Resolution Question?

[Boomyal]

What is the difference between an "I" after the resolution number and a "P"?

When do you declare one over the other when setting up a BluRay/DVD player.

Furthermore I have no clue what resolution our older Toshiba rear projection TV is. How are you supposed to know? I don't even think they talked 'resolution' when that TV was made.

My choices were:

480I
480P
720I
720P
1080I
1080P

This connection is using the old 3 terminal RCA jack cable. It has three colors for each of the jacks. They are red, yellow and white.

 

[dockwrecker]

Re: Resolution Question?

I'd bet the rear projector tv isn't much more than 480P if it's older than 5 years. Experiment, but maybe 720P is all it can do. It can't be forced to higher resolution.

 

[nikon]

Re: Resolution Question?

480 is all the old rca connectors can handle, setting it higher will do nothing.

The i stands for interlace, p for progressive

http://hubpages.com/hub/interlaced-vs-progressive

Basically the p is better....time for a new tv!

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Resolution Question?

Your video is being sent only over the yellow cable. That is a composite signal. The red and white are for the audio.

Basically, you won't be able to tell the difference bewteen a blu ray or a DVD, in fact you aren't even getting the full resolution that a DVD even offers.

You sure you don't have a component input on your TV? That would be a blue/red/green set of inputs. How old is your TV?

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Resolution Question?

.....How old is your TV?...

It is at least 10-12 years old. I thought I was lucky that it had three seperate RCA input sets for the red/yellow/white RCA cable. I knew that I could not take advantage of the BluRay resolution but when we first fired up a Netflix movie, the picture was perfectly acceptable within the usual display quality of the TV.

I assumed that the TV would have used the lowest resolution (480) but I did know for sure what the TV was nor did I understand the difference between 480I and 480P.

Someday this old Toshiba will die but it has been an incredible TV, on par with all the old CRT TV's, IMHO.

The sad part is that I have a 36" Sony Wega Trinitron Flat Panel CRT TV sitting under wraps in the gargage. I paid a $1000 dollars for it the year before my FIL gave us this 52" Toshiba. That Sony has an incredible picture but you do not want to have to move it around and you could not hardly give it away today.

 

[Pierutrus]

Re: Resolution Question?

It all comes down to "Aspect Ratio".
Your older sets are 4:3, which is basically a perfect square display. They don't show HD content.
All newer displays are 16:9 which is in the shape of a rectangle. These do show HD content.

 

[jlinder]

Re: Resolution Question?

The I means interlaced. P is for Progressive

In interlaced the picture is sent in 2 fields to make a complete picture (frame). First the odd lines are sent (first field) then the even lines (even lines)

In progressive the lines are sent sequentially.

The reason for interlaced is that the picture can be sent at 30 frames a second (complete picture) If this was done as a complete picture at only 30 frames a second you would see the flicker. By sending one field in 1/60th of a second then the next you do not see the flicker.

Progreesive is better for action but to get rid of the flicker you need to send more frames per second which is a higher data rate. (A real problem when trying to store a lot of information on a limited blu-ray disk.)

(FYI - Movies are 24 frames per second but they show each frame twice to eliminate the flicker)

Regarding the numbers you gave the 480 is typically standard definition (SD) and a 4:3 aspect ratio. 720 and higher is HD and a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Most stations are using the 1080i version of HD. This is more accurately 1920x1080 pixels, interlaced.

If your TV is SD then you will not be able to use HD out of the blu-ray, sorry.

If you are buying a new TV watch for the specification called "native resolution". This is the actual number of pixels the screen can display. You may have a signal with 1920x1080i, but if TV only does 1366x768 that is all you get. (The TV scales the picture for you).

It gets even more complex if you start talking about how much your eye can see depending on the size of the screen and how far you sit from the screen, but I am sure I have already given you a lot more information than you were looking for.

Hope this helps.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Resolution Question?

The I means interlaced. P is for Progressive

In interlaced the picture is sent in 2 fields to make a complete picture (frame). First the odd lines are sent (first field) then the even lines (even lines)

In progressive the lines are sent sequentially.

The reason for interlaced is that the picture can be sent at 30 frames a second (complete picture) If this was done as a complete picture at only 30 frames a second you would see the flicker. By sending one field in 1/60th of a second then the next you do not see the flicker.

Progreesive is better for action but to get rid of the flicker you need to send more frames per second which is a higher data rate. (A real problem when trying to store a lot of information on a limited blu-ray disk.)

(FYI - Movies are 24 frames per second but they show each frame twice to eliminate the flicker)

Regarding the numbers you gave the 480 is typically standard definition (SD) and a 4:3 aspect ratio. 720 and higher is HD and a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Most stations are using the 1080i version of HD. This is more accurately 1920x1080 pixels, interlaced.

If your TV is SD then you will not be able to use HD out of the blu-ray, sorry.

If you are buying a new TV watch for the specification called "native resolution". This is the actual number of pixels the screen can display. You may have a signal with 1920x1080i, but if TV only does 1366x768 that is all you get. (The TV scales the picture for you).

It gets even more complex if you start talking about how much your eye can see depending on the size of the screen and how far you sit from the screen, but I am sure I have already given you a lot more information than you were looking for.

Hope this helps.

I get the picture (pun inteneded) JL.

Thanks for the edukashun.

Thanks to all for their input.

Just watch the first full Netflix streaming movie. You could not tell it from a regular DVD.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Resolution Question?

Just to correct what was said earlier, you can have a 16:9 aspect ratio with 480P. That is common with DVDs.

Here is a real basic description

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dtv3.htm

Just watch the first full Netflix streaming movie. You could not tell it from a regular DVD.

What is your dowload speed? 2Mbps will get you DVD quality on Netflix. Anything less will not be as good. Of course, right now with your older TV, you aren't getting full DVD quality anyway.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Resolution Question?

Just to correct what was said earlier, you can have a 16:9 aspect ratio with 480P. That is common with DVDs.

Here is a real basic description

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dtv3.htm

What is your dowload speed? 2Mbps will get you DVD quality on Netflix. Anything less will not be as good. Of course, right now with your older TV, you aren't getting full DVD quality anyway.

No clue what my cable download speed is. And yes I did realize that my older TV was not making maximum use of normal DVD quality pictures. But it is a big picture and if you do not see them side by side, the picture is perfectly acceptable.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Resolution Question?

You can see what your download speed is here:

http://www.speedtest.net/

The ISP can be tricky and limit the bandwidth from certain sites. Thay always open it full bore for these speed tests sites though to make you think you have this amazing connection but at least you can see what your max bandwidth is.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Resolution Question?

Per your test bb, it showed download at 22.9 mb/s and upload at 1.88 mbs. I didn't see anything about my 'Max bandwidth".

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Resolution Question?

Per your test bb, it showed download at 22.9 mb/s and upload at 1.88 mbs. I didn't see anything about my 'Max bandwidth".

22.9mbs(download bandwidth) is pretty phenominal. Once you get a real HDTV you will appreciate the increased quality you get with a service like Netflix and others. Once you can truly stream HD content, you are set!

Cable bandwidth can be really good but if all your neighbors are on at the same time, it can and will go down. Test it Friday evening when everyone is downloading and post your results.

 

[jlinder]

Re: Resolution Question?

I find I can tpyically get about 20Mb/s also, when I go to one of the speed testing sites. Just did 16Mb/s down and 4Mb/s up.

Of course, when I go to a real site where I have to transfer files my speed drops to what is real - about 6Mb/s down and less than 1Mb/s up. The ISPs will give you all the speed you can get when you go to a test site, but limit it for any real work.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Resolution Question?

I find I can tpyically get about 20Mb/s also, when I go to one of the speed testing sites. Just did 16Mb/s down and 4Mb/s up.

Of course, when I go to a real site where I have to transfer files my speed drops to what is real - about 6Mb/s down and less than 1Mb/s up. The ISPs will give you all the speed you can get when you go to a test site, but limit it for any real work.

The time of day make a heck of a differnce. Just ran the test and ended up with 16.5 down, 10.5 up on wireless. In the afternoon, these figures typically jump into the mid 20's for download and upper teens in upload. Don't know the real speed. FIOS claims up and down at 25 mbit/s.

I downloaded Acrobat 9 Pro off the Corp server the other day. 800mb or so if I remember correctly. It took 5 minutes or less over wireless. I could have blow that away had I gone downstairs and connected the cable.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Resolution Question?

I could have blow that away had I gone downstairs and connected the cable.

Since 802.11g is theoretically 56Mps, your wireless is not limiting your speed.

800Mbytes in less than 5 minutes is blazing fast! Way over 20Mbps.

 

[jlinder]

Re: Resolution Question?

I downloaded Acrobat 9 Pro off the Corp server the other day. 800mb or so if I remember correctly. It took 5 minutes or less over wireless. I could have blow that away had I gone downstairs and connected the cable.

Can you check that file size? From what I see Acrobat 8 Pro is about 325MB. 5 minutes would be about 9Mb/s (thats mega-bit). Still not bad, and FIOS is pretty fast, but not way over 20Mb/s.

BTW - When looking at speeds like 10-20 Mb/s or higher and you are transferring from somplace 1000 miles away or more you hit a point where your speed is limited due to how the typical computer is configured. A transfer from LA to NY would run about 8Mb/s maximum no matter what your pipe size is. Explanation is pretty long but has to do with buffers, distance, and the speed of light (latency).