Re: 720p vs. 1080p at (37" to 45")
- From: "Matthew Vaughan" <matt-no-spam-109@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 09:48:50 -0800
"tq96" <tq96@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns973FB5FE92C4tq96@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> so I imagine I would be blown away by 1080p (if there
>>> was a source for it, of course). My inclination would be to go for
>>> 1080p. Again, nothing scientific, just preferences after using my
>
> I think that HDTV tech will eventually settle on 2160p as the display spec
> of choice. That allows both 1080i/1080p and 720p to be displayed with
> integral scaling. (1080 x 2 = 2160; 720 x 3 = 2160)
Well, maybe in 100 or more years. I doubt the push to get better than the
current HD spec for home use (other than possibly 1080p60) will have any
significant weight for many years. Most people simply can't sit close enough
in their home to a large enough screen to see much difference, and there is
a huge amount of needed improvement just to hit the potential of the
standards we already have before worrying about still-higher resolutions. In
addition, scaling 720p or 1080i up to 2160 is not going to make them look
any better than scaling them to 1080p; it may well look WORSE.
The more I learn and the more I think about it, the more I'm changing my
mind: I'm not even that excited about the 1080p TVs and I wouldn't generally
recommend spending more for one right now. In theory, yes, but in general,
HDTV, all along the line, has so many limitations that I doubt the
resolution spec of the TV means much by the time it gets there. There are
limitations of cameras and all the other equipment (which often don't manage
more than 1440 across for 1080i, for instance), digital compression which
robs huge amounts of potential quality, analog bandwidth limitations at
various points that rob the picture of fine detail, format conversions that
degrade the signal each time even if done "perfectly", scaling and
de-interlace systems that may use crude methods, etc.
The biggest thing to remember is that consumer electronics, including HDTV,
is a highly price-competitive business with razor thin margins. They are
going to cut every single corner they possibly can and use the cheapest
methods (for things like scaling and deinterlacing) and cheapest components
(including the analog components, which a lot of people forget about when
talking about "digital" systems) that are available. This sometimes goes for
the most expensive sets as much as the lower end models, but it also means
that as time goes on, prices drop and competition heats up, quality is NOT
guaranteed to steadily get better, unless you are willing to pay a
significant premium, because manufacturers have to cut costs more and more
to remain competitive. Most customers are not measuring the real-world
resolving power of their TV and noticing it doesn't actually display as many
lines as they think it should, and since more customers are not complaining
about that (and, more to the point, buying the sets that perform better),
the TV manufacturers are certainly not going to do anything about it.
In addition, the number of stages, both analog and digital, that the signal
passes through before it leaves the transmitter, each of which limit its
potential quality in one way or another, is enough to significantly degrade
the signal before it even gets to your house. And not all of even the
"professional" equipment is going to have the specs you might expect (often
not handling the actual maximum HD resolutions, for instance): so long as
they work well and look good overall, nobody is going to complain if a piece
of equipment can only handle 1024 horizontal resolution instead of 1280, let
alone 1920, especially when there are few alternatives that can do the job
in a professional environment (or if they cost more than is worthwhile to
pay).
The fact that HDTV is "digital" doesn't mean it lives up to the ideal,
theoretical performance suggested by its specs: it just means that you have
the typical analog equipment and signal-chain limitations that have always
plagued TV PLUS digital compression limitations (with the signal usually
being compressed, uncompressed, then re-compressed more than once), format
conversion, scaling and de-interlacing (again, often the signal gets scaled
several different times before it gets to your eyes, both in production and
at your home) added on top. This is not a computer graphics card and a
monitor where it addresses each pixel clearly and individually without
noticeable additional noise, a few bytes of color straight to your eye. You
are not actually getting 1920x1080 discrete pixels each addressed
specifically with its precise and accurate color value (or 1280x720 even)
exactly as it would have been captured by some ideal, perfect camera!
I think the fact that 1024x768 "HD" monitors look great despite not matching
ideal HD resolutions and having only 38% as many pixels as a "1080" display
should, or that 852x480 "ED" plasmas can look excellent, almost
indistinguishable from HD at a reasonable viewing distance (say, over 8-10
feet, though admittedly having noticeably less greyscale detail up close)
despite having only 20% of the pixels of 1080, are both telling of how
unimportant a specific resolution is, and how far from the ideal of true
1920x1080 with perfect video quality HDTV still is (and will likely remain
for many years). (HD looks dramatically better than SD, particularly NTSC,
because those formats also fell far short of their theoretical potential for
the same reasons.)
The use of superior analog components and less-aggressive compression,
combined with careful calibration, superior scaling and format conversion
and great care with the signal at all stages of production, are enough to
make digital cinema systems look dramatically better than home HDTV despite
not always approaching 1920x1080 resolution themselves; they often initially
used little better than 1024x854 or so pixels for displaying an anamorphic
movie like SW: EP I or II. Even in high-end home theatres, often the best
components end up being front projectors that can't display full HD
resolutions either.
Plus this highlights that no matter how perfect HD becomes, limitations of
the human eye in ordinary viewing conditions may make many of the
distinctions moot.
.
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