Is 1080p a waste of money?

[hharris4earthlink]

XstreamHD certainly sounds good, but I wonder how it will hold up in practice. 1080p sounds great, but you have to have a wall-sized screen to see the difference. On my 50" Samsung, for example, 1080p would be wasted. And a 1080p set uses a lot more power. Even HD TV is only distributed in 720p. Unless you have an enormous screen, streaming 1080p is a waste of time and money.

Right now I divide my viewing time between Blu-ray disc and DirecTV hi-def so I have a nice combination of hi-def material I own and hi-def beamed down by a satellite. And, as a fun bonus, the Playstation 3 allows me to surf the Internet on my hi-def screen. Call me old fashioned, but it works for me.

Henry

P.S. And I will be (as I just learned) downloading hi-def movies, but from iTunes. Thank you Steve Jobs.

[miller]

Perceiving differences in resoltuion is a combination of screen size, distance from the screen and your visual acuity. Each person perceives differently. If you see no appreciable gain for content above 720p, then don't spend your time and money on it. But don't assume others (like me) don't appreciate the difference. 1080p is definitely not a waste of my time and money.

Also don't forget that it's not just about resolution, it's about bitrate. If I can get content streamed into my home with a quality of audio and video that rivals the best packaged media, that's the way I'm going.

- Miller

[hharris4earthlink]

Sorry, but it's not a matter of perception; it's a matter of physics. You can't drive a screen greater than the number of pixels it can physically display. Manufactures will make misleading statements because they want to sell the higher-price models, but I'm afraid physics is physics and hype is hype.

Henry

[Richard]

1080p sounds great, but you have to have a wall-sized screen to see the difference. On my 50" Samsung, for example, 1080p would be wasted. And a 1080p set uses a lot more power. Even HD TV is only distributed in 720p. Unless you have an enormous screen, streaming 1080p is a waste of time and money.

Not sure what science or outlook you are using here but Millers response was right on the money. The only 1080p technology that could use more power in a significant form is plasma and I'm still thinking about that one... HDTV is distributed in both 720p and 1080i.

[hharris4earthlink]

I'm using the science I was trained in as a physicist. No matter what format HD is distributed in, the maximum resolution of a display can only be what the display is physically capable of. As a rule, maximum resolution of a screen is limited by the size of the screen and that's why only displays over 50 inches can effectively display 1080p. That's not to say that the set won't accept 1080p as an input. It just can't display it. This is not a bad thing because a good 720p 50 inch display can show a very impressive and clear picture, and, as you pointed out, HD TV only has 720p or 1080i content anyway (but not 1080p). It is my understanding that each broadcast network picks which one depending on the type of content.

Henry

[miller]

...only displays over 50 inches can effectively display 1080p.

What are you smokin' Henry (and did you bring enough for everybody)?

No seriously, are you saying that a pixel has a minimum size? Are you saying that the 46" LCD TV I have, which is 1920x1080, can't display 1080 lines? I just checked, and at a distance of about 12", I can see each and every pixel. I didn't bother to count them, but I trust that there are 1080, just like my manual says.

So how can you say that a TV smaller than 50 inches can't display 1080p when it can be physically verified by counting pixels?

Please back up your "physics" with links, forumulas, etc. so that we can all become more educated.

- Miller

[hharris4earthlink]

Here's a link that explains it better than I could.

(BTW, I'm reportedly not smoking anything, but if I did, I did not inhale.)

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6810011-1.html

Henry

[akirby]

Henry - that article doesn't say that a 50" or smaller tv can't display 1080p - it says that at a distance of 8 ft or more a normal viewer won't see a better picture with 1080p over 720p, all else being equal. If you're sitting really close to a 50" display then you will see a difference.

[stevekaden]

Let me make this short - as I just lost a long detailed letter - Many laptops and computer monitors are at and well over 2k x 1k (1080 HD). So surely 1080 can be less than 50". It is all in the pixel size and being able to make, connect, and master for it. And with the computer based monitors - you sit close, and it looks great.

I'm wondering about the 1080 using more power??? Based on what detail?

[jjkilleen]

Just looking at the two sets referenced in the CNET article linked above, the 720P set Vs 1080P set is rated 499 watts vs 693 watts.
The two sets are very similar, other than resolution.