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Blue Ray Quality with a 1080i / 720p HDTV?

As I understand it the new Blue Ray system is based on 1080p for its advancement in picture quality.

I have a few years old Sony 60" LCD that outputs 1080i or 720p ,but, NOT 1080p.
I should state that the picture quality with my present equipment with Hi Def sources is great.

I am sort of interested in a Blue Ray player. The Player cost seem reasonable, but I am still on the fence about the cost of the Blue Ray discs.

I have never received a straight answer as to the video improvement with my present equipment using a Blue Ray player and Blue Ray discs from the adolescences who work at the local Electronics stores.

So, here are the 2 questions...

1. Will there be any Video improvement with using a Blue Ray player and Blue Ray discs with equipment that cannot output 1080 P?

2. If there is an improvement is it 90% 50 % 25% or whatever?

Thanks,
ozzy
128x128ozzy
iasi
115 posts
 
You won't be sorry. I have an older Pioneer elite 50" plasma TV that is 1080i. I went to a lot of struggle before decicing to buy the Pioneer 05 Blu-ray. I couldn't be happier! The regular DVD look about 25% better than on a regular DVD player, and the Blu-ray DVD's are outstanding!!! I don't think you'll notice a difference in between a 1080p and a 1080i TV with Blu-ray. i know I didn't. Btw, I bought about 8 blu-ray DVD's for $20 and less from Best Buy right before the holidays.

Good luck!
kennyt's avatar
kennyt
1,226 posts
 
Ozzy,

If you troll Amazon you'll be able to get many good titles for ~$18, at least that has been my average over the last two years.

I sort of stopped buying them as Netflix rents them, so does BB but not as many are there.

UncleJeff,

SD DVD is 480i, many players will deinterlace the signal, but it's still 480i.....
freewaywilly
7 posts
 
I have a JVC CRT that is 1080i. It is beautiful with my Blu Ray player.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,483 posts
 
for a couple of bucks a month you can subscribe to Netflix and get any BluRay you want
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
Just so you know, the only HDTVs that truly display 1080i in native mode are CRT-based. All the LCD, DLP, and plasma-based HDTVs that accept 480p, 720p, and 1080i input (but NOT 1080p) have a native mode of 720p to maybe 768p. That means that when these TVs receive 1080i input, they downconvert to 720p (or in some plasma displays, 768p).

That said, Blu-ray fed to a 720p native mode display looks VERY good. I have such a beast, a 2005 55" LCD-based RP Hitachi with 720p native mode. Ever since I bought an HD DVD player in early 2007 (and now have a PS3 to play Blu-ray), it looks so much better than HDTV or std-def DVD that I *will not* buy any more std-def DVDs and I added HD DVD and Blu-ray to my Netflix profile. I don't watch a std-def DVD anymore unless 1) It's available only in that format and 2) I REALLY REALLY want to watch that movie. Otherwise, Blu-ray fed to my 720p display has spoiled me for anything less.

The interesting thing I've found is that although my TV is definitely run by a 720p-based LCD, when I set the output of the Blu-ray or HD DVD to output 1080i via HDMI, it looks just a *little* sharper than when I output in 720p, the TV's native mode. So don't be afraid to experiment a bit, but *don't* try to feed it 1080p; it may freak out your TV.
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