Is there really a 1080p advantage?

by Justin Murray { Nov 10th 2006 at 3:25PM }

Everyone is hearing a lot about 1080p resolution these days. Sony is promoting the resolution as a primary feature in the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft recently added the functionality to the Xbox 360. All of these big resolution numbers are nice and all, but is 1080p really all that it's cracked up to be?

According to the Imaging Science Foundation -- a professional organization that trains TV calibration techniques to technicians -- the three most important factors of a television's image quality are contrast ratio, color saturation, and color accuracy. Resolution ranks fourth and we're surprised that other important factors such as response time didn't rank above resolution. Tests done at CNET confirm the relative non-importance of 1080p over 720p; they state they find only minor differences in the two HD resolutions -- and only in very specific scenarios.

If professionals who spend much of their time reviewing HDTV sets have difficulties telling the difference between 720p and 1080p, will the general public have any reason to spend the extra dough on a 1080p set? Even if a person could notice the difference, would they care if they can see individual nose hairs when they are when being shot at in Resistance: Fall of Man or Gears of War? With the near zero difference the additional pixels make, Microsoft and Sony are sure spending a lot of money -- and driving up development costs -- for a feature few will truly appreciate.

Tags: 1080p, 360, 720p, HDTV, Playstation, Playstation 3, Playstation3, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Internet Troll @ Nov 10th 2006 3:32PM

Who cares I want a Wii!

aj @ Nov 10th 2006 3:33PM

i purchased my 1080p tv for the soul purpose of its 1960x1080 resolution.

Brandon @ Nov 10th 2006 3:34PM

Interesting. Sony and Microsoft can't in anyway control contrast, saturation, and color accuracy though, so it makes sense they would focus on resolution. Besides, it's not like games today have any color. It's all dark neutrals.

Goose @ Nov 10th 2006 3:38PM

"i purchased my 1080p tv for the soul purpose of its 1960x1080 resolution"

1920 x 1080

Javi @ Nov 10th 2006 3:40PM

I don't think we are supossed to pay attention or know these things. We should buy whatever big corporations tell us is best for us. I know I will, SONY+M$ = boner for me.

droptop GP @ Nov 10th 2006 3:41PM

considering the extra horsepower needed to render 1080p games, and the lack of 1080p monitors on the market, it seems like a useless feature for nearly everyone.

maybe in another 5 years or for the next next-gen consoles...

I got it @ Nov 10th 2006 3:41PM

480i FTW!!!!

I got it @ Nov 10th 2006 3:41PM

"Who cares I want a Wii!"
Eric Cartman....is that you?

cyberfrog @ Nov 10th 2006 3:45PM

Back when the whole "true 1080p" arguements were flying, i kept pointing to this cnet article, but no one wants to seem to listen to reality. It reminds me of the pc world where people are arguing about their kick ass grafix cards and not realizing their systems were being limited by the processor and so on.

Well AJ, I sincerely hope your TV is large enough to appreciate the difference, and that you have a reliable source of 1080p input to make it worth the extra expense.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6361600-1.html

KineticOnline @ Nov 10th 2006 3:46PM

The real question is should developers be using 1080p or going with 720p and using the power they've save on adding more visual/physics effects?

Personally i'd rather have the 720p with more effects

Dracula Jones @ Nov 10th 2006 3:46PM

As much as its a marketing line they're feeding us, Microsoft's stance on the 720p "sweet spot" (before they had to negate Sony's 1080p bullet point) just makes sense. The stability in framerate and higher quality textures you can pull off with the lower resolution far outweigh the benefits of 1080p. Maybe next generation, with greater CPU and GPU capabilities and more RAM, 1080p will mean something.

Ben Buck @ Nov 10th 2006 3:46PM

I guess you guys don't remember the time when nobody would ever need a hard drive over 80 megs - man that is GIGANTIC!!!!!

Always get what makes the most sense to you-
but my advive is to get the best you can afford

PS I had a sony 720p set and now I have a 1080p set - and the difference is most definately quite obvious. I am comparing 60+ inch sets though. They were testing on 40 inch sets.

The different is much more noticable on larger screens and when sitting closer.

CLShortFuse @ Nov 10th 2006 3:49PM

I'm tired of people saying you can't see the difference. They're talking about upscaling 720p/1080i feeds to 1080p. Not native 1080p vs native 720p. 1920x1080 = 2073600 pixels. 1280x720 = 921600 pixels. 2.25x more pixels. Or in 1.5x more vertically and 1.5x horizontally.
Now before you people say that has nothing to do with it. Set your resolution to 960x720... notice how the screen looks, then drop it to, exactly 1.5x less resolution, 640x480.
1080p does make a difference compared to 720p. I'm on a 1920x1200dpi 17" laptop and for me to go to 1280x800dpi it looks fugly.
(yeah, i know LCDs have a blur issue, but 960x720 vs 640x480 is still obvious on a CRT)

Unimental @ Nov 10th 2006 3:54PM

I agree with Mr. Ben Buck... once you get into the extremely large screen sizes, resolution becomes much more important. Not that 720p looks bad, by any means. I'm just saying that there is a noticable difference if you put two 60" next to each other.

@ Nov 10th 2006 3:54PM

"the three most important factors of a television's image quality are contrast ratio, color saturation, and color accuracy"

As a poster said above, for the most part, these are beyond the control of consoles and entirely dependant on the TV you buy.

If you're looking for a TV, you should definitely check therese things out before looking at 1080p vs. 720p. And it makes sense, if you set any of these parameters to '0' then the image will be poor nomatter if the image is in 1080p or 720p.

But, the real argument or point is.. all things being equal, its there a difference between 1080p and 720p?

The only way to test this is if there are 1080p and 720p sets with the exact same parameters (contrast, colour accuracy, and saturation).. which that CNET article fails to do.

And, its not so much does it matter, but, when does it matter.. if your screen size/viewing distance warrants it.

Goose @ Nov 10th 2006 3:54PM

Before writing this did you actually look at signals showing 720p vs. 1080p, or did you just rely on CNETs test using no TV larger than 50 inches.

All of this you can't tell the the difference non-sense just isn't true. For example channels that broadcast 1080i look far better on my 60" Sony than those that are 720p.

Feeding a 1080p TV a 1080p signal is always going to look better because the TV doesnt have to do any upconversion or de-interlacing.

Justin @ Nov 10th 2006 3:56PM

CLShortFuse -

Actually, the CNET article compares MI:3 on BluRay, which is a 1080p native movie. They downscaled it to 720p and noticed nearly no difference.

Canadian Geese @ Nov 10th 2006 3:57PM

There is a huge difference between upscaling to 1080p and native 1080p. I can tell the difference between 720p and upscaled 1080p, but I cannot tell the difference between 720p and native 1080p.

720p is the sweet spot. The sooner Sony realizes this, the better off they'll be. The only reason MS even included native 1080p capability in their last update is to satisfy those ignorant people who think you can tell a difference between 720p and 1080p.

epluribus @ Nov 10th 2006 3:57PM

Shirley, resolution matters, or we'd all be sticking with 480i, yes?

As far as "contrast ratio, color saturation, and color accuracy" are concerned, I agree wholeheartedly. Why anyone would choose Microsoft's kludgey approach to an upscaled 1080p over an analog connection, versus HDMI 1.3 on the PS3, I don't understand at all. Good luck with any sort of color accuracy on the 360.

JodyAnthony @ Nov 10th 2006 3:58PM

I have a 720p set and my wifes parents have a 1080p set, and I don't see a difference. then again, they are sub-60" sets (my house doesn't have the room for a huge 60+ inch set, I'm fine with 40.)

Vlad @ Nov 10th 2006 4:03PM

maaaaaan you guys are getting technical. how about the most important part to 90% of gamers out there: The cost of the HDTV.

as a financially limited and soon-to-be-destitude grad student, I can't afford anything bigger than maybe 27", and almost definitely not something that goes up to 1080p. if I can somehow convince myself to get a HDTV in the next couple years, of ANY kind, that's a feat in itself. who else is with me, in terms of price being the most important?

CLShortFuse @ Nov 10th 2006 4:06PM

I have 720p feeds and 1080p feeds. I tv episodes recorded in 720p(Lost, 24) and some movies in 1080p (Equilibrium, Spider-Man,Spider-Man2, X-Men, X-Men2) and some 1080i movies (Gattaca). You can tell the difference, at least on this 1920x1200@60hz laptop.

And the CNET article, they compare 1080i to 1080p, not 720p to 1080p. They admit the resolution is a boost of quality. They're saying 1080i looks the same as 1080p on a 1080p monitor. This is for obvious reasons, because with a good deinterlacer and decombing filter, you won't see the difference. 1080i is just 1080p interlaced.

tkodarside @ Nov 10th 2006 4:10PM

I just don't understand the need for all of this "1080p" talk and myth. 720p is still the best resolution for gaming. The higher the resolution you go, the developers are going to have to sacrifice framerates or textures. The hardware just isn't capable yet to run games at native 1080p.

@19

Ever heard of a VGA cable?? It's what were all using right now to view your fanboyish comments. HDMI isn't the only cable to allow for 1080p viewing.

Pete C @ Nov 10th 2006 4:10PM

Bottom line is most, if any, of you still have never seen a side-by-side comparison of a 720p image vs a 1080p image on two good TVs...not talking about computer monitors and other resolutions. That comparison is not valid. I'm sorry, but most of you have no basis for saying that you can tell the difference, so don't act like you are the authority on the matter. There are so many other factors that can affect image quality at these resolutions that THOSE would be factors before resolution...ESPECIALLY for movies.

@ Nov 10th 2006 4:12PM

"1080i is just 1080p interlaced"

Actually, for movies this is an importat difference since HD-DVD movies are encoded in 1080p 24 frame per second and since there is no such thing as 1080i 24 frame ps.

So (without 1080p input or output), you have to convert 1080p 24 (on the disc) to 1080i 60 (fps) and then your TV turns it back to 1080p 24.

So, you want a 1080p --> 1080p connection.

CLShortFuse @ Nov 10th 2006 4:15PM

I use external surround sound for my speakers and a cable box, so I don't need an ATSC Tuner or even speakers.

Dell 24" 1920x1200dpi monitor with svideo/dvi/component/composite/hdcp: $600-$700
Westinghouse 37" LCD 1080p TV (no tuner): $1299
Westinghouse 42" LCD 1080p TV (no tuner): $1499

You can get a Westinghouse 37" LCD 1080p for $900 refurbished. I'm saving up for the Westinghouse 42". After I get that, I'll get a PS3. Wii doesn't use HD anyway. I'm not rich either Vlad

killr0y @ Nov 10th 2006 4:15PM

Microsoft never gave a shit about 1080p you morons.. They clearly stated this at the outset with their whole "720p is the sweet spot" campaign. Why do you insist on trying to be vendor neutral on these arguments and drag Microsoft down when you are clearly targeting the Sony bullshit machine? The only reason why Microsoft enabled 1080p (and I assure you, this was at NOMINAL cost to them), was to piss all over Sony's little number war. Stop being little Sony bitches and call them out for what they are: A bunch of snake-oil salesmen who spout nothing but lies & half-truths.

SymetriX @ Nov 10th 2006 4:19PM

Aparently nobody here has a computer monitor. Try setting your resolution down to 1024x768. Now go check out your friend's Dell 24 inch monitor in native res and tell me there isn't a difference.

When DLP TV's first came out everyone thought they were the best quality you could get, but they neglected to realize that it was not true HD resolution since it was only 720p (or less!). I had a heck of a time trying to make them understand that it was down-scaling 1080i to make it fit that rez.

I checked one of the first DLP TV's out at my friends house and it was noticeably worse than my first-gen Mitsubishi rear-projection. Sure, the color, contrast, whatever was better, but the pixelation was unbearable when watching the playoffs on CBS.

(Subsequentially, his TV would have been perfect for watching FOX sports back in the day when they were trying to con everyone into believing that 720p was the "highest standard", a stance they've since dropped now that they stopped settling for the cheap cameras apparently)

So anyway, don't let anyone con you into believing that those fancy plasmas that are dropping in price are better because they have good contrast, color, whatever, because when you read the fine print you'll see that the resolution might be worse than your gradma's computer monitor!

This whole argument of "uh... well don't worry about the resolution, the picture is nicer!" will be moot within a year or two when every set on the market is 1080p, and then the argument of refresh, sharpness *will* matter, because it will be the only thing to separate TV quality at that point.

But don't settle for a lower resolution, whatever you do. You might as well not get HD at all if you're just going to throw away all that resolution, unless your TV is 25 inches and you sit 6 foot away.

Marty @ Nov 10th 2006 4:21PM

"If professionals who spend much of their time reviewing HDTV sets have difficulties telling the difference between 720p and 1080p, will the general public have any reason to spend the extra dough on a 1080p set?"

My sentiments exactly, Joystiq. Most people can't see the difference, except for in price... not that many can afford to spend months worth of paychecks on a TV anyway.

tkodarkside @ Nov 10th 2006 4:22PM

@27

Well said.

killr0y @ Nov 10th 2006 4:24PM

CLShortFuse, your argument has one very substantial flaw: You're on a goddamn laptop with a web browser.. We are talking about TV images & video games... you know, moving pictures. We are not dealing with staring at pages of microscopic text. So therefore, it is QUITE the valid argument that 720p is just as adequate for watching moving video at a standard distance (based on screen size). Maybe you should try to actually understand what they are saying before being so eager to disprove people who work in the industry for a living.

Aex @ Nov 10th 2006 4:39PM

@Vlad

Just take out another loan. Hell, school can cost a TV a semester!

Dave @ Nov 10th 2006 4:59PM

I guess if I spent a crapload of money on a 720p TV, I'd probably argue it was just as good, too. Forunately, I spent a crapload of money on a 1080p TV--so I'm casting my vote for "1080p looks better than 720p".

Heh. Just kidding. 120i FTW!

rip @ Nov 10th 2006 5:03PM

@tkodarside

"Ever heard of a VGA cable?? It's what were all using right now to view your fanboyish comments. HDMI isn't the only cable to allow for 1080p viewing."

er, what century are you living in? Most people, including me, use a dvi cable, not vga. And the point is valid, dvi is noticably superior to vga, using the exact same monitor and computer. Why? Because your not going digital-analog-digital, your going digital-digital. That's why the 360, with component cables is a weak solution.

@symetrix:

Fox sports back in the day was 480p. They stated at the time that dvd quality was fine essentially because people are too stupid to tell the difference. They later switched to 720p. Which, by the way is the generally preferred way to broadcast sports. Fast moving scenes generally work better in 720p.

People are really stupid when it comes to hdtv. Most people think upscaled, stretched sdtv is somehow hdtv on their new plasma set. And unless your signal is correctly transmitted (in 1080, all digital connections, good scaler/interlacer) there's a good chance there will be some degradation along the way.

As for 1080p, unless you have a hd or bluray player, good luck finding 1080p programming. In fact, your lucky to even find 1080i programming. Directv, for example, down rez's pretty much everything (since they don't have the bandwidth).

Oh and the 1080p spec is only for 30fps. 720p is 60fps. But I do agree w/you that you should pretty much get a 1080p set today if you can afford it.

Oh and to the other comment about gigantic screen sizes. In a smallish/typical living room, 50" is the new standard. IN other words, if your viewing distance is ~10-14', 50" is appropriate. 42" is pretty much the minimum for a living room set nowadays.

Huzzah!! @ Nov 10th 2006 5:07PM

Commodore 64 monitor from 1984 FTW!!! (It's way better than my roommates 25 inch tv...)

otakucode @ Nov 10th 2006 5:09PM

Higher resolution does not mean higher development costs. I don't know where this idea comes from other than a complete ignorance of the technologies involved and just assuming. How much extra did you have to pay to upgrade your 360 to do 1080p? Nothing, that's right. Once you're doing 1080i, getting to 1080p is not a big deal with the kind of processing power we're talking about in these consoles.

And as far as game development is concerned, higher resolutions can make development CHEAPER rather than more expensive. As I explained in a posting on the benefits of Blu-Ray awhile back, creating high resolution textures is EASIER than creating low resolution ones. Artists start with outrageously high resolution images to build textures out of. Almost all of the work in making it look good in the game involves counteracting the resizing to a lower resolution and compression. Less of either saves time and therefore money.

Mactor @ Nov 10th 2006 5:14PM

"Aparently nobody here has a computer monitor."

Do you sit 18" away from your television?

If the professionals at Sound & Vision can not tell the difference between 720p/1080p in screens below 60" from a distance of 10 feet, I'll take their word over that of a bunch of anonymous pre-teen boys on the Internet.

Korova @ Nov 10th 2006 5:17PM

Jeez, I am with Pete C, Everyone know its all about the cables.

Mez Jr @ Nov 10th 2006 5:20PM

It's exceedingly foolish to claim that nobody can see the difference between 1080p and 720p. if people can see the difference between s-video, composite, component, and HDMI/DVI, and then tell the difference between cheap and expensive cables of those types, then those same people will be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.

A more meaningful discussion would be is the cost of 1080p sets worth it given the limited amount of 1080p content, or is it worth buying the higher resolution set to "future proof" (maybe half decade proof?) your home theater.

Steve2 @ Nov 10th 2006 5:24PM

According to the ISF (Imaging Science Foundation), the most imporant factors in a TV's image quality are factors that the ISF can help adjust on your TV for a fee, and not one that they cannot change by turning a knob or going into a hidden menu.

What a surprise!

Note to editors:
CNET's review tests movies at 1080i versus 1080p. Note that spatially, 1080i and 1080p are the same resolution. The only difference is 1080p has 60fps temporal resolution and 1080i only has 30fps (well, sort of 60 due to interlacing). But movies have only 24fps temporal resolution anyway.

Thus 1080i can full represent all the data in a movie and you don't need 1080p for movies. However, this is not applicable to other content at greater than 24fps and isn't applicable to games.

So quoting this stuff on a gaming blog is to greatly mislead.

Also note that MS has not added 1080p to 360 in any meaningful fashion, yet. No game uses the full temporal and spatial resolution of 1080p on the 360. Yes, you can see the dashboard in 1080p with the update, but the dashboard would look the same in 1080i as 1080p because is all static (non-moving) images.

The MS fanboys on here are getting out of control. I can even take simultaneously saying MS knows "1080p is immaterial this generation" and saying MS then delivered 1080p despite it being pointless. But the attacking other people for pointing out MS was caught with the 1080p pants (even slightly) down is just out of line.

My TV doesn't do 1080P. Almost all my friends TV's do, and I can tell the difference. If it takes dropping to 720p to get good framerates (as it often will on PS3 and 360), then that's fine by me. But I do know 1080p is worth something. Sony knows it too, and MS suddenly started acting like it was too as soon as they got it.

SuicideNinja @ Nov 10th 2006 5:33PM

Go to Walmart, drop $900 on a 52" RCA 1080i TV that supports HDCP through it's DVI port. That means you can use an HDMI to DVI cable/adapter. Future proof and cheap enough, eh?

I have a 51" Magnavox that looks "lesser" at 720p. I have to use 1080i. Then again, I don't think it has direct support for the lower resolution.

delldude420 @ Nov 10th 2006 5:50PM

the new 1440p displays are comin ftw!!!

Gamey McGee @ Nov 10th 2006 5:53PM

As someone who is trained in video compression technology and the limits of the human eye, I can safely say 720p is perfectly fine as compared to 1080p.

480p ... that's a different story. Although it can look pretty decent, the Wii will suffer greatly for not having HD resolution. As for the claims of 1080p being any better than the baseline HD being broadcast today, 720p, yeah, it's bullshit. But we knew that anyway, didn't we?

Gamey McGee @ Nov 10th 2006 6:03PM

#40:

The most likely reason that you can see a difference in a 1080p set and the 720p set that you have now are the DSP chip, not the resolution. You simply can not perceive a difference unless you remove all joy from your viewing experience and scrutinize pixels from a foot away. All things equal-- the same set showing 720p and 1080p, you may *want* to see a difference but even if you do it will be very, very, marginal. Currently, not worth the price at all. Even if price was identical it would be hard to tell unless you are a serious videophile who prioritizes only certain aspects of a video signal over others.

I'm not a MS fanboy or Nintendo fanboy. I'm all about Sony. But I know that their 1080p slogan is just a slogan. It's no worse than any other piece of crap a marketing department will shove down people's throats.

Marc @ Nov 10th 2006 6:05PM

Are you going to tell me that gamers can't tell the difference between 1280x1024 VS 1600x1200 on their computers?

This is a stupid argument. Does it matter if your digital camera is 3 megapixel or 4? Of course it does.

The larger a TV you are viewing, the more crucial the resolution is going to be. Even still, if we were playing on a tiny TV, the better resolution would be easier on your eyes, all else being equal.

OMG.

Evan @ Nov 10th 2006 6:22PM

I would prefer a well-rendered 480P image over any high definition resolution. Even Gears of War (720P) looks "artificial". I can tell its a computer rendering and not live action video. I'd prefer to play graphics that look like a live action DVD - perfectly realistic although lower resolution.

A 360 or PS3 is not likely to produce "live action" quality renderings, but they could create more effects and realism by rendering at a lower resolution. The GPU would have twice as much power-per-pixel by targeting 480P. I completely disagree with Sony's decision to push 1080P on the PS3. IGN said that many of the PS3 games they have previewed are not anti-aliased. They are acheiving that higher resolution by taking a step backwards in realism and per-pixel quality.

Jeremy @ Nov 10th 2006 7:49PM

Why does DiscoveryHD look better than any other HD channel? It's important to compare apples with apples when checking for the difference between the two.

Also if you have a 100"+ projector, you can see the difference for sure.

Philonious @ Nov 10th 2006 9:04PM

They did this comparison for movies. The importance of resolution is a lot different when it comes to games. When watching a movie on a PC higher resolution is nice, but not a huge deal... When playing games the higher resolutions make a world of difference. Anyone who has the misfortune of playing 360 games on a standard CRT television can tell you that.

Ian @ Nov 10th 2006 11:23PM

I've got a 720p/1080i LCoS JVC HDTV and I can safely say games look great in 720p. I can see people saying at lower TV sizes (under 40-50 inches) 720p and 1080p looks the same but at higher sizes (like my 61in) 1080p probably looks somewhat better, although I don't have a 1080p TV to really compare.