32 inch 1080i vs 22 inch 1080p

I need some advice and I don't know where else to ask this so I chose the pc forum since you guys tend to be more tech savvy.

I have a 32 inch samsung hdtv that displays in 1080i, and I have a 22 inch HP monitor that displays in 1080p....which one is better to game on?

the 22in 1080p monitor.

I'm guessing that the Samsung 1080i HDTV you're talking about is a CRT cuz there are no 1080i LCD or plasma HDTVs that I'm aware of. One thing to know about those is that they aren't really 1080i. A huge amount of pixels are missing, most of them being in the neighborhood of 853X1080 interlaced. What it really works out to is around 1 million pixels interlaced. Or in other words it's kinda 720i although they don't call them that. I don't use it anymore but still have a so-called 1080i CRT made by Sony (XBR970). I was pretty pissed off when I discovered that the resolution was 853X1080 rather than 1920X1080. Then after doing some further research I discovered that there are no true 1080i CRTs on the consumer market. Almost all of them are the same resolution as my Sony. The highest they ever got for the consumer market was a few Sony models that were 1440X1080 interlaced (XBR960 being one of them). Those used some special and unusual kind of tube (Called the Super Fine Pitch) that was expensive as hell. I've never understood why there are CRT monitors that can have high progressive resolutions but when it comes to CRT televisions they can't do 720p or even 1080i correctly but that's the way it is.

i think you're confusing 1080i with 1080p. the "i" in 1080i stands for interlaced, so it will never have the resolution of 1080p. if it did, why would it be called 1080i? the whole point of interlacing is to give the illusion of double the information, by updating only half the display each cycle.

hence, no 1080i display will have the same resolution (at each cycle) as a 1080p display, they are not the same thing.

yea soo uhhh, which ones better? sacrificing size for quality?

I'm currently using a 1080i HDTV plasma TV as my monitor. There are plenty of them the TV downstairs is the same

32' monitor with 1080i? not unless it's 1440p.

Game with the 22' 1080p. (make sure it has 5ms and lower)

1080i is what most cable boxes use. That's why they look fine on a 1080i TV. But when it comes to games, the max you'll get for game resolution is usually 1366x768 which is the highest non-interlaced resolution supported.

The last games I know of which supported interlaced resolutions natively were Commodore Amiga games. All other games in the other platforms used non-interlaced resolutions.

Use the monitor, it'll look better.

Also if anyone is wondering.......

1080i is usually associated with 720p TVs. 1080p TVs also support it. But, there's no point mentioning it in the sales pitch for the latter.

Our very first LCD TV was a 32" 720p Magnavox (with Philips LCD) that we bought back in 2003. One of the supported resolutions was 1080i.

So you've got both at home. Why don't you actually try it and decide for yourself what's "better" to you?

1080p. interlacing is horrible, i can't even watch tv shows that are interlaced. you can sit closer to a 22" monitor but you can't do anything about interlacing for video games.

Are there even any games that use 1080i natively? I thought they're all 720p for the reasons you mentioned. The flicker wouldn't sit well with gamers.

Interlaced ewww....

P is better than I. ;)

Lol, what are you talking about? If I were confusing them I wouldn't have went out of my way to mention interlaced and/or progressive so many times (I think that line you put in bold is like the only one I didn't bother specifying interlaced in. Didn't think I needed to type it again because I had just said I was talking about a 1080i television. But nope, I should know by now to never overestimate my audience, lol). When one gets a 1080i HDTV they expect it to be 1920 X 1080 interlaced. That's what the 1080i specification is. I never expected 1080p out of a supposedly 1080i HDTV, lol. But did I expect 1080i out of an alleged 1080i HDTV? Absolutely. Instead what I got was 853 X 1080 interlaced which is nowhere near as sharp as 1920 X 1080 interlaced, what 1080i is suppose to be.

I think you're wrong about that. It likely supports 1080i but the picture is going to be 720p or 1080p. They support interlaced signals but digital formats like plasma and lcd always output progressively. Since you're using it as a monitor you wouldn't be able to tolerate the way text would look on it if it were truly outputting in an interlaced format.

Look, manufacturers lie about this stuff some of the time. That's how I ended up with a sub-1080i HDTV (If you wanna call it that. This old Sony XBR970 I have is more of an EDTV in my opinion) that was wrongfully calling itself 1080i (Well, technically it was OK for them to call it that because it did have a vertical resolution of 1080. But the horizontal resolution being much, much lower than the 1080i specification was something they conveniently failed to mention. It's a dirty trick all the manufacturers were playing back in the HD direct view television days but I didn't find out about it until after I bought one). I'll give you an example of a 720p plasma HDTV being called a 1080i HDTV:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889213004

It says it's 1080i (No such thing exists for plasma or lcd. Supporting a given resolution is not the same thing as displaying it) but it's really a 720p TV. You can find out it's 720p by looking at the display resolution on the specs page. So why are they calling it a 1080i HDTV? I'm guessing it's because 1080 is a bigger number than 720 and they're assuming that lots of customers won't know the difference between interlaced and progressive scan but they'll sure as hell know that 1080 is a bigger number than 720. They can get away with it because the TV does support 1080i even though it outputs in 720p.

But anyway, if you won't take my word for it that there's no such thing as a 1080i plasma or lcd HDTV perhaps CNET can convince you. Here's a line from a few paragraphs into a CNET article:

"The fact that flat panels don't use interlacing means that there is no such thing as a 1080i LCD or plasma."

http://www.cnet.com/news/do-i-need-a-tv-with-1080i-or-1080p/

Honestly your 1080i TV which I'm assuming is a CRT it will win in image quality by far in the most important categories like contrast ratio and black levels and unless its 120hz or 144hz monitor with light boost also motion smoothness and clarity I know since I use a 1080i 34" Sony Trinitron as a T.V in front of my bed and have my computer in hooked up to it the Trinitron wins by a large margin in image quality compared to the 32" LCD I have a monitor and every monitor I have seen stands no chance against it hell most T.V don't either.

I use to think that which is why I bought a Sony CRT to begin with. I don't know which you have, one with the Super Fine Pitch tube or one without. The one I have doesn't have the SFP so the resolution is extremely limited, 853X1080 interlaced. Yes, its black levels and color accuracy are superb but the lack of sharpness in the picture really limits things. I've moved on to a Samsung 48" H6350 1080p set and despite the black levels not being as good as the Sony CRT the enormous step up in sharpness makes it better imo.

But hey, I bought the Sony years ago and for the time I think I made the right choice ... almost anyway, I should have bought the XBR960 with the SFP instead. Unfortunately for me it wasn't until after I bought the 970 that I got really nerdy about learning about televisions. I spent a year or two hanging out at AVSForum, the most in-depth and detail-oriented TV forum you could possibly visit. Back then LCD tech was not very good and very expensive. A 720p 32" Samsung LCD could run you $1500 and the black levels were atrociously bad. But LCD has come a long way since then. While still not as good as a top-of-the-line CRT when it comes to black levels they have been improved enough in that area so that the added resolution pushes them ahead.

ok, so 1920x1080 is an aspect ratio of 16:9, but your display is 853x1080 so are you really telling me it has an aspect of glorious 8:9? that means its height is longer than its width? is it a portrait monitor?

you're also telling me that 1080i TVs aren't really 1080i, which makes one wonder whether 1080i TVs really exists or if it's a myth.

also interlacing is always horizontal, so if 853 pixels is the number of horizontal lines, that would mean there's a discrepancy of 1 line between each frame (because 853 is an odd number), which sounds odd from a technical perspective.

do you now see why there's confusion here? after 15 minutes of googling i can't find an authoritative source that tells me what exactly is 853x1080 and how it differs from 1080i. all i'm seeing here are old (2011 or earlier) forum topics on displays that allegedly display this resolution.

@Wickerman777: I'd say mine is 1080i, it has that annoying flicker and everything is smaller, like it should be when you switch from 1080 - 720

Its certainly not 1080p, the TV does not support that, its 1080i, windows sees it has 1920x1080, and the quality of the picture suggests its not 1080p.

@thehig1: it displays in 1080i if I use my 360 on it too

Either it's not 1080i or it's not plasma, one of the two. What is the exact model of it?

Simple, rectangular pixels.

I checked and its only the Hi-Scan KV-34HS510 Model crazy the super fine pitch models would have provided even better image quality! I know it lacks sharpness compared to an LCD but for games and video which is what I primarily use it for it doesn't really matter that much other factors are much more important in determining image quality. I can play the same game on my LCD at my desk the DLP in the Living room or my CRT and it looks so much better on the CRT its really incredible how much better the same exact game can look running on a high contrast vs a low contrast display! If I hadn't seen it for my self I never would have believed it something you have to see for yourself to truly appreciate the diffrence!

Also at my viewing distance the lack of resolvable resolution matters less I think since I'm viewing it from 7' away if I was closer would probably make a bigger difference to have the super fine pitch model. Without Having seen your T.V can't say for sure which I would prefer but I like the black levels and contrast ratio of the Trinitron to much to make big sacrifices there ideally I would go with a display that provides even better quality in those area's while offering a sharper more detailed image and a larger image as well 34" is pretty small nowadays.

Since Plasma are being discontinued by Panasonic my next display will be either an OLED T.V or a Highend Projector. I can wait for prices to go down further happy with what I got now but obviously would like to have even better image quality!

yeah i found that out after a bit more googling. that does explain it.