Which resolution is superior – 1080i or 720p?

1080p

that wasnt the question.

If youve got a native 720 piece, I dont see why you wouldnt run 720.

720P is better for Action (Sports) 1080i does better with Film and TV shows.

Of course, the BEST resolution is going to be what the program is Shot in.

I agree with Carl , feed your tv what its native resolution is whether it be 1080i or 720p .

What about the 4k stuff from sony. Qualia stuff. Pretty amazing resolution.

Mike

Isnt the Qualia a 1920 x 1080 piece? And isnt it 30 grand? At that price, I'd think that it would have some brand of outboard attached to it. If not, 1080i.

There are a handful of new 1080p displays trickling into the market that make using a native resolution impossible. With all sets it depends on how good the source material is or how good the conversion is. I have seen 1080i material on a 1080i display that looked marginal due to poor mastering from film and the same for 720p. I have seen 480 material displayed at 720p and 1080i and just been amazed by how good it looks for 480i. It is odd that your DVD player while technically only half the resolution of 1080i looks almost as good as HD material. I am rambling, but the general idea is that both can look very good, and both can look very bad. It is a shame that there isn't one standard yet(1080p may fill that void, or may not), so we have to convert roughly half of our source material one way or the other. It all comes down to how good the source is and how good the conversion is.
My opinion:
1280 x 720p WM9 coding from a PC to a SPH700a for best picture, both still and motion.
Jason

Technically, 1080i has a higher resolution, even though it's interlaced. At an given point in time, it is showing a 1920x540 image because it's interlaced (but displayed every other line to fill the 16x9, or 1920x1080 window). There are about 115,000 extra pixels of information with 1080i. However, since it's interlaced pictures with lots of motion might show jagged edges - not as bad, but comparable to the old tubes with NTSC, same principle. For motion video, like sports, 720p looks better to the eye.

Obviously, the best resolution is the native resolution that the video was recorded with...but Impaqt already said that.

Not to negate my first paragraph, but often times, depending on the video source and the display, the 1080i signal only displays between a 1400 and 1500 vertical resolution (instead of the full 1920) - so depending on what 720p ends up displaying vertically, they might be closer to the same as far as actual information in terms of pixels.

The resloution on the 4k qualia is 4096 x 2160. I have never seen one though.

Mike

yes and yes, but vwpower44 was talking about Sony's movie projector that has a higher resolution SXRD chip

I saw the Qualia at CEDIA and it blew my socks off. Every installer in that room gasped when the LOGO appeard (SXRD). There wasn't even any video yet. Granted, the source was BluRay, only available in Japan, but I believe they were feeding it 1080p and the material was a trailer for Spiderman II. It was unbelievable - I've never seen anything like it on a projection screen.

Oh yeah, and my VERY picky lead designer (who was unimpressed with the McIntosh room and the JBL Synthesis demo) was speechless.

Okay, let me rephrase the question since no-one answered it.

If you had your choice of selections of native resolution, would you pick 1080i over 720p?

My question steams from installing a 50" Fuji with a SA4200HD - and selecting with the Guide/Info advanced setup screen a desired resolution. I belive the screens native res is 1080i, however the 720p looked better. Is 720p somewhat = 1440i? And if it is, wouldnt that be a better resolution?