Browse Forums Home Theatre & Automation 1 Sep 13, 2010 6:32 pm What's the difference?? I'm getting a new t.v with our credit card points, and was wondering what the difference is between full HD and just HD? We are just going to put the t.v we have now in the activity room and use the new one for our general viewing, so we don't need all the bells and whistles, but just curious Re: HD and full HD? 2Sep 14, 2010 10:27 am "FullHD" = 1080P. What you need to ensure is that the panel itself has a physical/native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. 1080P means the picture has 1080 lines or a vertical resolution of 1080. The 'P' stands for Progressive Scan which means the entire 1080 lines of picture are rendered in every frame, vs Interlaced where only every second line is rendered in each frame. "HD" could mean anything, from the device having a resolution of 720P (the lower form of HD, still higher than Standard Def...) or it might simply mean 'HD Ready' which means it can still display a HD source even if it is really down-scaling the image to suit it's lower-than-1080P resolution... Re: HD and full HD? 3Sep 14, 2010 12:05 pm Thankyou, I've read too much info on the net about this now and I'm confused. If I got a HD plasma with 1024x768 resolution (either 42inch or 50inch) would this be alright for general viewing?? Mostly just foxtel (not HD channels) and normal t.v or will it look crap? Will I still get a full screen picture? Sorry, I'm really not up with all this technology and all the stuff on the net goes into too much detail!! Re: HD and full HD? 4Sep 14, 2010 12:30 pm Hi Rizzo, I'm by no means an expert but here's my understanding of the whole thing! I'm more than happy to be corrected if I'm wrong As far as I can tell the difference is in terms of picture quality- I've seen a HD versus full HD side by side and there is a noticable difference but only when you directly compare them IYKWIM. The bottom line is that you're not gonna have the 2 different TV's sitting side by side at home I believe that full HD is recommended because it is better with high quality pictures (that come from the likes of blu-ray and HD television broadcasts) but at the moment most people only have limited amounts of those types of formats. Not many people that I know have and/or use a blu-ray player and both foxtel and free to air have only a limited number of HD channels at the moment. Anyway to make a semi-long story short..... I would say get the full HD if you want to future proof and have the extra few hundred bucks to spend. If not the HD will do you for the moment (and you might want to upgrade to a new TV by the time that blu-ray and HD TV become widespread anyway) Hope that helps. Re: HD and full HD? 5Sep 14, 2010 12:42 pm Thanks Grom, that helps heaps. We will eventually get a full HD for the theatre room and go the whole blu-ray thing, but for now it's just foxtel and normal t.v (and our town doesn't even get HD channels yet anyway lol) So for someone who's not overly concerned about having the most amazing picture, the above t.v will be fine? The only thing, I can't stand watching telly with black lines down the side, so would this happen with the above resolution? Re: HD and full HD? 6Sep 17, 2010 11:17 am Hi Rizzo, Will try to provide a little extra info for you. Firstly, the lines that you refer to at the side of the picture have nothing to do with whether the set is HD or full HD. The lines refer to the aspect ratio of the source material. Old TV screens had an aspect ratio of 4:3, sometimes referred to as 1.33:1). That is, 4 units across x 3 units down, giving them a fairly square appearance. New plasmas and LCD are in widescreen format, which is 16:9, ie 16 units across and 9 units down, sometimes referred to as 1.78:1. The gaps that you identify at the sides of the picture are the result of programs that were made for old TV formats (4:3) being displayed on a widescreen TV. Not much you can do short of going into your Foxtel menu and stretching the image. That may improve it. Just to confuse things, sometimes you will be watching a program that will give you lines at the top and bottom of your screen. This is the result of watching a cinemascope program (2.4:1 aspect ratio) on a widescreen. Many new movies and also old ones, are filmed in the theatrical aspect ratio of 2.4:1, which means that your TV set will cut the sides off the picture to fit on a widescreen tv. Only way around this is to buy a projector with an add on Anamorphic lens or a new Phillips cinemascope TV, which sells for the same price as a car! Now, with regards to HD Vs Full HD, it is simply a difference in the number of pixels (picture elements) that make up the picture you see on the screen. The more pixels, the better the image quality. Just like your digital camera. the higher the megapixels, the better the photo generally is). HD TV's have a resolution of 1366 pixels across x 768 pixels down the screen. This equates to just over 1 million pixels for the screen display. Full HD panels have 1920 pixels across x 1080 pixels down, which equates to over 2 million pixels, or double the resolution. If you intend to watch Blu-rays etc, I would go full HD. If you are happy just watching DVD and VHS / cable material, HD will be fine. Generally, you will not see a lot of difference between HD and Full HD in sets smaller than 40-42 inches. Hope that helps. Greg. Re: HD and full HD? 7Sep 17, 2010 12:24 pm Without trying to complicate the matter any further, other than resolution there are additional factors that are just as important to the quality of a TV picture. These include: contrast ratio: The amount of steps between black and white. colour saturation, colour temperature and greyscale. refresh rate: important for fast moving images. Back to the original question, HD or Full HD? From reading various sites on the net, it depends largely on viewing distance. As mentioned already, a digital TV is made up of pixels. Think of each pixel as a tile in a mosaic. When you view a mosiac from very close it becomes obvious that the picture is made up of small pieces of colour or detail,. However as you move further away from the mosaic, the detail of each small piece begins to blend in with the surrounding pieces and a smooth picture is revealed. A digital TV works in the same way. So if you were to view a 50 inch "HD" or 720p TV from only a metre away and compare it to a 50 inch "Full HD" or 1080p TV from the same distance, it would be obvious that the "Full HD" TV had a higher resolution (ie. the pixels making up the picture on the "HD" TV would be more obvious than those for the "Full HD" TV). However if you were to compare the same two screens from 3 or more metres away, the differences would become less obvious. Here is a link that shows picture quality vs TV size and viewing distance: http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter Also, to get the full benefit of a "Full HD" TV you would need to be viewing "Full HD" content (content higher than 720p), which means things like Blu-ray. The DVD standard is only a standard definition picture and even with upscaling (converting a standard definition picture to be high definition) the picture quality will never be as good as a native high definition picture, I would suggest that you have a think about how close you'll be sitting to the TV, what the environment of the room will be (dark or bright), what you plan on using it for and how big you want the TV to be. Then go into any one of the shops that have walls of TVs and compare the two you can choose on your rewards scheme keeping in mind that you need to try and view from the distance you'll be watching from in your house. This should make the decision much easier. Re: HD and full HD? 8Sep 17, 2010 12:41 pm Thanks guys, I think I read too much on the net and got my little brain all confused. We did go and have a look at the tellies a while ago in the shop, but i haven't been able to get back there. We went the 50inch HD as we will not be watching anything in full HD on it. It will be for general t.v and mostly foxtel (not the HD channels) and our viewing distance is around 4 -4.5metres. It's really only a second t.v that really will only get watched in the evenings, so no need for going all out When it comes time to decking out the home theatre though, that will be a different story ) Re: HD and full HD? 9Sep 19, 2010 4:28 pm With a 50" screen and a 4-4.5 meter viewing distance a full HD will be a waste of money, HD will be fine. Re: HD and full HD? 10Sep 20, 2010 1:13 pm The other side of that arguement is if you're going to buy a new 50" plasma why not spend the extra couple of hundred $ and get a FullHD one, rather than sticking with a resolution that was standard 4 years ago? There's no guarantee you'll always be viewing it from that far back either... Re: HD and full HD? 11Sep 24, 2010 8:44 am I laughed at a friend who spent $2k on a FULL HD Panasonic 42" Plasma... I laughed because you can get the non FULL HD version for a touch over a grand at the time... Boy was I wrong, the picture with Full HD is amazing and worth any extra cost. Also, with DVD on the way out and Blu-ray taking over why not "future proof" yourself as Blu-ray isn't much without a Full HD TV. I have a Samsung 46" Full HD LCD TV - The picture is excellent and a Rank Arena 32" Full HD LCD TV I'm just using until I get the cash for a projector, which will also be Full HD. Spend the extra. Re: HD and full HD? 12Sep 24, 2010 12:36 pm what is the price difference like out in the market now? I finally got into the big screen flat pannel world this year and the price difference between 50" full HD versus 50" HD was ~$150? This was samsung plasmas. 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