3 of the most important things to look for when shopping for a HDTV display

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In terms of picture quality here are 3 of the most important things to look for when shopping for a HDTV display.

• One of the most important things is to look and see what the resolution of the display is. 720P has a 1280 X 720 resolution while 1080P has a 1920 X 1080 resolution. Since 1080P displays can be found under $1000 now just about everyone can afford a 1080P display. 1080P is the maximum resolution of the BLU-RAY format. Most likely consumer 4K displays with a 4K movie delivery format will not start appearing on the market for 10 years. So buying a 1080P display today is safe for many years to come, it is not going to get outdated any time soon. For more info on resolution see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution Some lower cost 1080P displays discard half the resolution since they do not deinterlace 1080I material correctly. This issue is slowly going away even on the cheaper models, but it is still an issue. Most 1080P displays on the market have a 1080P input which is a another important feature to have.

• Another very important thing to look for in a HDTV display is contrast ratio, black levels, and response times. Not all 1080P displays are created equal. Some have only 800:1 contrast ratios while others like LCOS ceiling front projectors have an awesome 15,000:1 contrast ratios. One should try and look for a display that has the largest contrast ratio that is in ones budget. For more info on contrast ratio see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrast_ratio . Response time is the amount of time the display takes to go from inactive white to active black and back again. The lower number for response time the faster transitions and less image artifacts. Currently LCOS have the fastest response times that are usually around 2.5 milliseconds.

• The last on the list of important items to look for when searching for a HDTV display is a 1080P/24 input feature. This is in general found mostly on high-end displays and is an important feature if you plan on buying a BLU-RAY player. There are two types of displays that accept a 1080P/24 input. The first type is a display that will accept a 1080P/24 input and will perform a 3:2 pulldown process and convert the 1080P/24 material to 60HZ. Some displays convert 24HZ material to 60 HZ with better quality then the BLU-RAY player. Now if one owns a BLU-RAY player that does a better job of converting 24HZ to 60HZ then the display then one will get a better picture quality if they have the BLU-RAY player output 1080P/60 to the display.

The second type of HDTV display that accepts a 1080P/24 input will eliminate the 3:2 pull down process completely by refreshing 1080P/24 material at multiplies of the original frame. This is what I call “true 1080P/24” since judder from slow horizontal pans is greatly reduced when watching BLU-RAY 1080P movies. These high end displays will take 24 frames from the BLU-RAY format and refresh the image at 48HZ, 72HZ, 96HZ, or 120HZ. So instead of having 3:2 pull down the pull down will be 2:2, 3:3, 4:4, or 5:5, and possible higher multiplies in the future. There are currently no 120HZ displays on the market that do 5:5 pulldown. These 120HZ displays convert 60HZ to 120HZ. JVC has a front projector that does 96HZ for 1080P/24 material and 120HZ for 60HZ material.
** Right now “true 1080P/24” displays that refresh at multiplies of the original frame are only found on high end displays with excellent contrast ratio’s, colors, and black levels. That might not always be the case and in the future lower quality displays might start offering the feature. It is much more important to have better contrast ratios and better black levels and a display that does only 1080P/60 then to own a future low cost display that has poor black levels, poor contrast ratios and offers 1080P/24 input. (1080P/24 feature can only be used with some BLU-RAY players and future next generation HD-DVD players). **