HDTV - projector is 720p native. Is comcast HD sending me a 720p signal on HD? Will a 1080p unit degrade 720p?

Question

Ok- I ran out of space- question- will a 1080p projector actually degrade a 720p signal. Aside from watching blu-ray, what is the advantage of a 1080p unit.

Answer 1

A 1080p projector without 1080p source material is a waste. The image could look worse due to scaling but you probably won't notice the difference as most scalers do a decent enough job.

If you aren't interested in Blu-ray or HD-DVD(RIP) then the only other source that would take advantage of 1080p is a computer. Connecting a computer monitor output to a projector that is 1080p would look quite a bit better than a computer output to a 720p projector. Especially as the screen gets larger.

Answer 2

Truth be told, there is no advantage to having a 1080p device if you are watching cable or sattelite. Both compress the image source down to 720p or even lower in many cases. The only source of a clear and true 720p image is a broadcast antena. 1080p sources will be limited to Blu-Ray and Video Games for many years.

A few programs are broadcast in 1080i, but such images are generally inferior to a progressive image stream (unless the images stream contains static scenes) for most all uses.

The digital display standard does not provide for enough bandwidth and/or the use of advanced compressions schemes (such as mpeg-4) needed to displaty a 1080p image stream. 1080p will not be available in any broadcast form for the next 10 -20 years, maybe never. Another Digital standard would have to be developed and deployed to allow this to happen.

When a digital broadcast standard revision  does happen, I would expect the industry to skip 1080p and move to a 2160p (3840x 2160 resolution)  standard.

Astrobuf

Answer 3

Yeah, 1080P is kinda pointless for primarily watching tv. Comcast broadcasts most of it's HD stations in 1080i(which is actually worse than 720P) Blu ray really is the only source you will get a true 1080P source at this time. It will be a few years before comcast starts broadcasting channels in 1080P because most people don't have a 1080P display(a lot of people still don't even have an HDTV display yet)