Two Articles about 720p vs. 1080i

[MediaConcepts]

Some interesting reading although a little dated:

Why the European Broadcasting Union prefers progressive broadcast (720p) over interlace (1080i) (http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/trev/trev_301-editorial.html). by Philip Laven, Director EBU Technical Department

ABC's reasoning for choosing 720P over 1080i (http://www.bluesky-web.com/numbers-mean-little.htm) by Randy Hoffner, Manager of Technology and Strategic Planning at ABC.

Joe

[ssvp]

I can tell you I prefer 720p on my 50" DLP for Seahawks games, but 1080i for movies.. Of course I usually play 360 games in 1080i when available or 720p.. well then on second hand.. Hell I can't really tell the difference except for motion..

Now of course following the GME Monitor mod, my editing station is sporting a 42" 1080p LCD. Of course, I'm using DVI so it doesn't really matter..

Actually this response doesn't actually matter.. GO GO GO HDTV!

[RatVega]

Well, it's been my impression for quite some time that with the advent of HD we were going to finally break out of the NTSC/PAL dichotomy. If this is true, then maybe 720p is emerging as the new standard.

There will always be a number of "better" formats out there, just look at all the alternatives to DV... but a "general case" standard would give us something to hang out hats on.

Of course the downside is that SONY put virtually all their eggs in the 1080i basket until just recently... I frequently scratch my head wondering how they can do so much and still routinely miss the standards target... Makes you wonder about the future of Blu-Ray.

[JC/DV]

I don't care which prevails just like blueray and hddvd. I just one a standard to prevail!!!! Atleast you can convert to 720p easilly from 1080i, but making a 1080p out of 1080i looks soft. There are certainly more 720 displays in homes than 1080... I just want to get one without second guessing I got a good one or not or if it will be "obsolete" next year. That's probably why I'll wait till next year. OK, I'm going to go back to my couch and watch some more 480i satellite feed and get over this cold.

[ssvp]

My 50" DLP 720p/1080i cost $1200 from Amazon. Samsung.. If it's no good in 2 years.. Oh well.. Money well spent for two years..

[RatVega]

1080p60 is possible now, but the costs are obscene... and as far as conversions go, this would be roughly the equivalent of de-interlacing your DV, outputting it as progressive frames, then doubling the framerate.

In other words, you'll be buying cameras for this when it's affordable. What's important here is that we're talking about a level of video quality that is way beyond the average customer. The big advantage would be that slo-mo will be awesome, but uncompressed footage will run something like 250MB/sec in playback... It's unlikely that a wedding customer will be willing to bear the expense.

As far as TVs go, you can bet that the vast majority of the sets sold currently will be compatible either through converter boxes or by the networks broadcast standards. They're in the business of selling advertising around their shows, so everything will get watered down to a point where virtually anyone can view it. Digital theaters may accept this format as an alternative to 4K since the quality on a big screen may be worth it.

[JC/DV]

OK, I just finished an edit shot in 1080i and rendered out to 720p. For comparison, I rendered the first part in 1080i and compared to that segment of the 720p render... I can't really tell much of a difference when the deinterlacing is applied in VLC. I DO like the progressive "blur" that occurs on the 720p vs. the smooth as silk video look of the 1080i. The faster pans look good on the 720p.

Basically speaking, I know I can't print back to tape from 720p into my Sony HDV camera, but I'm thinking about just archiving to 720p vs. 1080 due to the fact that it renders somewhat faster than the 1080i... and no matter what flavor the client will get (720 or 1080) it will still look damn good.

What are you others archiving to? 720 or 1080?
Is it stupid of me to render to 720 and not 1080 since I have 1080 footage? From what I read in those articles, it doesn't really matter. Someone correct me if I'm wrong for doing this.