Samsung’s 56-inch HL-S5679W is a 1080p rear-projection DLP TV that uses an LED engine.
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&uotThe latest rage in consumer electronics is 1080p resolution. Also called “Full HD,” 1080p features progressive scanning, which displays a whole frame of video at once rather than switching off between even lines and odd lines as 1080i displays do. By displaying a full frame of video, images look sharper—especially those with lots of motion—and you’ll encounter less flicker.
Steve Storozum, video transport professional and officer of the Video Services Forum, puts it into perspective: ;A 720p HD display is at a disadvantage in sharpness compared to 1080p because its 720 pixels of progressive horizontal resolution are showing only 2/3rd as many pixels,” he says.
There’s an even more dramatic difference when comparing 1080p to 1080i—1080p progressive scan displays show all of the pixels in a frame at once for a much greater vertical resolution than 1080i interlace displays can provide. “The better sharpness and resolution of 1080p displays provides a more realistic image on the screen, which is why 1080p has been the ‘holy grail’ for HD enthusiasts,” Storozum says.
Blu-ray and HD DVD Push 1080p
Considering what you get with 1080p, why has it taken so long for displays to show this resolution? For one thing all the broadcast HD television being created used either 720p or 1080i due to the high costs of early HD broadcast technology. Plus, there weren’t any home devices that could output 1080p resolution. So with 1080p displays being costly and difficult to make, television manufacturers didn’t see a need to rush.
But the landscape has changed because 1080p high-definition Blu-ray and HD DVD players are now available. Still, it may take some time for film and TV studios to produce content in 1080p.
“Games are likely to be the first source of true mastered 1080p content,” says Paul Gagnon, Director of North American TV Research, DisplaySearch, an NPD Group Company. He adds that since there are computers that able to output 1080p, “we may see some sophisticated users connecting their PCs to 1080p displays.”
Manufacturers are also seeing that there’s a real opportunity to offer consumers TVs that can display this high-resolution video. 1080p is becoming available on a wide range of display technologies, including LCD, Microdisplay Rear Projection TV (RPTV) and PDP (1080p being far more prevalent on the first two, according to Gagnon). Storozum agrees that as a result of these new sources of content, along with display manufacturing technology having matured, “1080p displays have become affordable at just the right time.”
Two Things to Consider Before Going to 1080p
There are two factors to keep in mind if you want to get the most out of 1080p. First, get a big display. “Right now 1080p displays are primarily available in screen sizes of 37 inches and larger,” says Gagnon. “That’s because it’s difficult to observe significant resolution differences as the screen size gets smaller in a typical home environment.”
Viewing distance is the second factor. A 50-inch 720p display, at a distance of 9 feet or so, can look similar to a 1080p display—depending on factors such as the viewer’s visual acuity (ability to resolve pixels) and the nature of the content (games vs. live movies vs. animation). While individual viewing results can differ, in general the further back you get, the less detail you see and so the more similar a lower resolution can seem (720p) in comparison to a higher resolution (1080p). Moving closer to the screen reveals the details 1080p brings out because the image fills more of your field of vision. (Related: 720p vs 1080p.)
HDTV displays continue to become more affordable, and consumer acceptance is swelling and can only increase after the 2009 digital transition (making 1080p even more critical as a market requirement in years to come). The final icing on the 1080p cake is that this resolution is, at least to a certain extent, future-proof. It is the highest standard resolution today and for the foreseeable future.
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I think the article was a non-techno bable that most can understand. The reality here is that most people want the future now and not buy something they will have to upgrade in 2009 since “the government” said that is when analog is dead. This now setup the industry for what they call unfunded mandates because they wanted to still give us the shaft in technology and stretch out analog until probably 2109 just like the automobile industry until we said uhhh we are running out of fossil fuel. So now we are at a cross-roads. We have alot of SD (standard definition or regular TV) content which includes DVD material and digital cable. The industry wants to treat HD as an emerging technology which it is not, its 2007 not 2001. So broadcasters and cable companies are milking the consumers for what they want and what the government said they would give consumers by 2009. Broadcast is no different than the IT industry that has anual spending and return on investment. There is no reason for broadcasters to not want to upgrade to get their programming out there to compete with the exception that the other industry has prevented it because they want to give the shaft to consumers in pricing and technology to: TV manufacturers. For HDTV you get ripped by the TV manfacturers for faulty high priced hardware and like most people you get sub-par HD content from cable operators which upconvert content to make you believe it is HDTV which is the latest shaft. It is crazy that this country a world leader has to be last in everything except military. In Europe their regular TV makes our SD look really old. At least the US could have taken an interim step to convert to 576p or 720p to allow better upconversion to future 1080p. Instead we are upconverting from 480i to 1080p. That is a heck of a upconvert.
The point of a 1080p display is to show a complete 1920x1080 image 60 times a second.
At that rate, you are approaching the work of
graphics pioneer Douglas Trumbell’s “Show Scan” system, which was based on a 72 frames per second film display.
The research done back then showed that information would be processed by the brain AS IF it was real, even though viewers consciously knew they were waatching a movie.
To see this in action, get a good demo of a Sony VPL-VW50 projector playing a Blu-Ray disk
from a Playstation 3 via HDMI. At a distance of 3 times the screen height, the screen takes on the feel of a picture window. Your mind “beileves” that is looking at reality, not shaadows
It was my understanding that even if a 1080p display is being fed a 1080i signal, it is still deinterlacing and showing a progressive scan image. Even lower resolutions would have to be scaled, would they not? Obviously it is a processed image, so it seems logical that a good processor is something you want to look for, especially since the TV is not going to get much native 1080p content for a while.
Denon is said to have a couple A/V receivers with HDMI 1.3 support coming in July (AVR-4308ci and AVR-3808ci) and more in September (AVR-1508, AVR-1708 and AVR-2808). Details are sketchy but it’s a start.
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Todd, I can only conclude that first comment was an unsolicited “attaboy”… 
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What do the folks know about HP’s late MD6580n DLP Microdisplay HDTV 1080p. It has a 65” display. I would love to hear info from your experiences with this TV. It was once compared to the 13,000 dollar Sony Quallia in almost the exact quality of picture.
Thx,
John T. Moore,Jr.
jtmj