720 or 1080i
 

Here are some pretty dumb questions I've found on a few other message boards, and I know others here (But may have been scared to ask) have wondered this as well and I just wanted to see what others though on this subject. We are looking for the top of the line resolutions and quality.

Which has higher resolution:

720 or 1080i

What's has the better quality?

720 or 1080i

Which is better for HD?

30p 720 or 60i 1080i

Which editors work BEST with

30p 720

Which editors work BEST with

60i 1080i

Which is the best format for use on television for HD

30p 720 or 60i 1080i



I'll leave you with your thoughts and laughter, but trust me, this thread will get ALOT of views over the years to come. It's one of the most searched for terms on Google about HD.

No disrespect intended, but shouldn't this be posted somewhere else? This is the JVC ProHD forum.

Your questions are incredibly vague but I took my best shot.

1080. That's just a numbers game.

Define "quality." Define the conditions under which this quality is being assessed. Most people do their HD viewing over the air, where 1080 is more likely to show compression artifacts than 720 due to the higher bandwidth requirements. With no bandwidth limitations you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference without freeze framing and zooming into individual pixels.

Define "better." It's a completely subjective thing. You've also completely ignored 720p60 which is used by, among others, ESPN, ABC, FOX, FSN, and all the local and regional affiliates of these networks. The amount of footage shot by and for these networks easily beats the amount of footage shot by HD1xx users who are limited to 720p30.

In my personal opinion, 720p60 beats 1080i60 due to progressive footage being easier to work with. Between 720p30 and 1080i60 the latter wins due to higher temporal and spatial resolution.

All the high-end editors work fine with the common over-the-air HD standards. Issues with editor support for HD are mostly coming from 24p shooters who are only a tiny fraction of the market share for editing software companies. The majority of the market for HD editing right now is TV stations upgrading to HD, and they're shooting 60i/p.

720p30 isn't used for broadcast. Anywhere. Between 720p60 and 1080i60 I prefer 720p for lower bandwidth requirements and the fact that it's progressive. Between 720p30 and 1080i60, 1080 wins for higher temporal and spatial resolution.

Dave,

There are no simple answers to any of your questions. There are too many variables to consider (camera format/aquisition resolution, compression, bit-rate, etc.) to give you the "clean & simple" answers you seek.

The only sure answer I can give you is that 4K is "better" than both 720P and 1080i.

There are many papers written on this subject by many very smart engineers & technicians. I urge you to google the topic and spend a few hours studying the "grey area" answers to your questions.

I'm moving this to the Open DV discussion. Please don't let this thread turn into a 1080i vs 720P war because it may get locked.

Can't you just output the 720/30p footage to 1080/60i or 720/60p?

Whatever you shoot on, you should be able to uprez/upframe your video to whatever standards are required for broadcast.

I output 720/30p footage to 480/60i all the time, even though it wasn't originally shot at 60fps. It's the DVD standard.

You can do that, but why would you want to? You still won't match the temporal resolution of native 60Hz material. Heck, you won't even have the temporal resolution of standard def.

And in the end it's about what the network wants. If they broadcast 60p, do you really think they're going to want you to give them 30p?

720P is higher resolution and better than 1080i.

Care to justify that claim? Resolution is just a numbers game. 1080 has more than twice as many pixels in a frame as 720. If you want to say something like "Because 1080 is interlaced you get fewer pixels over time, and apparent resolution is further reduced by the Kell factor" go ahead, I'd actually agree with you, but don't just come in and type eight words without backing it up. It's a waste of everybody's time who's reading it.