480P in a 16:9 format is 854x480 = 409,920 pixels. (Many Switch games in portable mode run at around this resolution!)
720P in a 16:9 format is 1280x720 = 921,600 pixels.

So more like a doubling of pixels.

480P can look great, depending on scaling and the input method in-use. I.E. The PS2/OG Xbox/Gamecube/Wii/Xbox 360 "version" of 480P tends to not look great on a HDTV due to composite/Component being used.

Of course you also have another aspect to consider... Perceived Pixels Per Inch... Smaller+further away the screen, the less resolution you need... TV sizes exploded when Full High-Definition became the norm, thus lower resolutions started to look dated very quickly on newer and larger panels.

I have a CRT in my games room and older games that are 480P look far better on the 27" CRT than my 75" LCD panel.

I thought 720x480 was 16:9 because that's a fairly common widescreen resolution in gaming and video.

Either way, I don't think we really had much 480p content actually doing 854x480 due to lack of support. Consoles capable of 480p were really doing 640x480, but games did go natively lower to reduce GPU load.

Even when games were doing widescreen they didn't really change to a 16:9 resolution. I believe they just made the picture narrow so it would look normal when stretched wide. A few PC games actually allowed this. You could run the game at 4:3 ratio like 800x600, but there would be option to make it widescreen. I think Halo 2 did this, it ran smoother than just using 1280x720 and still looked pretty good.

I was comparing 640x480 to 1280x720p as these were the common resolutions in console gaming. Either way, even the sub HD games like CoD on 7th gen look much sharper than 480p.

Yeah, old games look much better on CRT TVs. It softens the pixels, old games also look pretty good on projector even though its HD.

When I had my Wii connected I actually used component cables. I prefer games look pixelated versus muddy on standard RCA cables.

Either way, just increasing the resolution 240p and 480p 3D games to 720p makes a world of difference in clarity. He was complaining about the transition of SD to HD. I think it was a very needed transition.

I thought 720x480 was 16:9 because that's a fairly common widescreen resolution in gaming and video.nce in clarity. He was complaining about the transition of SD to HD. I think it was a very needed transition.

Either way, I don't think we really had much 480p content actually doing 854x480 due to lack of support. Consoles capable of 480p were really doing 640x480, but games did go natively lower to reduce GPU load.

Even when games were doing widescreen they didn't really change to a 16:9 resolution. I believe they just made the picture narrow so it would look normal when stretched wide. A few PC games actually allowed this. You could run the game at 4:3 ratio like 800x600, but there would be option to make it widescreen. I think Halo 2 did this, it ran smoother than just using 1280x720 and still looked pretty good.

I was comparing 640x480 to 1280x720p as these were the common resolutions in console gaming. Either way, even the sub HD games like CoD on 7th gen look much sharper than 480p.

Yeah, old games look much better on CRT TVs. It softens the pixels, old games also look pretty good on projector even though its HD.

When I had my Wii connected I actually used component cables. I prefer games look pixelated versus muddy on standard RCA cables.

That's because CRTs are capable of displaying native resolution from source rather than fixed nature of LCD/Plasma/OLED.

Its a crying shame that that technology was dropped. SED technology held such promise before it was abandoned for LCD and Plasma. It also had considerably higher contrast ratio and lower input lag to boot.

Nope. It is 854x480. 16:9 is the ratio or 409x920.

720x480 is a 4:3 ratio... Or 345,600 pixels.
The PAL variant is 720x576 which is 5:4 ratio or 414,720 pixels.

Feel free to throw some numbers into this calculator.
https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/math/ratios.php

Yes it was a very needed transition, but it wasn't as dramatic in terms of pixel count as 1080P to 4k or 720P to 1440P.

Depends on the console.
In general any console that is doing 480P widescreen is likely doing 854x480 scaling. I.E. Gamecube, Wii, Original Xbox, Xbox 360.
The rendering resolution may differ from that.

Older consoles like the Nintendo 64, Playstation 1, Sega Saturn will tend to fall towards 320x240 with some titles being 640x480.

Again. Depends on console and the output methods used. That didn't really happen on the OG Xbox with component.

They are sharper because of the output method being digital rather than analogue.

Lots of aspects to consider like progressive vs interlace scanning as well.

Component is generally better than composite due to the extra channels employed for the video.

The move to 480p to 720p was a very significant transition in regard to what our eyes can easily perceive. As was moving from 240p to 480p. The transition to 1080p and 4K wasn't as obvious, even if the number of pixels grew significantly.

From the little research I did, I'm pretty sure 6th gen consoles and Wii were primarily doing 640x480 natively in games, lower wasn't unusual to help performance. Although its worth noting the original Xbox had a surprising large list of games that did 720p.

Component is analog yet its at par wit HDMI. Also just by adjusting the resolution in PC games, its obvious that 480p and 720p are a world of difference.

I just read through the link... Wow, that actually sucks. I looks like it acts like OLED in many respects and has quite a few advantages over plasma and LCD. It's a wonder what SED could have been had Toshiba actually followed through with it.

I agree. The move from 480P to 720P was a significant transition.
Some consoles (Like the Switch and WiiU) are able to show us the differences of say... 480P and 720P in real time though.

It's not as significant though as the transition from 6th gen to 7th gen +480P to 720P, because that also generally had an accompanying shift in output technology. (Analogue to Digital.)

The shift to 4k can be just as big, all depends on your panel size and how far you sit from it, but it's very noticeable when I shift from the Xbox One X with a game racing towards a 4k output to a Nintendo Switch/Xbox One/Playstation 4 game which tops out at 1080P.

640x480 and 720x480 titles typically relied on Anamorphic widescreen on the Gamecube and Wii. That's the output.
Doesn't mean they aren't rendering games internally at 854x480... In-fact many games on Gamecube and Wii did 512x448 or less.
I.E. Dragon Ball Budokai 2 was 512x224 on the Gamecube or 224P.

However the Wii's internal frambuffer allows for 854x480.

Worthy of mention is that the WiiU's gamepad is also 480P or 854x480 and many switch games fall to that same resolution.

But for a true 480P 16:9 widescreen image the resolution is most certainly 854×480.

Component is nowhere near HDMI. - Component tops out at 1080 interlaced for starters...
I have a component+composite+HDMI cable for the Xbox 360 and the difference is night and day. HDMI > Component > Composite in that order.

The difference between 480P and 720P differences and how pronounced those differences are... Of course stems from display type (I.E. Native resolution), display size and distance from the display.
The difference between 480P and 720P on a PC via CRT monitor is stuff all.
The difference between 480P and 720P on an LCD panel which is 720P/1080P native is massive.

Digital Foundry did a CRT breakdown just recently, go check that video out.