720p vs. 1080i vs. 1080p Question

[Maestro]

Three years ago, my in-laws bought us a top-of-the-line 46" Samsung 1080p TV. It's contrast ratio is like a gazillion to 1, and it has tons of bells and whistles.

Last year, they bought a 60" with similar top-of-the-lineness to it.

We visit them, the picture looks amazing. I watch ours and the picture looks great. They have Comcast cable, we have DISH. We use HDMI cables, they use component. How do I get my picture from great to amazing?

DISH has 480p, 720p, and 1080i as the HDMI options. When they set-up our DISH HD, they set it for 1080i, but I'm not so sure that it shouldn't be 720p, but neither look awesome.

On the flipside, Blue-ray discs look beyond amazing on our TV.

What do I do? Is there something I'm missing in my set up either on the TV or with the DISH? Is it just because the DISH is DISH? Am I too close to my TV?

HELP!

 

[sojourner]

1080i = interlaced video. it's not gonna look as good as 1080p.
720p is lower resolution than 1080, so it's not going to look as good.
Blueray is 1080p, hence the amazing.

Your limiter is the options provided by Dish. Not your equipment. Do you have a cable provider or FIOS provider that offers 1080p? you could switch to that.

 

[Maestro]

I don't know if the in-laws have 1080p as their resolution.

Of the two resolutions offered to me by DISH, 720p and 1080i, which one will look better?

 

[Arrqh]

Your limiter is the options provided by Dish. Not your equipment. Do you have a cable provider or FIOS provider that offers 1080p? you could switch to that.

No one broadcasts in 1080p that I'm aware of (too much bandwidth).

 

[Starbreaker]

1080p is mostly a movies thing, even though you can get some CBS shows in 1080p online, I don't know about other channels though.

 

[Amaris]

I don't know if the in-laws have 1080p as their resolution.

Of the two resolutions offered to me by DISH, 720p and 1080i, which one will look better?

Personally, and this is only from what I've actually seen, 720p looks a little bit better than 1080i.


J.

 

[Supreme Admiral]

1080i = interlaced video. it's not gonna look as good as 1080p.
720p is lower resolution than 1080, so it's not going to look as good.
Blueray is 1080p, hence the amazing.

Your limiter is the options provided by Dish. Not your equipment. Do you have a cable provider or FIOS provider that offers 1080p? you could switch to that.

Directv offers 1080p.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

The earlier desctiptions of the various HD signal types are correct. here's a couple of additional factors to consider.

No US channel is broadcast over the air at 1080p. The signal wouldn't fit in the allocated bandwidth. 1080i is used by NBC. ABC and CBS are broadcast at 720p.

What looks good often gets complicated. If the over the air station has subchannels (like my station, we have a CW affiliate and a weather channel off our main), These rob some of the 19 MB transport stream that could ba available to a single channel.

So, the station clips a little bandwidth, and then...

Both cable providers and dish recompress and bit rob further in order to get more channels in their allocated bandwidth. For them, the game has always been "number of channels" and quality is second to that. Whether Dish or Comcast steal more bits is beyond my knowledge.

So...

Over the air (where possible, I know everyone can't have an antenna that'll pull the signals in) will always have the best picture quality for a given local channel.

Hopefully, this helps to explain why you're seeing differences in picture quality.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

720p and 1080i are almost indisguisable on a LCD TV anyway these days, on a CTR that was a different story but seeing as we are moving quite quickly over to LCD i think 720p vs 1080i is almost the same for everybody picture quality wise these days with a LCD.

Anyway it works out some thing like this.

1080p best picture available, but your going to need at least bare minimum a 42in TV, anything over that is better but forget 1080p on anything less.

720p is second in line in picture quality wise, this on anything no matter if its a 15in monitor or a big 50 in screen will look great.

1080i was the sort of poor cousin to 1080p, never quite 1080p not never quite 720p, in all this choice would work on anything from a small monitor to a big TV.

At the end of the day though no matter whats written its all down to personal taste and what equipment you have, i have a 1080p LCD but i never use the 1080p for gaming as i prefer 720p and only use 1080p for the occasional Bluray movie.

 

[Amaris]

720p and 1080i are almost indisguisable on a LCD TV anyway these days, on a CTR that was a different story but seeing as we are moving quite quickly over to LCD i think 720p vs 1080i is almost the same for everybody picture quality wise these days with a LCD.

Anyway it works out some thing like this.

1080p best picture available, but your going to need at least bare minimum a 42in TV, anything over that is better but forget 1080p on anything less.

720p is second in line in picture quality wise, this on anything no matter if its a 15in monitor or a big 50 in screen will look great.

1080i was the sort of poor cousin to 1080p, never quite 1080p not never quite 720p, in all this choice would work on anything from a small monitor to a big TV.

At the end of the day though no matter whats written its all down to personal taste and what equipment you have, i have a 1080p LCD but i never use the 1080p for gaming as i prefer 720p and only use 1080p for the occasional Bluray movie.

Just to add, 720p still looks great with Blu-ray. I have a Blu-ray player and a 23" 720p HDTV (an AOC I bought for $150 brand new), and the image when I watch The Fifth Element is just superb. Eventually, when I have a job, I'd like to buy a nice 42" TV, and since cost will be a major factor, I'll probably end up with a 720p 42" TV, which is fine with me. The quality is magnificent.

J.

 

[Maestro]

Is there any way to tell my TV that the incoming signal is 720p or 1080i and to scale back its greatness to match those settings?

 

[Amaris]

Is there any way to tell my TV that the incoming signal is 720p or 1080i and to scale back its greatness to match those settings?

I don't know if HDTVs have that option since they convert automatically. I know modern game systems and some blu-ray players have that option, but that's all I can think of.


J.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Is there any way to tell my TV that the incoming signal is 720p or 1080i...

Some sets will display that stuff, but it's neer the same between manufacturers. RTFM and if that fails, some googling on your model number may tell you some magic combination of remote button trickery will reveal some undocumented pages.

As for scaling, it's automtic. A 720 image will fill your 1080 screen.

 

[sojourner]

720p and 1080i are almost indisguisable on a LCD TV anyway these days, on a CTR that was a different story but seeing as we are moving quite quickly over to LCD i think 720p vs 1080i is almost the same for everybody picture quality wise these days with a LCD.

Anyway it works out some thing like this.

1080p best picture available, but your going to need at least bare minimum a 42in TV, anything over that is better but forget 1080p on anything less.

720p is second in line in picture quality wise, this on anything no matter if its a 15in monitor or a big 50 in screen will look great.

1080i was the sort of poor cousin to 1080p, never quite 1080p not never quite 720p, in all this choice would work on anything from a small monitor to a big TV.

At the end of the day though no matter whats written its all down to personal taste and what equipment you have, i have a 1080p LCD but i never use the 1080p for gaming as i prefer 720p and only use 1080p for the occasional Bluray movie.

Just to add, 720p still looks great with Blu-ray. I have a Blu-ray player and a 23" 720p HDTV (an AOC I bought for $150 brand new), and the image when I watch The Fifth Element is just superb. Eventually, when I have a job, I'd like to buy a nice 42" TV, and since cost will be a major factor, I'll probably end up with a 720p 42" TV, which is fine with me. The quality is magnificent.

J.

And to add to that, the quality of image between 720p and 1080p also depends on screen size and viewing distance. Over 8 feet viewing distance and no matter the tv size, 720p will look fine. As size goes down you can get closer and the 720p image will still look good (explaining why your 23" display has a good image).

Oh, and unless your shopping online, good luck finding a 720p LCD over 36" in the stores here in the states. They have been pretty much phased out. Heck, it's getting hard to find 1080i in stores now.

 

[Amaris]

720p and 1080i are almost indisguisable on a LCD TV anyway these days, on a CTR that was a different story but seeing as we are moving quite quickly over to LCD i think 720p vs 1080i is almost the same for everybody picture quality wise these days with a LCD.

Anyway it works out some thing like this.

1080p best picture available, but your going to need at least bare minimum a 42in TV, anything over that is better but forget 1080p on anything less.

720p is second in line in picture quality wise, this on anything no matter if its a 15in monitor or a big 50 in screen will look great.

1080i was the sort of poor cousin to 1080p, never quite 1080p not never quite 720p, in all this choice would work on anything from a small monitor to a big TV.

At the end of the day though no matter whats written its all down to personal taste and what equipment you have, i have a 1080p LCD but i never use the 1080p for gaming as i prefer 720p and only use 1080p for the occasional Bluray movie.

Just to add, 720p still looks great with Blu-ray. I have a Blu-ray player and a 23" 720p HDTV (an AOC I bought for $150 brand new), and the image when I watch The Fifth Element is just superb. Eventually, when I have a job, I'd like to buy a nice 42" TV, and since cost will be a major factor, I'll probably end up with a 720p 42" TV, which is fine with me. The quality is magnificent.

J.

And to add to that, the quality of image between 720p and 1080p also depends on screen size and viewing distance. Over 8 feet viewing distance and no matter the tv size, 720p will look fine. As size goes down you can get closer and the 720p image will still look good (explaining why your 23" display has a good image).

Oh, and unless your shopping online, good luck finding a 720p LCD over 36" in the stores here in the states. They have been pretty much phased out. Heck, it's getting hard to find 1080i in stores now.

That means 1080p is coming down in price to fill that space, though, right?
Here's the distance from my couch/bed to the 23" TV:

I bought it when we lived in an apt. and my bed was only 3 feet away.
An upgrade may be in order.

J.

 

[Saturn0660]

1080i = interlaced video. it's not gonna look as good as 1080p.
720p is lower resolution than 1080, so it's not going to look as good.
Blueray is 1080p, hence the amazing.

Your limiter is the options provided by Dish. Not your equipment. Do you have a cable provider or FIOS provider that offers 1080p? you could switch to that.

Directv offers 1080p.

Only for PPV..

 

[Saturn0660]

Three years ago, my in-laws bought us a top-of-the-line 46" Samsung 1080p TV. It's contrast ratio is like a gazillion to 1, and it has tons of bells and whistles.

Last year, they bought a 60" with similar top-of-the-lineness to it.

We visit them, the picture looks amazing. I watch ours and the picture looks great. They have Comcast cable, we have DISH. We use HDMI cables, they use component. How do I get my picture from great to amazing?

DISH has 480p, 720p, and 1080i as the HDMI options. When they set-up our DISH HD, they set it for 1080i, but I'm not so sure that it shouldn't be 720p, but neither look awesome.

On the flipside, Blue-ray discs look beyond amazing on our TV.

What do I do? Is there something I'm missing in my set up either on the TV or with the DISH? Is it just because the DISH is DISH? Am I too close to my TV?

HELP!

DishNetwork is your problem. They are a big steamy pile of poop. My mom has DISH and it looks like crap on both of their HDTV's one is a super oldschool Toshiba. It's so old doesn't even have HDMI I have it hookup up with Components. They also have a sony LCD. I have it hooked up HDMI.. It doesn't look any better.