720p Versus 1080p HDTVs. The Facts

[nordlead]

Reasonable said:

dahuman said:

Reasonable said:
As others have said - and to be fair the article makes clear itself - the major factor is distance.

If you are going to be sitting fairly close to the screen when playing/watching then even on smaller TVs you will see a noticeable improvement with 1080p - particularly with sports and action movies and fast moving games.

Secondly, going forward more and more content (even games potentially) will be in 1080p, so buying below that now may reduce the potential lifetime of your TV.

Of course, money is money, and a 720p or 1080i TV should serve fine for the foreseeable future, and will be ideal with a PS3 or 360.

But if you can afford it, going 1080p is simply a better choice and the cost differential between 720p and 1080p TVs is dropping all the time.

For videogames right now 720p is probably the key resolution for consoles, with 1080p the resolution if you really intend to watch BR movies and 1080p programmes.

Of course, on PC, as others have said, 1080p has long been old news!

to be reasonable, why the hell would people buy a 40 inch TV and purposely put it super far away anyways? totally defeats the purpose of having a big screen TV, might as well get a huge white wall and a high quality projector if your living room is that big.

I know.  It's just the weird fact that so many comparisons talk about 'unless sitting closer than 8 feet you won't notice much difference' and I think, heck, I've never really sat further away than 8 feet and tried to play a game or watch a movie.

In the US pretty much everyone I know has a room that is ~12x12 or bigger, and with TV on 1 wall and couch/chairs on the other, they can easily get further than 8 ft. My main room is 12.5'x19' and I sit ~9ft away from my TV, and I plan on having a second row of seats at ~15'.

Projectors have 1 major drawback over TVs, in that the bulb life isn't very long and they cost a small fortune. Why spend $500 every couple years because the bulb burned out? Projectors only make sense for specialized movie rooms that don't get used every day.