TVs for consoles - 720p versus 1080p?

um7y1h83ge06nx · 11-09-2013 10:44AM #1

I'm considering buying either a PS4 or an Xbox One sometime after their release (probably the PS4).

I was wondering will there be much difference visually between using these on a 720p TV versus a 1080p TV?

My main game TV is a 32 inch Samsung that I hook my 360 to. It a few years old, bought early 2006 I think and is 720p.

aperture_nuig · 11-09-2013 10:45AM

Current gen consoles only output 720p AFAIK anyway, so you wouldn't notice. However, the ps4 and xbone do output full 1080p and I do think you would notice the difference then.

aN.Droid · 11-09-2013 10:49AM

Simon Sharp Triceps wrote: »

I'm considering buying either a PS4 or an Xbox One sometime after their release (probably the PS4).

I was wondering will there be much difference visually between using these on a 720p TV versus a 1080p TV?

My main game TV is a 32 inch Samsung that I hook my 360 to. It a few years old, bought early 2006 I think and is 720p.

For 32 inches 720p is fine however you really want to go 1080p if going any higher in screen size.

1080p gives a much clearer picture which is very apparent on larger panels.

it's 2 megapixels-ish vs .9 megapixels-ish twice the clarity (depending on content and source) in 1080p

Akrasia · 11-09-2013 10:53AM

I have a 51 inch plasma that's 720p and it looks grand.
Unless you have your nose pressed up against the screen you can't notice and with a screen that big you're gonna be sitting a few feet away

I'd pick a tv that has good contrast and sound and a high refresh rate if it was in 720p ahead of a cheaper 'full hd' lcd screen with crap contrast and jerky images

quarryman · 11-09-2013 11:02AM

aperture_nuig wrote: »

Current gen consoles only output 720p AFAIK anyway,

This is why forums can be such a poor source for info. Anybody can make up any sort of crap like that and post it.

aN.Droid · 11-09-2013 11:12AM

Akrasia wrote: »

I have a 51 inch plasma that's 720p and it looks grand.
Unless you have your nose pressed up against the screen you can't notice and with a screen that big you're gonna be sitting a few feet away

I'd pick a tv that has good contrast and sound and a high refresh rate if it was in 720p ahead of a cheaper 'full hd' lcd screen with crap contrast and jerky images

To be fair at 51 inches there would be a huge difference between 720p and 1080p as the pixels will be so large.

But yes 100% it also depends on other factors like you mention

motion response, color processing, contrast, brightness, and background video, and video scaling are all to be taken into account.

Also don't fall for any true motion or 600hz crap. Chances are you will turn it off right away if you want to watch something as it was meant to watch. And it makes allot of people queezy (Me included) so take that into account too.

quarryman wrote: »

This is why forums can be such a poor source for info. Anybody can make up any sort of crap like that and post it.

Also to be fair while the consoles can output at 1080p for some things the majority of content on current gen consoles is 720p. Next gen is reportedly going to offer a choice at 1080p at 30fps or 720p at 60fps for the majority of content.

aperture_nuig · 11-09-2013 11:35AM

quarryman wrote: »

This is why forums can be such a poor source for info. Anybody can make up any sort of crap like that and post it.

I didn't make it up. Most PS3/360 games run at 720p:

http://www.examiner.com/article/battlefield-3-runs-at-720p-and-30fps-on-ps3-and-xbox-360

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/1080p-games-play-by-default-720p.452540053/

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/117442-13-does-output-native-1080p

TLDR: Xbox 360 and ps3 dashboards run at 1080p, a few ( < 5) games run at 1080p on ps3. if you play consoles on a TV , you will usually get a popup from the TV showing the resolution change down to 720p when you go in game.

ShadowHearth · 11-09-2013 11:44AM

Going anything lower then 1080p these days is a bit mad. Finally next gen will have a proper attempt at 1080p. Maybe we won't get all 1080p games now, but some time in we will see a lot more 1080p.

What you should be worked about is screen size and how far away you will be sitting from a screen. 1080p will look a lot better and sharper on 37" TV then on 42". The number of pixels will be same on both tvs , but smaller TV will have smaller pixels and it will look a lot better. If you like to play up close from screen ( I do ), then you better look in to smaller screen, if you do like to sit far away, then go for big TV.

I won't go deeper in to led vs LCD vs plasma. There are same amount of opinions about it as much as there are gamers. I personally love Led and hate plasma, where's someone will say that they prefer plasma over led. What you should do, is just go in to shop and look at TV yourself.
I would recommend buying TV in shop, not on internet. You need to have a look at picture. It all can sound very good on a paper, but when it comes in practise it looks ****. On internet you can't check that. Plus its a pain in a hole to do returns on TVs bought online.
One more thing - get the biggest warranty you can, the damn new TVs are crap and will pop on you after few years. So get warranty for 5 years and after 4 years 360 days just just push it off the straits and go get new model.

nesf · 11-09-2013 11:59AM

aperture_nuig wrote: »

I didn't make it up. Most PS3/360 games run at 720p:

You said only output 720p which is why people's backs are up because this is actually bull****. Now if you said almost all games are rendered at 720p and upscaled then no one would complain.

Agricola · 11-09-2013 12:12PM

With the next gen just around the corner you would really have to go 1080p at this stage. The only 1080p game Ive played on the PS3 was Gran Turismo 5 and I do think it looks significantly sharper than anything else on the console. Although that game is polished to within an inch of its life anyway so its hard to be objective.

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I would recommend buying TV in shop, not on internet. You need to have a look at picture. It all can sound very good on a paper, but when it comes in practise it looks ****. On internet you can't check that. Plus its a pain in a hole to do returns on TVs bought online.

Not necessarily. TV's in shops are very rarely setup correctly or calibrated. They are usually set on dynamic mode or similar to make the screen pop out under the strong lighting in shops. Its not a very good indication of what the screen will look like in your own house. The best thing to do is research good gaming TVs online and find a handful of reviews from good sites that detail all the pro n cons of a TV. You can then make your decision based on your own budget. You could then go look at a contender in a shop (thats if they stock it, which is unlikely)

um7y1h83ge06nx · 11-09-2013 12:14PM

I have a 50 inch 1080p Panasonic Plasma in the sitting room, the main TV.

Be very sweet to hook the 360 and then the PS4 to it but seeing as it's our main TV my girlfriend may not like it being commandeered.

If I do get a PS4 I'll hook it up to it and tweak the output resolution between 720p and 1080p to see the difference. Then again it will be more apparent on that size of TV than a smaller one.

I was looking online the last day for the craic. A modern 40 inch TV is not much bigger (including the frame) than my older 32 inch. They're made a lot tidier now.

For €449 plus delivery this is a pretty nice TV:

http://www.pixmania.ie/led-tv/samsung-ue40eh6030-3d-led-tv/15313039-a.html

aperture_nuig · 11-09-2013 12:38PM

nesf wrote: »

You said only output 720p which is why people's backs are up because this is actually bull****. Now if you said almost all games are rendered at 720p and upscaled then no one would complain.

Fair enough. Still don't get why I was accused of making stuff up, but anyway....

nesf · 11-09-2013 12:42PM

aperture_nuig wrote: »

Fair enough. Still don't get why I was accused of making stuff up, but anyway....

What you said originally was factually wrong and someone could go off with the notion that no current gen console can render at 1080p which is wrong.

aperture_nuig · 11-09-2013 12:58PM

nesf wrote: »

What you said originally was factually wrong and someone could go off with the notion that no current gen console can render at 1080p which is wrong.

Alright, but even if they did take that view and bought a 720p tv, they wouldn't be missing out on any extra image quality or clarity.

I'm gonna stop replying now as I'm dragging the thread off topic, with apologies to the OP

ShadowHearth · 11-09-2013 01:14PM

Agricola wrote: »

With the next gen just around the corner you would really have to go 1080p at this stage. The only 1080p game Ive played on the PS3 was Gran Turismo 5 and I do think it looks significantly sharper than anything else on the console. Although that game is polished to within an inch of its life anyway so its hard to be objective.

Not necessarily. TV's in shops are very rarely setup correctly or calibrated. They are usually set on dynamic mode or similar to make the screen pop out under the strong lighting in shops. Its not a very good indication of what the screen will look like in your own house. The best thing to do is research good gaming TVs online and find a handful of reviews from good sites that detail all the pro n cons of a TV. You can then make your decision based on your own budget. You could then go look at a contender in a shop (thats if they stock it, which is unlikely)

You can always ask salesman for remote to play with colours yourself. So calibration means feck all. Reviews are great, and thats one thing to look before buying TV, I agree 100%. Though you cant really take good review about picture quality itself until you see it yourself. Everyone likes it differently.
Most likely TV will be cheaper online, but when buying something like that, I will take easy of return/ warranty fix over few quid saved.

Monotype · 11-09-2013 05:42PM

Go for 1080p. You can get them for cheap enough. You're talk about more than double the number of pixels in comparison to 720p. Even if most games aren't at 1080p, there'll be a few that are. Mainly if you wanted to watch any blu rays/HD videos/connect a PC, then you're going to notice the difference.

quarryman · 11-09-2013 09:40PM

aperture_nuig wrote: »

Alright, but even if they did take that view and bought a 720p tv, they wouldn't be missing out on any extra image quality or clarity.

I'm gonna stop replying now as I'm dragging the thread off topic, with apologies to the OP

I might have jumped down your throat a bit on that one but, in fairness, what you said was horse****.

Why even post something that you haven't even bothered to spend 2 seconds on google checking? It just brings down the standard of the forum.

I'm done too. Sorry OP for going off topic.

simon360 · 14-09-2013 10:15PM

From what I've heard some games on PS4 and Xbox One have been speculated to be native 720p such as Battlefield 4 etc. If so I'd stick with a 720p tv only if you have one.

C14N · 15-09-2013 03:21AM

ShadowHearth wrote: »

You can always ask salesman for remote to play with colours yourself. So calibration means feck all. Reviews are great, and thats one thing to look before buying TV, I agree 100%. Though you cant really take good review about picture quality itself until you see it yourself. Everyone likes it differently.
Most likely TV will be cheaper online, but when buying something like that, I will take easy of return/ warranty fix over few quid saved.

The sales guy probably will give you a remote, but realistically you probably won't want to spend all that time in the shop fiddling around with calibration settings. Even if you do, you're only setting it for a bright show room, not a dark room like you will actually be using it in. I would say going by reviews is fine unless it's a serious investment and from the fact that the OP is considering a 720p screen, I don't think he's looking to spend a fortune.

That said, it's true that it is nice to have somewhere to bring it back to if anything goes wrong. Amazon are good for returns but sending them a TV wouldn't be easy. I've personally had good experience with Richer Sounds. They are in Belfast but they're easy to deal with and at least it's not overseas.

Re OP: I personally wouldn't bother with a 720p any more. 1080p is the standard, almost every TV reaches it. With the new consoles running games in 1080p too it seems like a no-brainer too, even at 32 inches. A lot of people do say that it's not a big deal at 32" but you do also have to consider your distance from the screen. No matter how small the screen gets, if you're sitting close enough you will start seeing a difference.

animaal · 16-09-2013 02:39PM

The most important thing is lag(IMO).

I spent years getting my ass handed to me on various PS3 FPS games.

Recently, I connected my laptop to my TV, and had the TV display mirroring the laptop display. The TV is running about a quarter of a second behind the laptop screen! No amount of setting TV modes could fix it.

If you think your current TV is a bit slow, it's well worth a trade-up.

(I have a feeling my performance wouldn't be any better on a great TV, but it's nice to have a real excuse)

jaykhunter · 16-09-2013 04:00PM

Monotype wrote: »

Go for 1080p. You can get them for cheap enough. You're talk about more than double the number of pixels in comparison to 720p. Even if most games aren't at 1080p, there'll be a few that are. Mainly if you wanted to watch any blu rays/HD videos/connect a PC, then you're going to notice the difference.

Exactly my thoughts. I don't think the technical (or mental - knowing it's lower res) is worth the potential saving in cash. You're gonna have the TV for the next 5 years probably, best get a nice 1080p. While I was shopping for a TV, I found generally 720ps have worse brightness/contrast ratio but there's also difference in plasma/lcd/led. I'd make two trips to the shops (unless you'd rather buy online), one looking at which ones you can afford, do research at home, and make your choice and buy!

Polar101 · 17-09-2013 12:11PM

jaykhunter wrote: »

Exactly my thoughts. I don't think the technical (or mental - knowing it's lower res) is worth the potential saving in cash.

Yes, but the OP already has a 720p TV - so buying a 1080p TV might not be such a good idea. Of course, if 1080p becomes big in next gen, then it makes sense to check the situation again later.

C14N · 17-09-2013 09:38PM

Polar101 wrote: »

Yes, but the OP already has a 720p TV - so buying a 1080p TV might not be such a good idea. Of course, if 1080p becomes big in next gen, then it makes sense to check the situation again later.

Why not?

TVs for consoles - 720p versus 1080p?

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