn't be bothered either way.

 

[Ben]

Interlaced isn't as high quality as progressive though because the individual images are half res. If 1080i was 100fps I wouldn't be bothered either way.

That's a contradiction then, since 1080i at 100fps would mean you'd get a complete 1080 frame every 1/50th second. Same could be said for 1080i50 vs 720p25 (both entirely possible within the HDTV spec). with both you'll get a complete frame every 1/25th second, the difference being that the 1080i picture will be of better quality (source permitting of course).

 

[Energize]

The fields are still only 1440x540 so at least to me 1080i appears lower quality than 720p because you only see 1440x540 fields at once not the full 1440x1080 frame.

 

[Ben]

The fields are still only 1440x540 so at least to me 1080i appears lower quality than 720p because you only see 1440x540 fields at once not the full 1440x1080 frame.

OK, I must ask, what sources are you using for your basis of comparison? and also what display.

PS: The "OK" isn't an acknowledgement of "the fields are still only 1440x540".

 

[Energize]

Sammy 40", stuff taken with a hd camera, video games played on a 360 and hd trailers fed by a htpc.

 

[Mr Latte]

Having a large collection of 720p & 1080i material yes quality differs on the source but judging the best of each i think its a hard call to see a real winner.
Sometimes 1080i does seem a little juddery in slow pans but that could be my HTPC (pixel adaptive/t-tek) combination. As is usually the case it will all depend on the equipment used and why views will always be mixed.

720p will scale up better to a 1080p screen than 1080i scales down to the 1366x768. 1080i loses a lot of its benifical higher res on a 1366x768 screen when compared to being displayed on a 1920x1080 panel, just ask any lucky Sony X2000 owners according to reports coming in.

For games etc im fully for the additional frames and progressive for a better rock solid stable image over a higher upscaled intelaced resolution, eg X360 running in 1080i mode is worse imho.

 

[Shimmyhill]

Sammy 40", stuff taken with a hd camera, video games played on a 360 and hd trailers fed by a htpc.

720p will always look better on your tv as the 1080i is downscaled to 540, deinterlaced to 540p and then upscaled to the native res. Its the cheapest and nastiest way of doing it and most lcd's and some plasmas do it and kill the signal.

1080i properly deinterlaced and scaled will look better than 720p on slow moving stuff like nature some films etc. Progressive is generally better for fast movement.

However the people at sky (and many sporting mixers inc current WC) prefer 1080i to 720p and say in the mixing and final output it produces better images/movement than 720p.