1080p LCD TVs are becoming very popular they are the most popular resolution HD TV on the market. The truth however is that all HD ready TVs have excellent picture quality and the difference between 720p, 1080i and 1080p is barely noticeable. When product testing has been performed on two HD TVs of the same size it has been almost impossible to tell which TV has the higher resolution.
The benefit of 1080p TVs
A 1080p TV is most beneficial when used as a PC monitor set to output 1080o resolution. The text and graphics can look superb. Differences in quality of a 1080p TV are usually only noticeable when you sit less than 1.5 times the diagonal measurement of the screen, but few people would want to watch from so near.
1080p/60 or 1080p/24
There are hundreds of 1080p HD TVs on the market each of them will have different product specs which will create a different viewing experience. 1080p TVs come in two different type’s 1080p/60 versus 1080p/24. The 60 and the 24 refer to frame rate. Moving images on the screen are made up of frames which are broadcast every second to create the impression of movement.
The standard rate for film is 24 frames per second and for video it is 30 frames per second. With 1080p/60 each frame is repeated twice. All HD TVs today allow you to watch 1080p/60 sources using HDMI inputs. Not all HD TVs however allow display of 1080p/24 sources.
Most Blu-Ray players and the Playstation 3 has a setting for 1080p/24 this is the way movies from film are encoded if your TV allows you to set it at 1080p/24 you will be viewing the film just like you would in the cinema when it is viewed with a film projector. To get a TV to display at 1080p/24 you need a refresh rate at some multiple of 24.
The standard refresh rate for an HD TV is 60Hz which sadly is not a multiple of 24. There more LCD HD TVs coming on the market with refresh rates of 120Hz or 240Hz and some plasma TV have refresh rates at 48Hz, 72Hz, or 96Hz.
