Full HD: Hip or Hype?

August 19th, 2007 | by Mark Fleischmann

Full HD is the latest buzzphrase in television marketing. If we want the latest and greatest in HDTV, we want Full HD—or so we’re told. But is it possible to have too much of a good thing?
 
Full HD is marketing-ese for 1080p. Since alphanumeric monikers tend to leave us cold, the name is an adroit way of turning something seemingly dry and technical into something that sounds more desirable, something you’ve just got to have—unless you want your neighbor smirking at you because his home theater system is Full HD and yours is only, well, partial HD.
 
I first wrote about 1080p for Audio Video Interiors in 1998, when HDTV was still gleaming on the horizon. But I didn’t hear the phrase Full HD until relatively recently. Now it’s rampant in TV ads, reviews, and all the assorted information and misinformation that surrounds digital television. When I realized what it meant, I began wondering why this, why now?
 
The Case for Full HD
 
What is 1080p, a.k.a. Full HD? Since I’ve written about this subject here before, I’ll keep the definition brief. It’s high-definition television with 1080 by 1920 pixels, delivered in full frames. The p is what distinguishes 1080p from 1080i, which uses an interlacing process to deliver gapped pairs of half-frames.
 
But 1080p and 1080i aren’t the only forms taken by HDTV. There is also a 720p format that delivers 720 by 1280 pixels. If 1080p is Full HD, then this other format must be less than Full HD, right? After all, it has fewer pixels.
 
The case for Full HD seems even clearer if you count the total number pixels onscreen. Multiply 720 by 1280 and you get 921,600 pixels. Multiple 1080 by 1920 and you get 2,073,600 pixels. Now it makes perfect sense, right? Full HD has more than two million pixels and that inferior HD has fewer than a million. Case closed. Send the jury home. Let’s go to the bar across the street from the courthouse and get wasted. We can drink and watch basketball games in Full HD.
 
1080p Is Off the Air
 
Not so fast. Maybe this isn’t as cut and dried at it seems at first. True, 1080p has more than twice the pixel count of 720p. But if you have all the facts, some of them will continue niggling at the back of your mind.
 
For one thing, the people who devised the HDTV standard didn’t even bother to provide for 1080p (at least, not in practice). The broadcast standard they had in mind included 1080i, 720p, and standard-def formats like 480i. Since 1080p isn’t part of the broadcast standard, at least not yet, there are no 1080p broadcasts. CBS and NBC, for instance, use 1080i, while ABC and Fox prefer 720p.
 
You can get a true 1080p signal from Blu-ray or HD DVD disc, and potentially from some PC and game sources. The format has also gained traction as a production standard. But due to the initial setting of broadcast standards, there are lots of working HDTVs that don’t support 1080p. Most of them are 1080i. In those that do offer 1080p, it’s often just an upconversion standard—these Full HD sets accepts signals in other formats and displays them in 1080p. In the case of 1080i to 1080p, this is a straightforward line doubling.
 
As far as HDTV’s founding fathers were concerned, 1080i and 720p were both designated as HDTV, to distinguish them from SDTV formats like 480p and 480i. This whole notion that 720p is less than Full HD is relatively new and largely marketing-driven.
 
It’s all so confusing, isn’t it? But there’s one more point that makes everything perfectly clear. All these DTV formats have to go through a bottleneck that puts their relative merits on a different basis than that implied by the number of pixels. Actually, two bottlenecks. They’re your eyes.
 
Believe Your Eyes
 
Eyesight is ultimately what mocks the Full HD hype. Even if you have 20/20 vision, your eyes can’t distinguish the pixel size of 1080p vs. 720p on screens of 42 inches or less. Even at 50 inches, the difference is debatable. Up at 70 inches, you may see differences—but even then, things like video artifacts, video noise, and the limits of source material (whether HD or not) take their toll.
 
Furthermore, with movie content, there is effectively no difference between 1080p and 1080i. True, 35mm to 70mm film is an extraordinarily high-resolution medium, so movies shot on film can be sharp enough to take advantage of 1080 by 1920 resolution (or better, in the distant future).
 
But movies are shot at 24 frames per second, and the display of progressive video including 1080p is always 60fps or a multiple of that (or for 1080i, 60 fields, 30 frames). So a process called 3:2 pulldown comes into play to translate 24fps to 60fps. Whether 3:2 pulldown happens in the HDTV or in the Blu-ray/HD DVD player is irrelevant. It just happens, because without it, you wouldn’t get a watchable picture. So the p in 1080p doesn’t add anything to a movie that you wouldn’t get from a 1080i set.
 
My smarter colleague at Home Theater, video editor Geoff Morrison, explains it all here, here, and especially here.
 
I’m not saying Full HD/1080p is a bad thing. If you’re buying any kind of wall-hogging front-projection system, and plan to spend a lot of time watching Blu-ray or HD DVD, 1080p is a must. I’d also want it if I were buying a flat-panel or rear-projection set of 50 inches and up. Since a little headroom is never a bad thing, make that 42. Even so, I have no intention of dumping the smaller of my two HDTV sets, a 32-inch 768p LCD, to get 1080p.
 
Why the Full HD hype? The real story—the one you won’t read in a lot of reviews, and certainly not in any ad—is that profit margins are plummeting swiftly in the TV manufacturing industry. While this is nothing short of fantastic for consumers, it’s also nearly catastrophic for TV makers. They need to sell us bigger TVs, because they make more money on bigger sizes. And they desperately need a “step up” feature to persuade us that a slightly more expensive medium-sized LCD or plasma is better than a slightly less expensive one. Full HD spells “performance,” while 720p and 768p are “value.”
 
That’s why you’re hearing so much about Full HD. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Just know what you’re buying.
 
Mark Fleischmann is the author of the annually updated book Practical Home Theater.
 
 


Post Your Comment...Comments

Ritalin on Aug 23rd, 2007 at 10:45 AM:

I just wanted to make a small correction to your article. I often see articles and reviews claiming that you can not tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on a TV smaller then 40in. I think that this needs to be worded better.

The argument could be made that a 720p set is nothing more then a widescreen version of a 1024x768 computer monitor and a 1080p set is widescreen 1280x1024 monitor. The differences of these resolutions is plain to see with the naked eye, but the reason for this is that on a PC monitor you are constantly looking at still images of one type or another. On the other hand HDTVs are of course made for TV and moving images do make the differences much harder to tell.

The problem I have with reviews saying that the naked eye can not tell the difference comes in two parts. First is the fact that HTPCs are gaining ground, it maybe happening slowly but as more the joystick generation becomes homeowners and consumers this trend will increase. This will basically make the HDTV a new subcategory of computer monitor, if it is not already. So we are back to the still images issue.

The second problem with this no difference to the naked eye idea is that HDTVs are GREAT for video gaming. Gaming is a moving media much the same as movies, however aliasing comes into play with games. Jagged edges on polygons and transparent textures such as chain link fences are much more prevalent with a 720p set then a 1080p set. I have yet to see this test performed with a game running on the 720vs1080 sets.

To sum this up the ability to tell the difference between the two resolutions with the naked eye has much to do with your image signals source.

Colin on Aug 23rd, 2007 at 1:43 PM:

Actually.... In the HD format there is also 24 fps not just 30p/60i fps. I'm not sure that it's a proper broadcast frame rate but you see it on set looking at the preview monitors which are vibrating at 48hz. As for the better resolution making things look sharper, I find that it's the larger colour range that increases the detail. Once you see footage in 4:4:4 colour in the studio, regular TV doesn't look the same and from what I've seen from HD players they are really pushing the colour through to make it detailed and vibrant.

Chris Bauer on Aug 23rd, 2007 at 4:32 PM:

"Eyesight is ultimately what mocks the Full HD hype. Even if you have 20/20 vision, your eyes can't distinguish the pixel size of 1080p vs. 720p on screens of 42 inches or less."
The difference between 720p and 1080p sources is easily distinguishable on a good 1080p set or a 1920x1200 monitor. In fact my wife and both kids can see the difference immediately. On a 720p or lower display yes, you are correct.

Sami on Sep 24th, 2007 at 5:49 AM:

After buying a Canon HV20 HDV video camera (1440x1080, has also a progressive mode) and looking at the footage from both a 1920x1200 computer screen and 720i TV (yeah, interlaced, since I haven't met a TV yet which is willing to show 1080i 50 Hz nicely), the difference is... big enough for me to stay away from these HD ready generation TVs. With Full HD you can also show still photos much more nicely and use it as a computer screen. Personally well worth the money.

Pieter on Jun 30th, 2008 at 8:03 AM:

I am a complete idiot where it comes to HD, full HD,or whatever you want to call it. Can somebody please tell me if my tv which I just bought is sufficient - ie. is it OK. It is a LG 42" LCD and the specs are as follows;
Video
Native Display Resolution 1366 x 768p
Dynamic Contrast Ratio 8,000:1
Response Time (Grey to Grey) 5ms
Brightness (cd/m²) 500
XD Engine® â•
Super IPS â•
True Wide View â•
Viewing Angle 178º x 178º
Digital Comb Filter 3D
Color Temperature Control 4 Modes
Aspect Ratio Adjustment 6 Modes
Enhanced Noise Reduction (Video Noise Filter) â•
Enhanced Line Doubler â•
3:2 Pull-Down Correction 3:2 (480i)
Picture Selection Mode 5 Modes
Black Stretcher (Black Level Enhancer) â•
DTV Signal Strength Indicator â•
ACM (Active Color Management) â•
Pure Black Level â•
Color Processor 10 Bit
1080p SOurce input HDMIâ„¢ 30p/24p
Component 30p/24p
Audio
Mono/Stereo/Dual (MTS/SAP) â•
Audio Output Power (Watts - THD 10%) 10W + 10W

Timo on Apr 10th, 2009 at 1:46 AM:

If you happen to use the HDTV as computer screen also (many new computers have HDCP) then 1080p capable TV is way better than 720p or 758p.

The resolution can be matched so that there will be NO scaling at all. Scaling always reduces picture quality in LCD displays. Scaling down? Pixels do not match and you lose thin lines. Scaling up? Pixels do not match and that thin line might end up between pixels, resulting in two pixels to be lit which makes picture fuzzy.

32-inch 1080p TV can be used as monitor, even watched from short distance as computer displays, and it all is because of smaller pixel size. Text comes out clear AND you will get good screen real estate. I would not want to have 32-inch computer monitor where characters are ½-inch tall. That would be ridiculously large if viewed from 16 inches away from the screen.

With 1080p, pixels are still small enough at that view distance with 32-inch TV.

It all depends on what you will use the TV for. For me 32 inches is maximum size which still works as computer monitor - without having to turn your head left and right to read your word documents.

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