I'm so sick of seeing this kind of BS. "Only just" ? What the heck does that mean? Tell me, is 1080i "just HD" also? I'm going to bet that your answer is no, it's REAL HD. Get a clue. The actual "information" difference between 720P and 1080i is practically negligible (1080i is really only 540 lines of information at any given moment and uses a trick of the brain to try and make you think you are seeing more than that; technically 720P at a given moment in time is higher vertical resolution). 1080i is interlaced which in general is inferior to a progressive image. For static images, you'll get an apparent higher resolution, but with motion you will get an inferior picture.
So does that mean you 'need' 1080P to be "real HD" ??? Let me clue you in. 1080P wasn't even talked about except in theory early on and some said it wouldn't come into real use at all because of the massive bandwidth requirements. Short of Blu-Ray or some kind of Internet delivery, this is still largely true. You will probably NEVER see it on Cable or Satellite for that reason. So by your "only just" standards does that mean that all the program material on broadcast television, cable and satellite out there in the whole world is "only just" HD??? THAT is exactly what you're telling me, after all. HDTV means television, but I guess we "only just" see HD on actual television broadcasts.
I find the utter snobbery disgusting (and that IS what I keep seeing, snobbery) associated with Blu-Ray and this whole 1080P business. I've said it before and I'll say it again, MOST of the people yelling the loudest about how utterly fantastic 1080P is and how HORRIBLE 720P is (all over that extra 360 lines) are watching it on smallish sets (under 60") at long distances (over 8 feet) and so the snobbish claims are LAUGHABLE to anyone that knows ANYTHING about resolving distances.
Check this article out:
http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/12836
What this means is the human eye (with 20/20 vision) can resolve detail for 1080P to approximately 3x the screen height distance. Thus, if you have a 60" 16x9 screen (29 inch height), you can resolve all the detail out to about 7.25 feet. If you are sitting out further than that, you are starting to lose resolution acuity and any improvement is completely in your head and/or imagination (hence where the snobbery starts as in audiophile type claims where people seem to think they're super human and can sense things others cannot).
Here's an article with a chart that makes it perfectly clear as to where the benefits begin and end for a given format:
http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html
As you can see, unless you are watching VERY LARGE sets and/or sitting VERY CLOSE (not true of MOST people), the benefits of 1080P are MOOT. I'm in no way saying that 1080P isn't 'better' than 720P. HOWEVER, you HAVE to be sitting within the range of that chart for your eyes to see the full resolution details (at 20/20 vision; if you have lower vision, the distances decrease that you have to sit at to see the detail).
So your average consumer might have a 46" HD set. You have to be sitting no further than 5.75 feet away with 20/20 vision to ACTUALLY SEE the full 1080P resolution! How many people do you know that sit less than 6 feet from their 46" sets? If you are sitting around 8 feet away, you will JUST be able to see the full 720P resolution! If you are sitting over 13 feet away, you might as well just watch a DVD because you will not see any more resolution than one!
I'm sure these numbers are coming as a shock to some and others think I'm crazy, stupid or nuts, but this is science, not active imaginations run wild with bogus claims about superior pictures they do not actually see.
I've got a 93" screen and one of the higher quality 720P projectors out there. I sit 8 feet away from the screen. At that distance and screen size, I could theoretically see the FULL benefit of 1080P so for my room and screen, a 1080P projector upgrade could be in my future. If I were sitting 14 feet away, there would be no point in ever upgrading. I couldn't POSSIBLY tell the difference. Yet I've seen plenty of 93" screens in use with seating distances of around 12 feet. At that distance, the difference between 720P and 1080P would barely be noticeable at all. And that's with a pretty darn large screen and a pretty average seating distance. Many people sit 20 feet away from their televisions. At that distance, you would need a screen that is at least 106" to just barely start to see a difference with 1080P and about 140" to see ALL the detail at that distance. How many people do you know that have 140" screens?
As for the lossless audio claim, it's suffice to say the ignorance surrounding what is audible out there even in (maybe especially within) audiophile circles is astounding. I followed the scene for years and met no end of "goldenear" types that couldn't tell 16-bit/44.1kHz audio from a 128kbit MP3 even when the test was done blind. Even with trained ears, you cannot distinguish 256kbit (128kbit per channel) AAC from the source material. The differences are inaudible. Dolby Digital could have audible differences, but the liklihood of one being able to tell the difference between it and even a "super lossless" format is pretty darn small once the test goes blind (science instead of imagination). Find me some people that even have DECENT audio gear and then maybe we can worry about whether a difference in quality is actually audible or not. I have $2000 ribbon speakers (Carver) upstairs with custom active crossovers and 500 watts (into 4 ohms) per channel total amplification on that system and over $3000 worth of speakers (PSB) in my home theater room downstairs. I'm quite familiar with "good" sound.
So what I'm saying is that yes, 1080P is superior to 720P. 4 is still bigger than 3 even in the scientific community. But that in no way substantiates the claims made by the masses, most of whom are completely ignorant about things like resolving distances and blind testing for audio. These "huge" differences aren't huge at all under many very common conditions (from small screens versus seating distances to cheap playback speakers) and I dare wager that most of the claims on this site are made from ego and snobbery, not actual science. Compression is another topic that is greatly exaggerated by the golden eyes types. Most of this stuff comes from the "my X (computer, hard disk, car engine, whatever) is bigger/better than yours lines of thinking. Sorry if I don't just lump sum it all into a neat package of 1080P is better period. If you don't take the room/TV size/seating distance into account, it's a meaningless statement.
wouldnt consider it a hobby any longer and put resources behind it rather than stick it in a corner of their store.
