hi guys is it true that bluray movies cant be watched at a 720p hdtv ? im asking this cause i have a mitsubishi wd-62530 lcd screen and its native resolution is 720p but it also supports 480p and 1080i so im not sure of whats gonna happen, i mean i just bought my tv 4 months ago and its a recent model, octuber 2006 so im really worried about this can u guys help me ? i got my ps3 connected through an hdmi so that wont be a problem but im worried about the bluray movies, am i gonna be able to watch them ? any help will be appreciated thanks
Absolutely not. I have a 1080p SXRD and a 720p LCD projector and the PS3 plays BD's fine on both (HDMI connection). The macine switches from 1080p to 1080i on the video menu when I use the projector.
They can downscale the signal, but in the end it seems a waste... also, downscaling will probably cause image degradation on most TVs. Personally, I'd rather the industry had avoided selling 720p televisions at all (though most used the even more awkward 1366x768), and just sold 1080p displays. What's the point in going for HD if your hardware isn't capable of full-HD resolution?
@dinobot I have 720p and not one program is broadcast in 1080p over the air or on Cox cable HD where I'm located. I don't intend to buy an HD DVD or PS3 any time soon. So why should I waste extra money on something that I couldn't use-1080p-if I had it?
As far as I'm aware, nobody has the bandwith to broadcast cable in 1080p, so that's why you don't get that. Why people pay up to double their regular cable bill for the "privledge" of 720p, which I've never found to be that considerable an improvement over SD or ED (at least not enough to warrant such a ludicrous price) is beyond me. However IMO, 99% of broadcast television these days is trash anyway. Most of it's derivative garbage and repellant reality TV or its spawn, "celebrity whatever" shows. I believe there are only 5 or 6 (currently in-production) shows that I watch. Given how prohibitively (and ludicrously) overpriced HD cable subscriptions are at the moment, absolutely none of them are worth the price anyway. As for me, probably 95% of all the TV I watch is from DVDs... and when I do switch to HD, that figure will carry over to Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or whichever optical format wins out in the end. Considering TV gets worse by the season, by the time I do fully adopt HD (probably in the next year and a half, at most) there will be even fewer good shows. I'll probably never bother subscribing to HD cable until it's the standard service and there's no other choice. It just wouldn't be worth doubling my bill for the sake of 4 or 5 hours a week. Watching content from discs, on the other hand, is very much worth it for me.
@dinobot Well I will surely agree about programming on broadcast TV, a lot to be desired. I haven't watched a weeekly show other than Nova since Friends went off. The cost of upgrading to HD DVR service isn't nearly double. My bill only increased $25 for HD and 2 DVR boxes. I do disagree about the picture quality of SD to 720p signal quality. Check your eyes because the improvement to 720p is extraordinary. If not, noone would be springing for HD sets. It's from 720p to 1080p that's hard for me to see.
It isn't that I can't see the difference from SD and ED to 720p, I just don't consider it worth the price. My aunt and uncle subscribed to HD cable, and their bill now exceeds $100/month, while mine is in the low $50s (ironically, they watch even less TV than I do; so the purpose of it for them is beyond me). Yeah, there's a package in the $70-$80 range, but it's still too much for so little (for me, anyway) benefit. I can barely even justify what I'm paying now, when I only watch 4 or 5 hours a week of broadcast TV. Until HD cable is standard and there's no extra charges for it, I'm quite happy watching my few hours of TV a week without HD, and seeing it in HD later when I pick up the show on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
@dinobot All good points, but don't hold your breath on the price of HD cable being as cheap as SD cable is today-EVER!!! Prices NEVER go down. Just like gasoline-peaks goes down a little and peaks a little higher, ad nasuem. Like when we were bad in Jr high the teacher gave us a math problem to work out. Start at 100 add one subtract two and add one etc.till you get to zero. You hand starts cramping at about 20. Prices work just the opposite.
HD channels on my cable provider are an extra 5 bucks a month...plus 5 more for the HD-DVR. DiscoveryHD itself is worth 10 bucks a month to me. I understand your points, but the jump from SD to 720p is a HUGE picture quality increase. After having HD, I can never go back to regular again.
Hmmm. ok If your TV is 40inches and under, 1080p (Depending on viewing distance) will not look alot better than 720p. Any TV bigger than 40 inches will notice an increase from 720p to 1080p. (Again dependant on viewing distance) IF you have a 720p TV you may or may not be able to view a 1080p source. Not all 720p TV will accept a 1080p source, most will only accept a 1080i source. And if your TVs Native Resolution is only 720p, there is no point in running a 1080i signal, becasue the TV deinterlacer will just convert it to 720p anyways. All blueray and HD-DVD players can output @720p. Let your source components handle the scaling, not your TV.
Full-HD is part of Sonys marketing. A 720p TV is HD. Also 1366x768 is the native pixel count of plasma TVs, and is there standard. But it makes no difference in picture quality, becasue your source will still be outputing 720p, the tv will just scale it. 1080p native tv are actually quite new (Just becasue your TV says it accepts 1080p, doesnt mean its a native 1080p panel) and if we waited for 1080p only panels, or just purchased 1080p panels. Then A. we would not have HD untill quite recently or B. no one would be able to afford a 1080p tV. The resolution is also very subjective to the quality of tv your have. Many people over look things like contrast ratio, response time (Rise and fall) and black levels. IMHO a high quality 720p panel with true blacks, and good contrast ratio will look better than a cheap (Westinghouse for example) 1080p panel.
