As the geek of my circle of friends I am usually asked questions like HD or Blu-Ray and so forth. I’ve already posted the HD/Blu-Ray question on my blog, so I figured I’d add the latest question, should I dump my current HDTV for a 1080p capable TV? As usual, it really depends.
The real answer to this question revolves around content and distance. There is no Broadcast HDTV standard for 1080p, as it uses too much bandwidth. If you primarily watch TV on your TV set, then it’s not really worth it. More important things are color reproduction (are the blacks dark grey or really black?), the upscaler (does SDTV look good on this set?), and size. That said, there are some sources of 1080p video. If you own an HD-DVD/ Blu-Ray player or play games on an X-Box 360/Playstation 3 then it may be a good idea to buy a 1080p set depending on your viewing distance. The question of size and distance then comes into play, as the further you get from the TV the less resolution you can see. At a certain point it’s not worth having the higher resolution because you just will not see it. There is a chart available here of distance and size. For example, at 1080p on a 32 inch tv, you must be closer than five feet for you to notice a difference between 1080p and 720p. Basically you need a giant TV or must be really close to your TV for the higher resolution to be perceptible.
All said and done, I’d probably skip on a 1080p set for the foreseeable future. I don’t play games, and I’m not buying an HD or Blu-Ray player anytime soon. I primarily use my TV for watching TV, and 1080p is not in that market at all for the forseeable future. I predict that in five years or so there will be an IPTV solution for this that’ll bring 1080p to the home, and I’ll re-evaluate then.