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225%! It's a huge difference. The soundtrack also improves by 50% with the new totally lossless, bit-for-bit Dolby True HD and DTS Master HD multi-channel audio content. There are several reasons for this. First, the vast majority of folks are still watching standard definition DVD, having not yet upgraded to Blu-ray. That makes good sense because, practically speaking, there are many thousands of DVDs available, and not so many Blu-ray discs. So if your viewing material is primarily DVDs with maybe some HD sports on broadcast HDTV, the 1080p projectors will give you almost nothing in image quality that the 720p projectors don't already give you. All HD sports broadcasts from Fox, ESPN, and ABC are in native 720p, and they will look as clear and razor sharp as they can possibly look when displayed on a native 720p projector. The additional resolution of a 1080p projector won't make most HD sports broadcasts look any higher in actual resolution since the signals are limited to 720 lines of video information per frame. Meanwhile, standard definition DVD (in the NTSC world) has only 480 lines of video per frame. On a 720p projector, the DVD signal is rescaled to 720 lines, and on a 1080p projector it is rescaled to 1080 lines. Assuming the use of a high quality upscaling DVD player or video processor, there is the potential that the 1080p image will look a tiny bit better than the 720p picture. However, the difference will not be significant, and in many cases it will not even be noticeable even in a side by side viewing. The reason is that DVD picture quality is fundamentally limited by the fact that there are only 480 lines per frame of video information in the source. So the DVD source cannot use the full resolution power of either a 720p or a 1080p projector. However, though DVD and HD sports broadcasts are what many people are most interested in, that may not be you. A lot of prime time television programming on CBS, NBC, and other networks is broadcast in 1080i. The new 1080p projectors do have the potential to make this type of programming slightly sharper than it will appear on most 720p projectors. There will not be a night and day difference, since 1080i signals compressed into 720p displays already looks amazingly good (a lot better than you'd imagine they could). But there is the potential for a slightly sharper image from HDTV 1080i broadcasts when using a 1080p projector. And due to the increased resolution you may notice less visible pixilation on the 1080p models, depending on how close you sit to the screen. Nevertheless, the reality is that 1080p projectors displaying HDTV 1080i will give you just a slightly better picture than you'll get with a good 720p projector. The bottom line is that for most budget smart consumers who are happy watching DVD and HDTV, the incremental performance of the 1080p projector will definitely not be worth the added expense. On the other hand, you may be looking for the best possible video picture you can afford. If so, you not only need a 1080p projector, but you need a Blu-ray player to go along with it. Blu-ray is by far the most important new video source on the market. Blu-ray discs pack a full 1920x1080 resolution per frame of video, and they look their absolute best when displayed on a native 1080p projector. If you consider yourself to be a videophile or a serious hobbyist who spends money to stay out on the cutting edge of video technology, matching a new Blu-ray player with one of the newly released 1080p projectors will give you a whole new world of video clarity. It is an opportunity to upgrade your home theater
that you won't want to miss. |
