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[cyberheater]

I'm puzzling why 1080p is seen at the next big thing. From a normal gaming/movie watching distance, is the average human eyeballs even able to resolve detail at that resolution and at that distance.

I'm pretty sure at the recommended viewing distance of twice the screen width viewing distance you can't physically be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.

(Please don't make this a PS3 vs 360 vs NREV thread. This is just a discussion on visual acuity and resolution and the future of hdtv's)

 

[Andy787]

I'm puzzling why 1080p is seen at the next big thing. From a normal gaming/movie watching distance, is the average human eyeballs even able to resolve detail at that resolution and at that distance.

No, only super human eyeballs are able to resolve this detail.

 

[Liquid]

who care about moving forward? i don't. 480p is fine. hell, i cannot tell the difference from 480p to 720p.

 

[Inkblot]

I get as close as possible to the screen, it's distracting when you can make out the little blue, red and green components...

 

[Striek]

I'm pretty sure at the recommended viewing distance of twice the screen width viewing distance you can't physically be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.

If you can tell the difference between 480p and 720p then you should be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. The jump is only slightly smaller.

Also, that helps the next point. The average person is going to be able to recognise a jump from 480 to 1080p a hell of a lot better than 480p to 720p.

 

[J2 Cool]

Yes, more detail is visible. It's not that necessary though unless the actual high definition feed is taking advantage of it. I know a lot of HDTV signals aren't even using 1080i to it's full extent. But if studios release some Blu ray dvd's with the best possible picture, I'm certain you're going to see a difference between 720p and 1080p. I mean, both will look great but there is a bit of a pop on the ammount of detail in a 1080 set. Especially if it's a bit bigger screen. So no, it won't be indistinguishable. You'll definitely see the difference. I mean, just look at different brands of HDTV's at the same resolution. You can notice differences between the specs of different tv's. Now add in different brands and higher resolutions. They'll be some seriously awesome HDTV's when they come.

 

[antipode]

Yes. Movies are usually scanned in and printed at the equivalent of 4000p.

Without any antialiasing, the human eye can resolve the equivalent of 10000p at the widescreen aspect ratio, though most of that resolution is concentrated at the fovea in the center of your field of vision (so systems that track the movement of your cornea can get away with lower resolutions.)

They use really high resolutions in flight simulators. You can guess why - pilots need to be able to pick out really tiny details on a runway.

 

[Borys]

who care about moving forward? i don't. 480p is fine. hell, i cannot tell the difference from 480p to 720p.

Then you've got a fucked up vision. 720p is almost 4x the pixels.

Why am I not surprised that cyberheater of all people posted this thread?

Look, if you hate technological progress get back to 240p gaming. Or B&W television. Or bikes.

 

[Bebpo]

Wow, between this and the "hey what games do you want to die" thread we're on a roll here tonight.

but, but...human eyes can't see that well!!!

I don't know if I should view this thread as hilarious or just a really really sad case of denial.

 

[acidviper]

I'm puzzling why 1080p is seen at the next big thing. From a normal gaming/movie watching distance, is the average human eyeballs even able to resolve detail at that resolution and at that distance.

The human eyeball does 1080p easily. Consider you the detail in your surroundings right now and compare that to whatever PS3 demos you have seen, so yeah seeing a bunch of polygons interacting with other polygons is a piece of cake.

 

[gofreak]

I'm puzzling why 1080p is seen at the next big thing.

Because getting everyone to jump to a higher resolution than that first seems a tad less realistic. But then you seem to be suggesting we just stop at 720p.

1080p is of course the next step up after 720p. It's only matter of when content will move to that en masse. For movies it should happen shortly with Blu-ray. For games, for the coming generation it'll probably be a little like 720p was this gen. It'll be PS4/Xbox3/Rev2 before we see it used in all or most games.

 

[cyberheater]

Then you've got a fucked up vision. 720p is almost 4x the pixels.

Why am I not surprised that cyberheater of all people posted this thread?

Look, if you hate technological progress get back to 240p gaming. Or B&W television. Or bikes.

Yes. I hate technology so much. That's why I'm always the first in the queue for all new games machines and have a hi-def projector.

Please. This is a serious question. I'm just trying to work out if there really is a benefit.

Here's an example I worked out why 1080p seems to be no better then 720p at normal viewing distances.

Take a 2m wide projector screen. Surely you should be able to tell the difference between 1080p and 720p on a screen that big at normal viewing distances.

Well:-

Eye acuity is measured in CPD (cpd = cycles per degree of visual angle)
At Low ambient light levels the human eye measures around 20-30 cpd.

If you take a 2 meter wide screen. The physical width of pixels works out to be:-

1.56mm for 720P and 1.04mm for 1080P

If you sit at 2 x screen width distance the r (radius) = 4000mm

circumference of a circle is equal to 2 p r (where r = the radius and p = pie).
Therefore
= 2 * 3.146 * 4000mm = 25168mm
Each degree then become 25168mm / 360 degrees in a circle = 69.91 mm per degree.

The human eye can resolve 30 cycles per degree at low level ambient conditions.

CPD = 30. So 69.91mm / 30 = 2.33mm

From my calculations. The human eye can resolve 2.33 mm at 4 meters which is a lot lower then 720p or 1080p. In fact. 1080P is twice as high as the human eye can differentiate at that distance.

Now maybe these calculations are wrong but if they're right, there seems to be no benefit going to the higher resolution.

 

[J2 Cool]

Yes. I hate technology so much. That's why I'm always the first in the queue for all new games machines and have a hi-def projector.

Please. This is a serious question. I'm just trying to work out if there really is a benefit.

Here's an example I worked out why 1080p seems to be no better then 720p at normal viewing distances.

Take a 2m wide projector screen. Surely you should be able to tell the difference between 1080p and 720p on a screen that big at normal viewing distances.

Well:-

Eye acuity is measured in CPD (cpd = cycles per degree of visual angle)
At Low ambient light levels the human eye measures around 20-30 cpd.

If you take a 2 meter wide screen. The physical width of pixels works out to be:-

1.56mm for 720P and 1.04mm for 1080P

If you sit at 2 x screen width distance the r (radius) = 4000mm

circumference of a circle is equal to 2 p r (where r = the radius and p = pie).
Therefore
= 2 * 3.146 * 4000mm = 25168mm
Each degree then become 25168mm / 360 degrees in a circle = 69.91 mm per degree.

The human eye can resolve 30 cycles per degree at low level ambient conditions.

CPD = 30. So 69.91mm / 30 = 2.33mm

From my calculations. The human eye can resolve 2.33 mm at 4 meters which is a lot lower then 720p or 1080p. In fact. 1080P is twice as high as the human eye can differentiate at that distance.

Now maybe these calculations are wrong but if they're right, there seems to be no benefit going to the higher resolution.

Oh wait, no I don't.

 

[gofreak]

Eye acuity is measured in CPD (cpd = cycles per degree of visual angle)
At Low ambient light levels the human eye measures around 20-30 cpd.

If you take a 2 meter wide screen. The physical width of pixels works out to be:-

1.56mm for 720P and 1.04mm for 1080P

If you sit at 2 x screen width distance the r (radius) = 4000mm

circumference of a circle is equal to 2 p r (where r = the radius and p = pie).
Therefore
= 2 * 3.146 * 4000mm = 25168mm
Each degree then become 25168mm / 360 degrees in a circle = 69.91 mm per degree.

The human eye can resolve 30 cycles per degree at low level ambient conditions.

CPD = 30. So 69.91mm / 30 = 2.33mm

I'm not an expert on this, and I don't know the accuracy of the rest of your calculations, but with 20/20 vision (which everyone should enjoy, beit with glasses or without), you're apparently able to resolve detail up to 1/60th of a degree of an arc (maybe this is assuming better contrast - but you know, you can't build a movie or game resolution standard around the assumption that they'll be watched in low-light conditions!). So it'd be more like 69.91/60 = 1.17mm - smaller than your 720p pixel width quoted above.

Again, though, I can't second the rest of your calculations for now.

 

[antipode]

Yes. I hate technology so much. That's why I'm always the first in the queue for all new games machines and have a hi-def projector.

Please. This is a serious question. I'm just trying to work out if there really is a benefit.

Here's an example I worked out why 1080p seems to be no better then 720p at normal viewing distances.

Take a 2m wide projector screen. Surely you should be able to tell the difference between 1080p and 720p on a screen that big at normal viewing distances.

Well:-

Eye acuity is measured in CPD (cpd = cycles per degree of visual angle)
At Low ambient light levels the human eye measures around 20-30 cpd.

If you take a 2 meter wide screen. The physical width of pixels works out to be:-

1.56mm for 720P and 1.04mm for 1080P

If you sit at 2 x screen width distance the r (radius) = 4000mm

circumference of a circle is equal to 2 p r (where r = the radius and p = pie).
Therefore
= 2 * 3.146 * 4000mm = 25168mm
Each degree then become 25168mm / 360 degrees in a circle = 69.91 mm per degree.

The human eye can resolve 30 cycles per degree at low level ambient conditions.

CPD = 30. So 69.91mm / 30 = 2.33mm

From my calculations. The human eye can resolve 2.33 mm at 4 meters which is a lot lower then 720p or 1080p. In fact. 1080P is twice as high as the human eye can differentiate at that distance.

Now maybe these calculations are wrong but if they're right, there seems to be no benefit going to the higher resolution.

Many things wrong.

A. You're confused on what a cycle is. To display a cycle at the Nyquist limit you need at least 2 pixels, one for the bright signal and one for the dark signal.

B. You're measuring on the diagonal so your distances are stretched out. A 2m TV has 1080 pixels over only 1 m of height, or 1.8 mm per cycle. A TV that was 2 m tall would be a 4 m TV, or watching a 159-inch TV at a distance of 12 feet.

C. Most measures of foveal acuity are 50 cycles per degree or higher. And that's for an antialiased image. Once you introduce jaggies into cycles, you need a much higher resolution.
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs248-05/raster/raster.html

 

[gofreak]

C. Most measures of foveal acuity are 50 cycles per degree or higher. And that's for an antialiased image. Once you introduce jaggies into cycles, you need a much higher resolution.
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs248-05/raster/raster.html

Hmm, I wondered about this and was not sure. You're not viewing a continuous signal.

 

[Error Macro]

Look, if you hate technological progress get back to 240p gaming. Or B&W television. Or bikes.

I miss riding bikes

 

[antipode]

circumference of a circle is equal to 2 p r (where r = the radius and p = pie).
Therefore
= 2 * 3.146 * 4000mm = 25168mm
Each degree then become 25168mm / 360 degrees in a circle = 69.91 mm per degree.

Forgot to point out the most fundamental problem - your TV is a flat surface. The path length distance along a circle centered at you can't be compared to straight lines on your TV.

 

[cyberheater]

I'm not an expert on this, and I don't know the accuracy of the rest of your calculations, but with 20/20 vision (which everyone should enjoy, beit with glasses or without), you're apparently able to resolve detail up to 1/60th of a degree of an arc (maybe this is assuming better contrast - but you know, you can't build a movie or game resolution standard around the assumption that they'll be watched in low-light conditions!). So it'd be more like 69.91/60 = 1.17mm - smaller than your 720p pixel width quoted above.

Again, though, I can't second the rest of your calculations for now.

Yes. 1/60th of a degree in a well lite environment. 1/30th of a degree in lower level ambient conditions which is typically what we use for gaming. After all. How many of us watch films or play games in a bright well lit environment.

 

[Monk]

All i want is a crisp picture with no combing.

Combing sucks.

 

[cyberheater]

Forgot to point out the most fundamental problem - your TV is a flat surface. The path length distance along a circle centered at you can't be compared to straight lines on your TV.

Nitpicking and in fact it makes the calculations worse cause the edges of the screen are further away.

 

[Juice]

I came in here expecting an Xbox fanboy to make like a Nintendo fanboy by arguing that higher resolution != better. I walk away pleased.

So I guess it scales.

Nintendo fan's line: "Fuck HD, I can't tell the difference between 480p and 720p. 480p is fine."

Xbox fan's line: "Fuck 1080p, I can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. 720p is fine."

C'mon, guys. You can't out and out fight scaling technology by declaring it useless and expect anyone to take you seriously. 1080p shit is going to have a crisper resolution than 720p, and 720p more than 480p. Deal. You can't make out like this is a new argument, as PC games have been able to tell the difference between these same resolutions for years. And there is one.

/Doesn't give two shits about HD resolution.
//Thinks art is what's most important.
///Doesn't bother trying to argue that incremental advances are unnecessary as a result.

 

[gofreak]

After all. How many of us watch films or play games in a bright well lit environment.

*raises hand*

When I'm playing on a projector, of course it's dark, but on a TV downstairs the lights are up most of the time. I'd say the latter is the norm for most people. You cannot assume certain conditions when working out a resolution standard, you have to cater for as many situations as possible (and there are SO many variables at play here). Viewing with good lighting is not a corner case here.

Anyway, antipode's previous points need also to be considered. Besides, the only convincing I need is to view 1080p material through my 720p projector (via my PC), and see the difference for myself - on a native 1080p display, it'd only be much more noticeable.

 

[cyberheater]

*raises hand*

When I'm playing on a projector, of course it's dark, but on a TV downstairs the lights are up most of the time. I'd say the latter is the norm for most people. You cannot assume certain conditions when working out a resolution standard, you have to cater for as many situations as possible (and there are SO many variables at play here). Viewing with good lighting is not a corner case here.

Anyway, antipode's previous points need also to be considered. Besides, the only convincing I need is to view 1080p material through my 720p projector (via my PC), and see the difference for myself - on a native 1080p display, it'd only be much more noticeable.

Yep. I'm waiting for the day I can do the same

 

[Inumaru]

Many things wrong.

A. You're confused on what a cycle is. To display a cycle at the Nyquist limit you need at least 2 pixels, one for the bright signal and one for the dark signal.

B. You're measuring on the diagonal so your distances are stretched out. A 2m TV has 1080 pixels over only 1 m of height, or 1.8 mm per cycle. A TV that was 2 m tall would be a 4 m TV, or watching a 159-inch TV at a distance of 12 feet.

C. Most measures of foveal acuity are 50 cycles per degree or higher. And that's for an antialiased image. Once you introduce jaggies into cycles, you need a much higher resolution.
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs248-05/raster/raster.html

I am rarely impressed by technobabble. Now, I don't know what any of this means, but for once I am impressed at just the sound of this information.

Nyquist limit. Foveal acuity. Those are some seriously great words. Plus, now I know where the root for Foveon® comes from.

 

[Juice]

I am rarely impressed by technobabble. Now, I don't know what any of this means, but for once I am impressed at just the sound of this information.

Nyquist limit. Foveal acuity. Those are some seriously great words. Plus, now I know where the root for Foveon® comes from.

I agree. I felt the same way.

 

[CousinLump]

I'm on the market for a new HDTV, and 1080p excites up the blood. However, since 99% of 1080p TVs out there cannot accept a 1080p input source, what's a gamer to do? I'm thinking about saving some serious $$ and just pick up a nice 720p. In a few years, when prices are down and 1080p PS3s are finally allowed to work in an input, I'll get a new TV. I do love being on the cutting edge, and I guess some 1080p TVs with working inputs will out around summer, but the cost will be outrageous. Any thoughts on waiting? Or just get a TV now? I trust GAF for help.

 

[Borys]

I came in here expecting an Xbox fanboy to make like a Nintendo fanboy by arguing that higher resolution != better. I walk away pleased.

Yeah, that was a nice stealth & veiled anti-PS3 troll by Mr. cyberheater. He though people wouldn't notice :lol

I must express my disappointment that PC gaming res has been stuck at 16x12 for like 6 last years. What the hell happened? Why can't we buy displays (CRTs for example) with 3Kx2K res?

 

[chinch]

I'm puzzling why 1080p is seen at the next big thing. From a normal gaming/movie watching distance, is the average human eyeballs even able to resolve detail at that resolution and at that distance.

I'm pretty sure at the recommended viewing distance of twice the screen width viewing distance you can't physically be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.

(Please don't make this a PS3 vs 360 vs NREV thread. This is just a discussion on visual acuity and resolution and the future of hdtv's)

higher res allows you too sit closer than 2:1 which most of us like to do. it is true that the ability to resolve 720p vs 1080p is possibly beyond our perception at certain distances. that said i don't think 1080p will be realistic for gaming this generation as developers would be foolish to target that. Nevermind many 1080p sets cannot accept 1920x1080p inputs from a PC meaning they do funky upconverting to be "1080p".

 

[Brimstone]

I'm on the market for a new HDTV, and 1080p excites up the blood. However, since 99% of 1080p TVs out there cannot accept a 1080p input source, what's a gamer to do? I'm thinking about saving some serious $$ and just pick up a nice 720p. In a few years, when prices are down and 1080p PS3s are finally allowed to work in an input, I'll get a new TV. I do love being on the cutting edge, and I guess some 1080p TVs with working inputs will out around summer, but the cost will be outrageous. Any thoughts on waiting? Or just get a TV now? I trust GAF for help.

Well, the other day I was in Best Buy and was admiring a Sony SXRD 1080p set. Sure there is no 1080p signal, but 1080i is broadcast by several channels and it looks freaking awesome on the set. If the TV had a native resolution of 720p, during the process of converting the data to 1080i, some of the image fidelity would be lost. Since 1080p sets like Sony's latest SXRD's have a native resolution of 1920x1080, 1080i singnals look outstanding.

Xbox 360 does support 1080i output, so it's possible games may output to that eventually. 1080i is twice the amount of pixels as 720p.

1080i makes owning a native 1080p worth it imho.

 

[3rdman]

Gaming in 1080p is a pipe dream this generation, so don't worry about it.

 

[chinch]

1080i is twice the amount of pixels as 720p.

It certainly does NOT onscreen.

1080i HDTV = 1,036,800 onscreen pixels
(1,080 scan lines x 1,920 pixels/line =2,073,600 pixels / 2)

720p HDTV = 921,600 onscreen
(720 scan lines x 1,280 pixels/line = 921,600 pixels)

 

[DenogginizerOS]

You need 1080P for 120FPS.

 

[AtomicShroom]

I'm fairly sure we'll be able to tell the difference. Hell I'm still seeing jaggies in Xbox 360 games running at 720p. I imagine jaggies as a whole will be even less appearant in 1080p.

 

[Borys]

I'm fairly sure we'll be able to tell the difference. Hell I'm still seeing jaggies in Xbox 360 games running at 720p. I imagine jaggies as a whole will be even less appearant in 1080p.

I can see jaggies in 1600x1200 res (w/o AA) when I'm looking for them

I cannot see a single jaggie in 1024x768 res with 8xAA even if I look for it.

 

[Brimstone]

It certainly does NOT onscreen.

1080i HDTV = 1,036,800 onscreen pixels
(1,080 scan lines x 1,920 pixels/line =2,073,600 pixels / 2)

720p HDTV = 921,600 onscreen
(720 scan lines x 1,280 pixels/line = 921,600 pixels)

The image is interlaced. Pixels don't dissapear, the odd and even lines are rendered at alternating times. Interlacing doesn't half your resolution, it's they way the image is drawn.

1080i has twice the pixel resolution of 720p.

Are you going to tell me 480p has twice the resolution of 480i?

 

[DenogginizerOS]

Uhhhh, the average fanboy sees approximately 21,232 jaggies per virtual foot for every game that is on the system they choose not to buy, while the edges of all games on their favorite system melt away in the flash that is blinding their reality.

 

[qirex]

Are you going to tell me 480p has twice the resolution of 480i?

It does in this bizarro-AVSForum/TeamXbox parallel universe that this thread has created.

 

[lachesis]

Well, I was working on a HDTV for Execs (Dummies) about a year ago - explaining difference between 720p and 1080i... and I'm not sure how un-biased this is, but the networks use different signals (NBC = 1080i, ABC = 720p) - so there must be some political issue regarding why we are using 720p.

According to the manual text, it was saying 720p is better for moving images because it's progressive - and 1080i might suit better for a still image for higher resolution - but not as good in motion as it's interlaced.

Perhaps some bullshit here and there... but it didn't forget to add the difference is minimal in terms of details and all... but I could see there will be significant jump from 720p to 1080p in terms of details.

1080p. Yes, it would be awesome to be able to play in 1080p - but my Sony HDTV cannot display 1080p anyhow, so it kinda ticks me off. It's only 1 year old model and it was top of the line at the time. It can, though, display 1080i and 720p, so I hope 1080p won't be common for next 5-7 years - as I don't plan to buy another TV by then.

For the sake of HDTV, I hope they would stick to 720p or 1080i for now - and stop confusing the market. Technology improves, and in a decades or so, there might be 10,000p resolution available, but what good it will be if it's not "standard?"

lachesis

 

[koam]

If you have a big screen tv i.e over 50in you can tell the difference

 

[Klotera]

Chances are that we won't be seeing broadcast standards for 1080P anytime soon, due to the fact that tons of people already own TVs that won't support it and, of course, the bandwidth restrictions, which are already limiting broadcasters.

However, if a 1080P television has a good motion-adaptive de-interlacer, it will be able to produce a 1080p image from a 1080i signal that is much better than 720p, even without a native 1080p signal. Of course, if they use a cheap line-doubler for de-interlacing instead, then you might as well just use a 720p image and scale it.

 

[Brimstone]

However, if a 1080P television has a good motion-adaptive de-interlacer, it will be able to produce a 1080p image from a 1080i signal that is much better than 720p, even without a native 1080p signal.

Thanks for confirming this.

Since both XB360 and PS3 can handle 1080i, if we're lucky we may end up seeing some games targeting a higher resolution than 720p. Maybe EA could do it with Madden.

 

[RoH]

Progressive will always be much more suitable the Interlaced for gaming, as an example I prefer 720P over 1080I because I swear that I can see the distortion in an Interlaced image (example 720P > 1080I ), further more after some research 1080I is not really delivering 1080I lines its really just 540 lines, so 720P is the winner for me. The next step is 1080P but right now i don't feel the cost of the sets and the lack of almost any media for this HD format are worth the investment. I also think most developers will simple take the easy way out and create 720P content and allow the console to simply upscale the image.

But thats just my 2cents :lol

 

[levious]

(Please don't make this a PS3 vs 360 vs NREV thread. This is just a discussion on visual acuity and resolution and the future of hdtv's)

Then why make it a gaming topic at all? That'd be like making a thread 15 years ago asking about hardware scaling effects vs. software enabled scaling effects and then saying "this is not a Genesis vs. SNES thread!"

 

[Big Takeover]

Thanks for confirming this.

Since both XB360 and PS3 can handle 1080i, if we're lucky we may end up seeing some games targeting a higher resolution than 720p. Maybe EA could do it with Madden.

Any interlaced content coming from a console is first scaled from a progressive frame. The next step is to 1080p for a scale-free image.

 

[Deg]

A good example is pc gaming. The resolution makes a huge difference and AA matters much more at higher resolutions. I cant even think about playing without AA.

 

[Klotera]

Well, I was working on a HDTV for Execs (Dummies) about a year ago - explaining difference between 720p and 1080i... and I'm not sure how un-biased this is, but the networks use different signals (NBC = 1080i, ABC = 720p) - so there must be some political issue regarding why we are using 720p.

According to the manual text, it was saying 720p is better for moving images because it's progressive - and 1080i might suit better for a still image for higher resolution - but not as good in motion as it's interlaced.

While many claim that networks are showing 720p because it is better for motion, the real reason is bandwidth. There have even been local affiliates known to downscale a 1080i to 720p for bandwidth purposes. I'd imagine those that do show 1080i are doing it for the universal compatibility (since some TVs don't take 720p signals) - but that's just my guess.

Progressive will always be much more suitable the Interlaced for gaming, as an example I prefer 720P over 1080I because I swear that I can see the distortion in an Interlaced image (example 720P > 1080I ), further more after some research 1080I is not really delivering 1080I lines its really just 540 lines, so 720P is the winner for me.

First, the article you link - the person writing clearly had an agenda. If he was simply trying to provide imformation, he wouldn't be so dead-set on tryin to refer to 1080i by a different name (the naming convention that has ALWAYS been used is how many lines are actually shown at a time, not how many are drawn in 1/60 of a second). 1080i does have 1080i lines of resolution, it simply RE-DRAWS every other 540 every 1/60 of a second producing the full 1080 line image at any given time. While a progressive signal is always better than interlaced at a given resolution, when you are talking different resolutions it becomes more complicated. Would you take 240p over 480i? Most people considered the jump in gaming from 240p to 480i to be a good thing. In reality, 1080i on a native 1080i device looks comparable to 720p on a native 720p device. When watching one on a non-native device, it comes down to the quality of the scaler.

Any interlaced content coming from a console is first scaled from a progressive frame. The next step is to 1080p for a scale-free image.

This is true - but even most 1080P tvs now don't accept a 1080p signal. So, the best they can do is use motion-adaptive de-interlacing to create it from the 1080i signal. Again, the key is "motion-adaptive". Without it, a line-doubled signal will look probably worse than a native 1080i signal.

 

[TAJ]

>>>Yes. Movies are usually scanned in and printed at the equivalent of 4000p.<<<

No, they're often scanned at 4k across, but that would only be about 2250p.
Also, scanning something at very high resolution won't do any good if what you're scanning is lower resolution. First gen 35mm can push the limits of 2250p, but 8mm and 16mm are still going to look like shit even scanned at 16000p.
Also, I don't know what it's been like in the last couple years, but working at 2k (basically 1080p) was the norm for a long time except in shots that needed a lot of detail like crowd shots. In that case, what was shown in theaters on film would be significantly less detailed than if they'd done direct-digital projection at 1080p of the files the film negative was printed from.

 

[shpankey]

Then you've got a fucked up vision. 720p is almost 4x the pixels.

Why am I not surprised that cyberheater of all people posted this thread?

Look, if you hate technological progress get back to 240p gaming. Or B&W television. Or bikes.

quoted for truth

 

[Vustadumas]

Well, the other day I was in Best Buy and was admiring a Sony SXRD 1080p set. Sure there is no 1080p signal, but 1080i is broadcast by several channels and it looks freaking awesome on the set. If the TV had a native resolution of 720p, during the process of converting the data to 1080i, some of the image fidelity would be lost. Since 1080p sets like Sony's latest SXRD's have a native resolution of 1920x1080, 1080i singnals look outstanding.

Xbox 360 does support 1080i output, so it's possible games may output to that eventually. 1080i is twice the amount of pixels as 720p.

1080i makes owning a native 1080p worth it imho.

PDZ (and possibly a few others) output 1080i already. At least it says so on the box. I'm sure it just scales up the 720p signal.