720p or 1080i??

[ulri4651]

I have a phillips 42" Plasma and a PS3 system. I set the PS3 to select the best possible resolution and it came up with 1080i; however, the guy in best buy said I should be using 720p instead. Which one will give me the best picture quality? May be stupid but I just don't know? Thanks

[Deciazulado]

1080i.

[shido]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

1080i.

Why would you say that? I always thought the rule of thumb was to use the display's native resolution. The PS3 only picks 1080i because it isn't able to display blu-ray at 720p, at least not yet anyway.

[Deciazulado]

You answered your own question.

[shido]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

You answered your own question.

That's not what I meant. I mean, your original answer was misleading - 1080i is not the optimal resolution for his plasma tv; 720p is. It's the PS3 that's forcing 1080i. You obviously know this, so I was wondering why you wouldn't explain it, that's all.

[Chad Varnadore]

At this time, you don't have a choice but to output at 1080i and let your player or an external video processor deinterlace and scale to 720p, if 720p is the native resolution of your display. At least I don't believe the PS3 will scale yet. But, I mostly use it for videogames, checking bitrates, and some of the more advanced java features that the Panasonic can't handle. If Sony is able to activate scaling in the PS3, it might do a better job of the conversion to your sets native rate than the display will. So, be sure to experiment if they do. I think you can feed it 1080p now as well. So try that too. The one that's the most optimal in your given situation should provide noticably better detail.

[Deciazulado]

He has a PS3 and wanted to know what setting would be best so I answered. And the explanation has been said many times over in several threads

Shall I repeat it?

if he selects 1080i his PS3-> tv goes 1080i -> 720 = 720

If he selects 720 his PS3 -> tv goes 480 -> 720 = 480


So 1080i



If and when the day comes that PS3 scales to 720 he then could select 720.

And yes it's true the native rate is the best, but you see, the BD is 1080 and the TV is 720, so either selecting 1080 now or 720 in the future, 1080 will be downscaled to 720, in BOTH cases.

So then it'll all depend on which is best, the PS3 downscaler or the TV downscaler.


Long enough answer now?

[pbnbcr]

I would go with 1080i, though both usually look the same on most tvs. The large majority of tvs right now say they do 1080i, but they lack the resolution to actually do it (usually 1024x768 or 1366x768). Selecting 1080i will slightly improve the picture if it's even noticeable at all. Of course, read the above post because it's got some good points in relation to PS3.

[HD-Greek]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

If and when the day comes that PS3 scales to 720 he then could select 720.

And yes it's true the native rate is the best, but you see, the BD is 1080 and the TV is 720, so either selecting 1080 now or 720 in the future, 1080 will be downscaled to 720, in BOTH cases.

Not allways the native rate is the best.................for example the new Panasonic Viera series has sharper and clearer image if you select 1080i......and of course i have 32LX60F(european model) and the panel resolution is 1366*768......................................... so i prefer 1080i to 720p..........not because i own a PS3 too....................the whole Viera series has sharper image.......................some friends of mine have tested some Panasonic tvs with Samsung BD-P1000 and 1080i is far better than 720p..........and the resolution of the screens was 1366*768 or 1024*768(plasma).............................

[Blackraven]

There was this debate on AVS forums as to which one was better.

Most answers though seemed to favor 1080i as being better for movies (mostly with 24 fps content) while saying that 720p is better for fast moving scenes (like sports games).

try to look up the thread for that over there.

EDIT:
I just saw the wiki thread on it.

The quote was mentioning that 1080i offers more detail on stationary shots (or those with little motion) at the expense of a lower effective refresh rate and interlacing artifacts. 720p is better with motion but detail is decreased.

Common examples:
720p = ESPN, ABC sports
1080i = BBC World HD, BBC UK NEWS24 HD

[JTK]

Depends on the kind of display a person has and that display's native resolution.

[Blackraven]

Originally Posted by JTK

Depends on the kind of display a person has and that display's native resolution.

ALL WXGA (1366x768) sets favor 720p as its best res (1080i=644p making it lower priority).

Now, since the PS3 doesn't support 720p (for Blu-ray movies), then you would have to switch between resolutions (720p for games and 1080i for movies).

Unless Sony releases a firmware update in the future, 720p won't be permitted for Blu-ray playback.

But....
If you're worried though that 1080i may be bad for WXGA sets, you may not have to.

I was playing Ridge Racer 7 in the PS3 demo unit at one store and I was amazed by the quality. I went to Display Settings and I was surpised to see that it is only using 1080i (via HDMI connection). I used the auto-detect feature of the PS3 and it said that 1080i was the best resolution (for that Sharp TV set).

So if you're worried that 1080i may be a problem for motion-paced scenes on a WXGA set, don't fret as there is no need to worry (that much).

[Unkn0wn47]

Originally Posted by ulri4651

I have a phillips 42" Plasma and a PS3 system. I set the PS3 to select the best possible resolution and it came up with 1080i; however, the guy in best buy said I should be using 720p instead. Which one will give me the best picture quality? May be stupid but I just don't know? Thanks

Your TV would be considered quite small; so I would say that you should use 720p. If, for instance, you had a 70" or bigger, you would want 1080i/1080p. With a smaller TV, it would be harder to see the change between the 720 and 1080; but it would be better to have progressive rather than interlaced. The picture will look much clearer if the refresh rate is better per line. On the other hand, it will be quite hard to tell the difference between the two.

[Amon37]

The main issue is that BD's won't play in 720p on a PS3 so unless he wants to keep messing with the PS3's settings all the time 1080i is the best choice.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Amon37

The main issue is that BD's won't play in 720p on a PS3 so unless he wants to keep messing with the PS3's settings all the time 1080i is the best choice.

Yeah, that's why I said 1080i in the first reply, then it turned into a discussion of what's best 720 or 1080i and panel's native resolutions. You probably confused the hell out of the OP

He should have his PS3 with 480, 720 AND 1080i checked as resolutions, So he sees 1080p and 1080i Blu-ray movies with a resolution nearing 720 and his 720 games at 720, OTHERWISE he'll see his Blu-ray movies at 480. So stop saying the 720 setting is best ok? And his display will do the rest.


AND btw, 1080i IS BETTER than 720p. We've discussed this few times too.
If it's not, you don't have a 1080i to 1080p deinterlacer that's good enough on your 1080p TV

[mlgacc]

I might be a little off topic but my 47 inch Panasonic is a few years old now and is a 1080i TV with NO 720p..... only 480P and I find it is a better picture with a blu ray movie with only 480p checked. as for gaming i cant say there is a difference with the 1080i checked. any reason for that ?

[Blackraven]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

AND btw, 1080i IS BETTER than 720p. We've discussed this few times too.

I guess so, unless it's fast motion (where 720p is the victor) like in sports games.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Blackraven

I guess so, unless it's fast motion (where 720p is the victor) like in sports games.

ok Blackraven I'll do the math for you again:

720p = 720 x 1280 at 60 frames per second = 921,600 pixels 60 times a second

1080i =1080 x 1920 at 60 interlaced fields per second = 1,036,800 pixels 60 times a second.

1,036,800 > 921,600

And that's w/o any fancy motion tracking/adaptive deinterlacing interpolation, just with bob.

Another angle: While vertical resolution with bobbing is just 540 (25% less than 720) and dribbling balls might look a little worse there, most sports (unless it's diving) have their motions mostly be in the horizontal direction (because mmm humans (and horses!) tend to do sports running in flat surfaces ya know ) So on 720p 60 you have things running left and right at 60 frames per second inside a 1280 pixel resolution width. On 1080i 60 bobbed, you have things running left and right at 60 frames per second inside a 1920 pixel resolution width.

so not only the overall frame is 1,036,800 > 921,600, but the important horizontal motion is 1.5x better: 1920 > 1280 a factor of 50%

And again this is w.o any fancy deinterlacer.


With a good deinterlacer it can approach 1080 60p

Originally Posted by mlgacc

I might be a little off topic but my 47 inch Panasonic is a few years old now and is a 1080i TV with NO 720p..... only 480P and I find it is a better picture with a blu ray movie with only 480p checked. as for gaming i cant say there is a difference with the 1080i checked. any reason for that ?

Ok let me see. You have a Panasonic TV that accepts 1080i but the display itself (it's real (native) resolution) is only 480p? (like a 480 x 853 plasma?)

And Blu-rays look better with the PS3 checked to 480 instead of 1080?

Well if you select 1080i on the PS3 your TV accepts the 1080i signal and downscales it to 480p. If you select 480p on the PS3, it's the PS3 what downscales the signal into 480p, and your TV then uses that. In both cases you're getting 480p, so there shouldn't be much difference, or if there is, one reason could be just because one device downscales to 480 better than the other (in this case the PS3) and/or the signal path is "cleaner" then.

As to why 1080i for games makes no difference, well if they're 720 games I think the PS3 does those as 480 even if you have checked 1080i, (I only have one 720 game and I'm doing 1080p HDMI so I havent tested this "extensively" ) and as your TV doesn't accept 720, checking 720 won't work. So on both 1080i checked and 480p checked with 720 games the PS3 would be giving your TV the same: 480p?

Another possible reason for discrepancies could be those pesky 0-255 computer levels and 16-235 video levels differences, which might inadvertently make one output/type look different from the other (game RGB, video Yuv, etc) if you haven't checked and set the correct one for the type of output/input/display.

[Streetspirit]

I play my blu-ray movies on my PS3, but my question is: since my TV is only a 720p/1080i Westingtionhouse and not the full 1080p at what resolution are my blu-ray movies played becasue I heard blu-ray doesn't play in 720p? is it 1080i?

[Camulus]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...newpost&t=7524