An argument of two friends: Bigger Screen or Better Resolution?

Don't know why this popped my mind, but I wanted an answer to this. My friend has something like a 32" TV in his room with his 360 hooked up. It isn't HD however, it's SD, so probably 480p. Now, I'm going to be getting an HDTV in the near future, probably 24-26" and was wondering, which would look better?

(The TV will be 1080p by the way, but I'll probably put the 360 in 720p).

EDIT: Don't mind that last paranthese, my real question should be, which looks better: A 32" TV at 480p or 24" at 720p.

I'm getting a 1080p regardless as Wii U and all other next gen systems will display in that.

Don't know why this popped my mind, but I wanted an answer to this. My friend has something like a 32" TV in his room with his 360 hooked up. It isn't HD however, it's SD, so probably 480p. Now, I'm going to be getting an HDTV in the near future, probably 24-26" and was wondering, which would look better?

(The TV will be 1080p by the way, but I'll probably put the 360 in 720p).

Nozizaki

Depends. Unless I was sitting very far away, I wouldn't go with anything less than 1080p above 50 inches. At the moment I have a TC-P50C2. I sat far enough away that I can't see pixels or stair stepping from the lower resolution. But if it were any bigger, I would be able to. So it depends on a lot of factors. If you sit closer than 4 feet to the 32 inch, go with a 1080p one. Otherwise, save money and go 720p.

your friend made a forum account to vote lol

your friend made a forum account to vote lol

M4Ntan

There are more factors that make a good picture, like colour accuracy and black levels.

But a 24" 720P TV would look way sharper.

That depends how well the TV handles SD content. I've had a 40" W4500 Sony Bravia LCD TV before and SD content looked really bad and blurry on it, but now i own a bigger VT30 Plasma and the SD content looks so much better. Well everything looks miles better, but i was surprised that SD content was watchable again :D

Don't know why this popped my mind, but I wanted an answer to this. My friend has something like a 32" TV in his room with his 360 hooked up. It isn't HD however, it's SD, so probably 480p. Now, I'm going to be getting an HDTV in the near future, probably 24-26" and was wondering, which would look better?

(The TV will be 1080p by the way, but I'll probably put the 360 in 720p).

EDIT: Don't mind that last paranthese, my real question should be, which looks better: A 32" TV at 480p or 24" at 720p.

I'm getting a 1080p regardless as Wii U and all other next gen systems will display in that.

Nozizaki

is this a serious question. the smaller the tv the btter it will look for graphics. also the smaller tv has is hd the other is not. get the 24 inch hd tv

That's a pretty stupid comparison as 480p is as ancient as it gets, it's just unusable now on anything other than smart-phone screens. I wouldn't even use a 480p 32" OLED screen.

Picture quality is the most important thing(as long as resolution is not abysymall), then it's resolution and then it's size as far as PC gaming is concerned.

For movies and console games you can say size is more important than PPI.

1080p will look much sharper, and why would you set your 360 to 720p? Just let your 360 autodetect your resolution.

i would go for a big tv.

That's a pretty stupid comparison as 480p is as ancient as it gets, it's just unusable now on anything other than smart-phone screens. I wouldn't even use a 480p 32" OLED screen.

Gambler_3

The only thing HD in my household is my PC right now, and that is integrated graphics card (720p max).

Also, the 360 has a 1080p option? I only saw 1080i

While screen size is important to an extent, the difference between 480p and 720p is HUGE.

480p = 337,920 pixels on screen
720p = 921,600 pixel on screen

There's almost 3x the amount of detail (rendered pixels) in 720p vs 480p. The difference is night and day.

In short, the smaller screen at 720p will have much much better image quality than a 32inch screen running at 480p.

[QUOTE="Gambler_3"]

That's a pretty stupid comparison as 480p is as ancient as it gets, it's just unusable now on anything other than smart-phone screens. I wouldn't even use a 480p 32" OLED screen.

Nozizaki

The only thing HD in my household is my PC right now, and that is integrated graphics card (720p max).

Also, the 360 has a 1080p option? I only saw 1080i

How much is your budget OP? If you are paying anything around $300 you can get a 720p HD tv above 32', they go on sale all the time.

How much is your budget OP? If you are paying anything around $300 you can get a 720p HD tv above 32', they go on sale all the time.

Meat_Wad_Fan

$200 and under would be very nice. This is at black friday.

Budget is low. If you were comparing 720p vs 1080p, I'd say go with the bigger tv as none of your games are 1080p anyways. However difference between a 32" 480p and 720p 24" is clearly evident and I 'd say go with the newer tv.rastan

Then what do I do when I get a next-gen system?

for $200 you should take a look at used tv's on craigslist

You need to sit with 6 feet or so to see the difference between 720p/1080p on a 50" set. Unfortunately seeing as you have a $200 budget and are between a 32" 480 p or 24" 720p, 1080p in a bigger size doesn't seem in your immediate future so why worry about something in the far off future today.rastan

Will you all quit putting words in my mouth, I don't want TV advice, I just wanted to be reassured that a 24" TV in 720p+ would look better than a 32" in 480p, which soundsunanimous. I will come back to you all for TV advice in November when the Black Friday ads are out.

Technically both screen size and resolution is needed; for instantace a 50" screen with a resolution of 480p is going to look much worse than a 32" screen with the same resolution. On the other end of the spectrum having a 5" screen with a resolution of 1080p may not look any more sharp than a 5" screen with a 540p. The larger the screen, the higher the resolution needs to be in order to maintain fidelity. Concerning your debate though, I would much rather have a smaller screen with a higher resolution than a larger screen with a lower resolution for the reasons I just described.

Your question doesn't really make sense. A smaller screen is better in every circumstance for gaming anyway. I have a 32" TV and I hate the f***ing thing! With gaming, it's allways good to have a good clear view of everything on screen at the same time, bigger screens restrict that. And just by commonsense, on smaller screens the 1920 x 1080 pixels on screen are more compressed, meaning better quality whereas on a bigger screen there spread out more.

That depends how well the TV handles SD content. I've had a 40" W4500 Sony Bravia LCD TV before and SD content looked really bad and blurry on it, but now i own a bigger VT30 Plasma and the SD content looks so much better. Well everything looks miles better, but i was surprised that SD content was watchable again :D

Ben-Buja

Don't know why this popped my mind, but I wanted an answer to this. My friend has something like a 32" TV in his room with his 360 hooked up. It isn't HD however, it's SD, so probably 480p. Now, I'm going to be getting an HDTV in the near future, probably 24-26" and was wondering, which would look better?

(The TV will be 1080p by the way, but I'll probably put the 360 in 720p).

EDIT: Don't mind that last paranthese, my real question should be, which looks better: A 32" TV at 480p or 24" at 720p.

I'm getting a 1080p regardless as Wii U and all other next gen systems will display in that.

Nozizaki

Higher resolution, all other aspects of image quality being equal, trumps sheer size for me. In fact, I find it rather baffling that they'll make 30" 2560x1600 monitors, but anything bigger instantly downgrades to 1920x1080. Anyway, with an Xbox 360 as the source, the actual game resolution is only 1280x720, sometimes slightly less and then upscaled. You wouldn't get much benefit out of a 1920x1080 display unless it could display HD movies at that resolution.NamelessPlayer

If your going for a smaller TV, go for 720p, anything equal or greater than 32 inches go for 1080p. Also do your research, i.e look at reviews, from several sources. Chris_53

While screen size is important to an extent, the difference between 480p and 720p is HUGE.

480p = 337,920 pixels on screen
720p = 921,600 pixel on screen

There's almost 3x the amount of detail (rendered pixels) in 720p vs 480p. The difference is night and day.

In short, the smaller screen at 720p will have much much better image quality than a 32inch screen running at 480p.

ndawgdrake

Budget is low. If you were comparing 720p vs 1080p, I'd say go with the bigger tv as none of your games are 1080p anyways. However difference between a 32" 480p and 720p 24" is clearly evident and I 'd say go with the newer tv.rastan

Your question doesn't really make sense. A smaller screen is better in every circumstance for gaming anyway. I have a 32" TV and I hate the f***ing thing! With gaming, it's allways good to have a good clear view of everything on screen at the same time, bigger screens restrict that. And just by commonsense, on smaller screens the 1920 x 1080 pixels on screen are more compressed, meaning better quality whereas on a bigger screen there spread out more.

Defy_The_Fallen

I sit 5 feet from a large 46" HD tv, and the picture looks perfect, no distortions.

Pixel density does NOT, I repeat DOES NOT make a picture better. So what if a 24" monitor has 2 million pixels? A 300" inch projector screen will have 2 million pixels too and it'll look infinitely better than the 24" monitor despite having significantly less pixels per square inch.

The founder of THX® believes screen size is the most important factor to a good cinema viewing. I do not agree, although I admit that my mind has recently been blown by the fact that I can sit less than 10 feet away from a 100" and watch the movies comfortably.

Pixel density does NOT, I repeat DOES NOT make a picture better. So what if a 24" monitor has 2 million pixels? A 300" inch projector screen will have 2 million pixels too and it'll look infinitely better than the 24" monitor despite having significantly less pixels per square inch.

The founder of THX® believes screen size is the most important factor to a good cinema viewing. I do not agree, although I admit that my mind has recently been blown by the fact that I can sit less than 10 feet away from a 100" and watch the movies comfortably.

Mozelleple112

But keeping all variables constant, better pixel density = better image quality.

I would take the 25" sony OLED TV over anything that money can buy for gaming, for movies obviously pixel density doesnt matter as much but for games a 300" screen would suck honestly even if it had 5 million pixels.

Most 360/PS3 games are native 720p. There are a handful of games (last count under 20 including market place games) that run native 1080p. Halo 3 actually runs at less than 720p. As such, most games will look best at 720p as upscaling will introduce artifacts. Blu-Ray is the the only current mass medium to enjoy native 1080p.rastan