Toshiba's high-definition format HD DVD, which was put to sleep three weeks ago, cost the company a whopping one billion dollars, reports Japanese source. After huge marketing campaigns, handful of price drops and lost partners HD DVD was officially buried. According to Nikkei Business Daily the war cost Toshiba approximately 100 billion yen, or $986 million.
Nikkei claims that as much ... [ read the full article ]
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The smaller screens often have only 720p native resolution, I am discovering.
This does qualify as real HD, if not up to 1080p status, but you're right - 720p is still better than SD DVD, and how many will be able to discern any meaningful differences on a smaller screen?
Yes, 720p is signifigantly better than SD DVD (480p). Let's compare the amount of pixels on the screen to give a clearer perspective...
480p (720 x 480) = 345,600
720p (1280 x 720) = 921,600
1080p (1920 x 1080) = 2,073,600
So, as you can see 720p offers approximately 3 times the amount of detail over regular DVD's (480p).
1080p (Blu-ray/HD-DVD) offers almost 6 times the amount of detail over SD DVD (480p).
I would say that for CRT's and very small LCD screens that anything above SD (480p) wont really offer any substantial benefits.
For LCD's and Plasma's up to about 37", 720p should be all that is needed.
Anything 42" and above is where 1080p starts to show it's true form.
You missed out us in PAL land where we have the better SD of 576p (720 x 576 = 414720)
Also most LCD/plasma's are 720p(ish) so even if they are 42" or more feeding 1080p to them is a wast of time so what you need is a full HD (1080p) large screen to see any benefits which unfortunately most people don't have.
Coming back to Toshiba, what they could do, if they really wanted to put the cat among the pigeons, is that as Sony aren't playing ball with China Toshiba could license HD DVD at a ridiculously low cost to Chinese companies. China's own HD format I believe is in a bit of a stalemate so if they could be handed the technology that works to produce players (and maybe more importantly recorders) for their own market and then the rest of the world...now that would be interesting (no I'm not a fanboy nor do I have either format)
Quote:I would say that for CRT's and very small LCD screens that anything above SD (480p) wont really offer any substantial benefits.
For LCD's and Plasma's up to about 37", 720p should be all that is needed.
For now, I believe I am probably going to wind up with a smaller, more affordable 720p screen, at least for the interim. I will be quite happy with it, I'm certain, because to tell you the truth, I haven't even *seen* 720p yet.
Even ran out and bought a $32 Blu-Ray title & HDMI cable the other day. (And I don't even have a BR player yet!) :-P
Originally posted by unicus: You missed out us in PAL land where we have the better SD of 576p (720 x 576 = 414720)
unicus, I am from PAL land (Australia). I left it out because 90% of people in the English forums here at AfterDawn are from the USA. Thanks for pointing that out.
Originally posted by unicus: Also most LCD/plasma's are 720p(ish) so even if they are 42" or more feeding 1080p to them is a wast of time so what you need is a full HD (1080p) large screen to see any benefits which unfortunately most people don't have.
That's not entirely true. Many, if not most 42"+ LCD & Plasma TV's manufactured today are 1080p. For the the TV's that are only 720p, as already stated 720p is much better than SD 480p/576p. Feeding a 1080p source to a 720p panel, simply gets displayed at 720p.
I guess I must fit into the minority category that you mentioned as I have a 46" 1080p LCD. :-P
