As I keep pointing out, MOVIES or FILM are still 24fps on SD or HD. 720p or 1080i still has 3:2 pulldown at 60Hz because it's only displaying 24fps, unless movie is displayed at 24fps (which HDTV standards can handle)
* MOVIES and FILM also includes almost all high quality US dramas because they are shot on film.
Yes VIDEO content -- sports and news -- has 50/60 full frames a second, but MOVIES and FILM doesn't it has 25/24fps
Anyone missed that main premise? Got any more, but it's 60Hz comments go to another thread.
Let's compare MOVIEs (which was my point) because that's what I watch on my AV kit, could not care less about seeing men playing with balls at 50/60Hz.
Again remembering that 3:2/2:2 pulldown means that pixels are repeated, unless using 24fps display mode.
480p ("NTSC") 720x480@24fps = 8 mP/s (mega-pixels per second)
576p ("PAL") 720x576@25fps = 10 mP/s
*20% more than NTSC
720p 1280x720p@24fps = 22 mP/s
1080p 1920x1080@24fps = 50 mP/s = now that's what I call HiDef, not this middle resolution.
"Ah ha, it's twice as much detail" I hear you say, but this isn't really fair because SD are 4:3 ratios whereas HD are 16:9 ratios; so counting raw mega-pixels per second is not the right thing to do, not unless we normalise the comparison...
4:3 720p 960x720@24fps = 16.588 mP/s
Which is less than twice the mP/s
Most of that is made up with horizontal resolution, which isn't as visible to the eye as vertical resolution -- if this were not the case we wouldn't see widescreen displays of 1366x768 or 1280x768 or 1024x768, would they not all be 1366x768? Furthermore, Muf's table shows the difference between "SD broadcast" and "DVD" and most people don't notice the difference.
So there could be case for arguing that removing this element from the comparison would be even fairer and one should just say:
720 = 50% more vertical resolution than 480
720 = 25% more vertical resolution than 576
576 = 20% more vertical resolution than 480
Hrm... 720 to PAL is like PAL to NTSC?
Wrap me up
In my view 720p is "okay" for movies -- no VIDEO content I want to watch -- but is not a huge leap of quality over SD 576; but 1920x1080, now that's what I call High Definition!
Nuances
CKNA's table reminded me of old arguments about Region1 vs Region2 DVD resolution, and R1-fanboys saying "but R1, it' just better isn't it; you can't see any difference for those extra 20% mega-pixels per second anyway".
One wonders if those same people who couldn't see any difference with an extra 20% mP/s now evangelise about how much better 720p is?
Give me 1080 anyday.
StooMonster