I’ve seen the light…or pixels… whatever you want to call it. 1080p vs 720p

[jschipmann]

I figured I would post this for anyone in the market for a new HDTV set and pondering the question of should I go 1080p or 720p

I got the itch for a new toy is what it came down to. I have had my trusty 55″ 1080i CRT RPTV for quite some time now and while the picture was still pretty good I knew that the details weren’t as fine as they used to be. Plus with having a relatively small living room a flatscreen would certainly open up the room quite a bit. Now don’t get me wrong, my set was still very bright, colors looked great and HD was still pretty good, but when watching Blu-Rays through my PS3 I only saw a small boost over standard DVD. I didn’t look at Blu-Ray and think WOW this is soo much better than my upscaled DVD.

So… I set a budget…which was a lowly $1000 for a new TV. I looked all around for the best deals and seen a ton on the 50″ Samsung 720p plasma and thought ok… that’s what I will see if I can test out, I’ll bring my laptop up (which has VGA and HDMI out) and see how it looksfor HTPC use.

I started pondering all the questions everyone does. Will I notice a diffrence between 720p and 1080p from about 11 feet back on a 50″ set. Will the cost difference of a 120Hz set really be justifiable.

Well one day I wandered in to Best Buy to goof off during luch one day and came across a display they had, confy couch, nice sound system, blu-ray player and a samsung 1080p 120Hz set. I sat down and watched a few clips from King Kong, Fast and the Furious Tokyo drift and etc. I was absolutely floored! I had never seen HD like that, it was like looking out a window. I looked at other sets around that were playign various HD content and none of them really looked as good so I convinced myself that they had to be using video clisp on that blu ray that were higher bit rate than normal.

I went home that night and hooked my PS3 up to my 37″ 720p set to see if maybe it was just detail being lost on my 55″ RPTV. Well…. it looked the same to me, didn’t look any different than my RPTV. So again I convinced myself it was a high bitrate marketing scheme cooked up by bestbuy.

Well I hunted and hunted for a new set, still determined. but all I could really afford in my pricerange was smaller 1080p sets or 50″ 720p sets. I knew if I were going to get a new set it would have to be atleast 50″ because my old set was a 55″ 4×3 and the 16×9 area was about 50″, so to get the same size picture and not feel like I skimped I stuck with the 50″ number.

Well… I happened up to Sams Club one dayand found out they constantly put out TVs that have been brought back, or repaired and brought back. I started poking around and seen some really good deals. But one really stood out to me. It was a Philips 52″ 1080p 120Hz set (7403) that was selling for under 50% off of what it was retailing for (and it was just a return, not a repair!?!? STILL IN THE BOX, all manuals and etc were untouched, warranty card and connection diagram stil stuck ot the back of the set!). I didn’t know anything on this set and rather than make a uneducated purchase I held off and went back to the office and started to look up some info on it, and what I seen I really liked. While it didn’t have VGA in, it did allow you to put the set in to PC mode, unscaled so you could use a HDMI port for a HTPC. In addition it had a 2ms panel responce time, and to boot it was 1080p and 120Hz!

I went back after work thinking ok I missed out on it it;s already gone…. but there it was waiting for me. I quickly snatched it up tested it out for about 40 minutes in store (look it over make sure it isn’t damaged, make sure it doesn;t display corruption after time etc etc.) and took it home.

I’ll tell you now… get someone to help you carry a set like this in lmao, while it was only 95lbs a set like this is bulky and difficult to tug and etc. yes I dragged it in the house myself, but luckily it was in the box 😀

I hooked everything up to it, and started out with tweaking colors and contrast turning “advanced” features off etc etc

I then popped in a blu-ray

my jaw hit the floor, I was absolutely astounded by the image I was seeing on screen, and then thought back to bestbuy…this was the same PQ I seen there!

my HTPC hooked up text was crisp and sharp

But here is where things take an odd turn. I now notice a huge difference between DVD and blu-ray. I notice a big difference betwen 1080i broadcasts and 720p broadcasts, I notice things I never did before, and all from 11 feet back from the set.

I play around with the Digital natural motion settings on blu-ray and while it looks amazing and adds an almost 3D effect to a lot of blu-ray content some stuff it is better left off, but the PQ is absolutely astounding.

I then realize that all my questions were then answered, yes I did notice a diffrence between 720p and 1080p, yes I did see a difference between 60 and 120Hz

The follwoing week my work purchases a 50″ LG 720p plasma that I was goign to go look at and test for my own purchase. I’ll tell you this now. If I bought that set I woudl have been sorely dissaponted as I would have gained nothing over my RPTV. there is a night and day difference between what I got and that LG. Contrast, motion, sharpeness, color EVERYTHING.

The moral of the story is… GO FOR IT. If your torn between a 720p set and a 1080p 120Hz set (of course depending on the set) go for the 1080p it does make a difference (again depending on the set lol, if you buy some cheap ass low contrast crappy featured 1080p set… there is your first problem)

Go for the better set, it may be more than you were lookign to spend but long term it will benefit you more to be truely happy with your set.

BUT BE WARNED!!! A good HDTV set will only make you want to buy more Blu-Rays, a better TV stand, a better surround sound system and etc. It’s all a conspiracy, or like crack and meth… HIGHLY ADDICTING!

And yes… I did get a new stand, surround sound and lot’s of blu-rays roflmao. BUT HEY I bought the Blu-Rays at pawnshops cheap, the Stand was a $532 stand at sams discounted to $100 and the surround I got from Big Lots (Denon with boston acoustics speakers and 10″ 200W powered sub) after selling off my old stuff.

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