What's the diff between 720p and 1080p res

[cantdance]

I need to replace my 10 yr old 1080i 32" Sharp. Resolution used to be a simple concept but now it's more complicated. I don't want much, in fact I'm looking at a new one (another 32") from WalMart for $99+tax, free ship to store. I get all content from the airwaves and might hook up my laptop occasionally.

[ENTHUSIAST]

Get the 1080P much better picture quality. 720P is the bare minimum to be considered “HD”.

[CmdrChuch]

about 1,152,000 pixels

[SonofWWIIDI]

About 360p?

[PatC415]

About 360p?

somebody had to....

[Robotron2k84]

If you are OTA-only, no need for 4K without a Blu-Ray player. But, if you ever want to stream 4K content, get one of the newer Samsung QLED or LG OLED panels, they are amazing and just about as good as watching in a theater.

A 4K stream eats up between 15 and 25Mb/s of bandwidth, so plan accordingly.

[cantdance]

So the 720p is like 1080i? If that is the case I might as well get the 720p for my OTAW. Definitely not going 4k and I don't watch movies.

[remusrm]

720p is fine, since most broadcast in 720, or 1080i. only 1080p is from dvd/bluray. If you have bad vision it will be hard to see the difference unless you are really close. Don't get me started at 4k/8k!

[sonofeugene]

The difference between 720 and 1080 is noticeable. 720 us ancient technology and I'm surprised it's still made. If your goipoing to keep your TV for awhile, get 4K. 1080 at a bare minimum.

[Robotron2k84]

Most sets will do frame insertion to get 1080p from 1080i. If the frame insertion is done improperly you get the soap opera effect. Newer sets call it auto interpolation or frame smoothing, or other useless names. I turned it almost to zero on my sets as 4k upsampling from 1080p has the same issues. Haven't seen an 8k set in person, yet. I'd imagine it will be great for the 70-100 inch panels. Not so much for the smaller ones as most content is 4k/5k masters at this point.

I think 400ppi or something close is the upper limit to human resolution, anyway. 4K is anywhere from 80-120 ppi depending on panel size, but at 6ft viewing distance, you reach the practical limit of human vision. Higher resolutions benefit bigger panels.

For OP get the 1080p set. There's no reason 720p should even exist anymore, same as 480i/p.

[billofrights]

Most sets will do frame insertion to get 1080p from 1080i. If the frame insertion is done improperly you get the soap opera effect. Newer sets call it auto interpolation or frame smoothing, or other useless names. I turned it almost to zero on my sets as 4k upsampling from 1080p has the same issues. Haven't seen an 8k set in person, yet. I'd imagine it will be great for the 70-100 inch panels. Not so much for the smaller ones as most content is 4k/5k masters at this point.

I think 400ppi or something close is the upper limit to human resolution, anyway. 4K is anywhere from 80-120 ppi depending on panel size, but at 6ft viewing distance, you reach the practical limit of human vision. Higher resolutions benefit bigger panels.

For OP get the 1080p set. There's no reason 720p should even exist anymore, same as 480i/p.

I saw a bunch of 8k options at InfoComm in June, and they look amazing. Dell had a 32"-ish monitor that was gorgeous- but completely unnecessary for something you'll be sitting that close to. It also pumped out heat like a frikkin hair dryer.

[CandG]

The difference between 720 and 1080 is noticeable. 720 us ancient technology and I'm surprised it's still made. If your goipoing to keep your TV for awhile, get 4K. 1080 at a bare minimum.

I was just about to say the same thing. I can't even tolerate watching DVDs (which are normally 720p) anymore, the picture is so bad compared to 1080p.

However, 1080p on anything under about 50" is good enough for most people. The difference between 4k and 1080p on a <50" screen is barely noticeable for most people. However, the difference is definitely noticeable >50", and obviously the bigger the screen, the more it matters.

Since OP is looking at a 32", I would recommend 1080p. 720p is crap, these days, even my cell phone has twice that much resolution. There's no way I'd be happy with a TV that has less resolution than my cell phone.

[Robotron2k84]

I saw a bunch of 8k options at InfoComm in June, and they look amazing. Dell had a 32"-ish monitor that was gorgeous- but completely unnecessary for something you'll be sitting that close to. It also pumped out heat like a frikkin hair dryer.

There's the one use case where an 8K screen/monitor makes sense: video editing. You need 1:1 resolution for your final masters. People making 8K content would jump at having the hardware in their workflow, I would think.

For everyone else? Meh. I don't see that many people upgrading past 4K. It's current-theater resolution on DLP, bandwidth is a pain and now what is this the fourth go-round of re-purchasing content in the new format? Ugh.

4K will likely be the standard format for the next 20 years.

[oktavist]

about 1,152,000 pixels

This.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution

[sonofeugene]

I was just about to say the same thing. I can't even tolerate watching DVDs (which are normally 720p) anymore, the picture is so bad compared to 1080p.

However, 1080p on anything under about 50" is good enough for most people. The difference between 4k and 1080p on a <50" screen is barely noticeable for most people. However, the difference is definitely noticeable >50", and obviously the bigger the screen, the more it matters.

Since OP is looking at a 32", I would recommend 1080p. 720p is crap, these days, even my cell phone has twice that much resolution. There's no way I'd be happy with a TV that has less resolution than my cell phone.

32" is stupidly small. If you compare a 32" wide screen to an older 4:3 ratio screen, it's like buying a 26" TV that's just a little bit wider. Screen height is the same. So, unless you're sitting 3 feet in front of it, it's not going to be satisfying.

People don't realize that you can't really use the diagonal measurement to compare old format TV's to new wide screen format TV's. It's not apples to apples. Best thing to do is measure the distance you'd be from your screen in your home, then when you're in the TV store looking at all the different screen sizes, make sure you're standing the same distance away from the screen. Take a tape measure. My wife and I sit 8 feet away from the screen and we find a 65" wide screen perfectly sized.