Could 720p movies show much improvement?

[NameUndecided]

I realize this is probably better left asked on Friday, but I've been wondering about it throughout this week and thought I'd go ahead and post it.

I know that the screen is supposed to have a bit better saturation, so that could be helpful to the picture. But could the higher pixel density also help with films that already fit evenly on an iPad 2 screen? I'm hoping that the difference will be noticeable enough. Not a lot of my movies are going to 1080p on the iPad - at least not immediately.

I'm not getting a new iPad for another month or so (don't hold me on waiting that long, actually), so I won't have it to compare against the iPad 2 for a little while.

Thoughts? I wish it was Friday so we could have a more solid answer than probably mostly conjecture.

 

[NameUndecided]

Yaaay people are getting their new iPads and it's exciting! Is anyone able to comment on this yet?

 

[MythicFrost]

You probably won't see it but a 720p movie should look slightly better on the iPad 3 than on the iPad 2 as the former couldn't previous display 720p. It's very, very slight though.

 

[jclardy]

Since the iPad 2 only has 1024 pixels in width it means that even 720P movies have to be scaled down.

On the new iPad with 2048 pixels width they will have to be scaled up.

The new iPad should looks slightly better, but I doubt it will be a huge difference.

 

[NameUndecided]

Hmm thank you for the answers. I'm looking forward to seeing for myself.

And I was really under the impression that 720p movies fit square on without any scaling up or down on the "older" iPad screens. (I guess not then.)

 

[Stetrain]

Hmm thank you for the answers. I'm looking forward to seeing for myself.

And I was really under the impression that 720p movies fit square on without any scaling up or down on the "older" iPad screens. (I guess not then.)

720p is 1280 pixels wide, and the iPad/2 had a 1024 pixel wide screen in landscape.

A high quality 720p movie will probably look a bit better on the new iPad (in non-zoomed mode with the black bars) because it will be upscaled rather than downscaled. Hard to say for sure though until people try it.