Which resolution should I buy—720p or 1080p?

Are you in the market for a new television and debating whether it's worthwhile to spend less money on a lower-resolution model? We discuss the benefits and drawbacks of 1080p and 720p.

In a previous article, we discussed HDTV resolution and whether it was better to just purchase a "normal" 720p/1080i set or shell out more money for a set with greater resolution (1080p). Funny enough, we still need to ask this question today. How to increase the resolution 720p to 1080p with the help of HDMI Coax Modulator.

Naturally, 720p TVs will eventually be fully phased out by manufacturers. However, it can take a while. While the number of new 720p models is declining, 2009 will see the release of budget-friendly 720p TVs from producers including Sony, Samsung, LG, and Panasonic. As a result, many readers are asking us whether they should save some money and get them. With that in mind, the latest information on 720p vs. 1080p is provided below.

1. What is 1080p so great?

The latest HDTV Holy Grail is 1080p resolution or 1920x1080 pixels. This is due to the fact that the majority of 1080p HDTVs are able to display every pixel of HD broadcasts and Blu-ray movies with the greatest resolution. They offer step-down models' standard resolutions of 1366x768 (WXGA), 1280x720, or 1024x768 more than twice as much resolution (XGA). Modern HDTVs with these three lower resolutions are sometimes referred to as "720p." Nobody likes to recall numbers, and "768p" isn't exactly easy to say.

2. How much more expensive is a 1080p TV?

A few years ago, getting a 1080p model with the same screen size as an HD-ready set required paying a hefty extra. Although the difference has undoubtedly closed, it is still noticeable. For instance, a 32-inch LCD would incur a price increase of between $500 and $1,000 AU. For instance, the step-up 1080p Sharp LC32D77X retails for AU$1,999 while the LC32D53X costs AU$1,399 in Australia.

Your 720p selections are less plentiful as you move up the LCD size scale because vendors are switching to 1080p screens in the majority of LCDs bigger than 37 inches. The entry-level 42-inch plasma from Panasonic, the TH-42PX8A, costs around AU$1,699, while the TH-42PZ80A, which is a step-up 1080p model, costs about AU$2,549. Upgrading to 50-inch 1080p models would cost you AU$3,649.

3. Why is 1080p supposedly superior to 1080i?

The 1920x1080 resolution of 1080i, the previous HDTV king, is identical, but the images are transmitted in an interlaced format (the "i" in 1080i). Odd-numbered lines of the image display first in a 1080i source on a CRT, followed by even-numbered lines, all in less than a half-second. Especially with sports and other motion-intensive material, progressive-scan codecs like 480p, 720p, and 1080p express all the lines consecutively in a single pass for smoother, cleaner graphics.

Flat-screen televisions upconvert a 1080i signal to a 1080p picture automatically (see below), therefore there might not be a noticeable quality difference on some displays.

4. What media is offered in 1080p?

Because of bandwidth constraints, high-definition broadcasts now only come in 720p or 1080i; there is little to no possibility that this will change in the near future. In terms of HD gameplay, 720p and 1080p resolutions are both supported by Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles. (Also, in the user settings of those consoles, the 720p titles can be upscaled to 1080i or 1080p.)

A Blu-ray player is really the only option to get pure 1080p output, other than via connecting your PC to your HDTV. All Blu-ray players can output in 1080p. The vast majority of movie CDs are natively encoded in 1080p, which is more significant.

5. Which TV technologies support 1080p resolution? 

Every technology available today, with the exception of CRT, which has essentially been phased out, is available in 1080p variants. This means that all fixed-pixel projector and flat panel technologies, such as DLP, LCoS, and LCD, have 1080p-capable versions available (plasma and LCD). Naturally, as mentioned above, lower-priced entry-level versions are still only capable of 720p resolution. However, regardless of resolution, all fixed-pixel TVs use progressive-scan technology. In order to display interlaced content (1080i or even good old 480i standard definition), they convert it to progressive-scan.

We could merely elaborate on that final statement at this point and state that video is always displayed at native quality on all fixed-pixel devices. Scaling, also referred to as upconverting or downconverting, is the conversion process for resolution. Deinterlacing is a crucial aspect (see point number 8, below). A TV's ability to manage these operations properly (or poorly) determines how desirable it is. However, casual shoppers sometimes overlook this factor because it is harder to demonstrate in a spec sheet bullet point than screen size or resolution.

The message seems to be lost in the previous paragraph, therefore it should probably be bolded throughout. So let's reiterate it with concrete resolutions, at the risk of becoming redundant.