the difference between 480p and 720p?

[Owly]

Hi guys, I have a question for you.. (I'm not sure if i've posted this in the right section, but ah well!)
You may or may not have heard of Onlive..if you haven't, a link is here: http://uk.gear.ign.com/articles/965/965595p1.html
Now, to get 720p quality, a 5mbps connection is needed, which seems very high for the average gamer. I'm not one of those blessed few with a high connection; this lands me with 480p quality...
So i was wondering, how significant is the difference in quality between 480p and 720p; does anyone have/or can take some comparison pictures?
Thanks!

 

[Abedeus]

Go to youtube.

Normal videos and high quality videos are different, right?

So will be the quality of 480p and 720p. That's almost twice as sharp screen, you know.

 

[cas]

the difference is 240p's (720-480 = 240)

 

[Flour]

This might help. [http://www.cnet.com/hdtv-resolution/]

 

[TopHatTim]

f them both 1080p's where its at : D
but 720p is a sharper sight and its colours are nicer to the eyes. not dark or mucky
bright and lovley

 

[Redingold]

Each "p" is an extra vertical line. (It actually stands for progressive, but progressive what, I'm not sure).

 

[Virgil]

So i was wondering, how significant is the difference in quality between 480p and 720p; does anyone have/or can take some comparison pictures?

It's easier to think of them in terms of display resolutions instead of simply their identifiers.

480p is 852x480, which is 408,960 pixels
720p is 1280x720, which is 921,600 pixels

That allows a 720p signal to show more than double the detail of a 480p signal in the same area. Depending on what's being shown, this can make a big difference (especially with text).

Here's a comparison using movie stills [http://alteredbeast.i8.com/480vs720.html] - a 480p image that was upscaled is shown first, and you can mouseover to show the 780p image. One thing to note here is that the 480p images were upscaled using an image editing app, which spent a lot more time on processing than a normal display can (since it has to do at least 24 frames per second for movies, and up to 60 frames per second for games). This makes the 480p images look a bit nicer than they would if displayed 'live'.

 

[Virgil]

Each "p" is an extra vertical line. (It actually stands for progressive, but progressive what, I'm not sure).

Progressive means that for every frame, all the lines are included. So a 1080p signal will have 1080 lines.

The other kind of signal is Interlaced, which alternates the lines shown each frame. In a 1080i signal, 540 lines are sent each frame - first the odd-numbered lines, then the even numbered lines. This cuts the amount of bandwidth needed for a given signal in half, but also reduces the quality.

 

[TheMatt]

This might help. [http://www.cnet.com/hdtv-resolution/]

I didn't start the thread but thanks, that helped me a lot.

 

[gregatron08]

without reading the content i wanted to say £2.40 ......

But i dont know anything about HD really.... just wanted to be silly

 

[NeedAUserName]

the difference is 240p's (720-480 = 240)

Ninja'ed.

 

[Argentavis]

So i was wondering, how significant is the difference in quality between 480p and 720p; does anyone have/or can take some comparison pictures?

It's easier to think of them in terms of display resolutions instead of simply their identifiers.

480p is 852x480, which is 408,960 pixels
720p is 1280x720, which is 921,600 pixels

That allows a 720p signal to show more than double the detail of a 480p signal in the same area. Depending on what's being shown, this can make a big difference (especially with text).

Here's a comparison using movie stills [http://alteredbeast.i8.com/480vs720.html] - a 480p image that was upscaled is shown first, and you can mouseover to show the 780p image. One thing to note here is that the 480p images were upscaled using an image editing app, which spent a lot more time on processing than a normal display can (since it has to do at least 24 frames per second for movies, and up to 60 frames per second for games). This makes the 480p images look a bit nicer than they would if displayed 'live'.

First off, sorry for quoting you Virgil. I just wanted to get your attention for my question because you seem knowledgeable about the subject here.

Wouldn't the size of the television also matter about quality? I notice when I'm at my house that when I use my small television with cable the resolution and quality seem the same when compared to the big screen with the hdmi or component cable set up.

The size doesn't really matter.

 

[Nivag the Owl]

the difference is 240p's (720-480 = 240)

Darn you! That had me written all over it.

Being british though I was going to add the currency and say the difference between 480p and 720p is £2.40

 

[Virgil]

Wouldn't the size of the television also matter about quality? I notice when I'm at my house that when I use my small television with cable the resolution and quality seem the same when compared to the big screen with the hdmi or component cable set up.

Sort of. What you see as "quality" on a display depends on a combination of screen resolution, signal resolution, and the viewing distance to the screen. This is on top of the quality of the actual signal - I'm going to assume the signals are perfect though (like from a game console or DVD/Blu-Ray)

If you're comparing fixed-resolution displays, like LCD or Plasma, it's pretty easy. A 12-inch 1280x720 display and a 27-inch 1280x720 display both showing a 720p signal are going to have the same number of pixels, and show the same amount of detail, but the pixels will be larger on the larger screen. At this point the "quality" you see depends on the third factor: how far you're sitting from the screen. The closer you sit, the worse it looks.

Comparing screens of different resolutions gets a bit trickier. Scaling a signal up always makes it looks blurrier, while scaling a signal down will make it looks sharper. Both will lose detail, but down always looks better.

If you have a 12-inch 480i display (like an old CRT), and a 60-inch 1080p display, a 480i standard television signal will look a lot better on the smaller screen. If instead you had a 480i signal going to the small screen and a 1080p signal going to the large one they would both look good. On the other hand, if you had a 1080p signal going to both displays (assuming the 480i display was capable of reading and shrinking it), it would still look good on the small screen even though you definitely won't see the fine details.

 

[ae86gamer]

the difference is 240p's (720-480 = 240)

You posted what I was gonna say.

 

[Syntax Error]

This is probably the reason why Tekken 5 looked like shit at my friend's Bravia (while WiiSports looked a heckuva lot better.

 

[Red Dragon414]

ok so you all are talking giberish to me. I dunno if this was already explained, but I was wondering then, which is better, 1080p or 1080i? Looking to buy a new HD tv, and whats the best to look for?