Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

The place for all discussion on gaming hardware
Post Reply
Issac Zachary
Posts: 163
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:54 pm

Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by Issac Zachary »

Plan:
So I've decided to get a 32" flat panel TV to fit along with my 27" Sony Trinitron CRT. And by fit, I mean fit it in the TV cabinet so it folds down in front of the CRT when in use and up and out of the way for when I want to use the CRT.

Why:
I do have a couple games on the PS2 that the box say they look better in HD. I'm also wanting to experiment with 480P on the Wii. Plus we don't have room in our small living room for our 42" TV so I need to replace it with a small 32" TV anyway and might as well as add it to the videogame/CRT cabinet where it makes the most sense. So we will be watching TV and movies on it, but we don't do online watching much, mostly DVD's and videos we already have most of which are a widescreen 480i or 720p; nothing HDR or anything.

Currently I have a SNES, PS2 and Wii (Game Cube compatible) all connected to my CRT (via S-Video).
For the future I definitely want a NES to play on the CRT, but am interested in any deals I can find, including consoles like the Dreamcast that also may work better with 480P.

The question is:
What 32" TV should I get?

720P?
For $120, a 720P seems like a good deal. After all, we don't really have any forseen plans to play or watch anything above that resolution. A couple that seem to have low lag are the TCL 32" Roku and the Hisense 32" Roku TV's.

1080P?
For $150 more, or about $270 I can get the same TCL 32" in the 1080P version. It too has low lag accoding to RTINGS. Then there's the nearly $600 32" Samsung QLED "The Frame" at 1080P. That one seems to get the best ratings for everything including low lag, but man is it expensive!

4K?
Then there's the 32" Samsung 4K VA panel QLED for $450.

But what would look better? Is a 4K TV really worth it if I'm only running 480P and 720P games and movies on it? And if so, would I need an upscaler? And if I do, wouldn't I be better off maybe putting away for a Sony PVM 20L5 (if I can find one)? Or is 480P on a 720P screen ok looking? Or do I need to do at least 1080P?
strayan
Posts: 671
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 8:33 pm

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by strayan »

A 720p TV paired with a quality scaler like an Extron 301 HD scaler is a great option (as long as your TV supports PC timings via it’s HDMI/VGA input). A cheaper option is the Crestron HD scaler but they don’t have as many options as the Extron (I own both).

1080p is also a good choice because you can line double 480p to 960p by using an OSSC (provided your TV can deal with 960p. You could also add a scaler like the EXtron mentioned above to this chain.

I wouldn’t bother with 4k.

Other options:

1) wait for the OSSC pro and then buy a 32 inch 1440p display because you should be able to line triple 480p.

2) see if you can find a 32 inch 480p or 720p plasma.
Last edited by strayan on Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:15 am, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
Kez
Posts: 818
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2017 7:09 am

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by Kez »

True 720p panels are like unicorns, it is very unlikely that if you bought a 720p screen it would be a 720p panel. They are normally some weird resolution like 1366x768 and they look awful trying to scale 720p.

1080p is likely the way to go. For 32 inches at TV watching distance, 4K is not really necessary and as you said you watch much 4K content anyway.
strayan
Posts: 671
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 8:33 pm

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by strayan »

Kez wrote:They are normally some weird resolution like 1366x768 and they look awful trying to scale 720p.
This has very little to do with the resolution of the panel. It’s more to do with the fact that many or rather most of these TV’s process 720p content and you can’t disable it. Pair them with a scaler that outputs at the native 1360x768 resolution of the panel and they look spectacular (beware though because some of them still don’t accept PC timings).

My Sony Bravia doesn’t even need an external scaler as long as you use the VGA input rather than the HDMI port. Use the HDMI port and looks godawful though.
Last edited by strayan on Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Issac Zachary
Posts: 163
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:54 pm

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by Issac Zachary »

Thank you for the responses! So 720P should be fine, 1080P could be better but for actual line doubling it would need to be 1440P. Got it!

I'll see what I can do about the plasma TV. I am afraid though that if it's bezels are too thick I'll have to find an even smaller screen so it'll fit in the TV cabinet. But a plasma would be cool!
User avatar
azmun
Posts: 363
Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 11:23 pm
Location: Manila

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by azmun »

Nice setup you have of flat panels coexisting with CRTs. I think in practice you will have more choices in 1080p or 4k than 720p but the fact that you've identified 720p sets should be worth a go. And with a price that seems reasonable I think you've found good value. The only thing I'm not sure is how 480p line doubled or upscanned will look on that. Last year I finally jumped the gun and got a flat panel (1080p 27" Samsung monitor). PS2 games (I've not used it much yet on DC or GCN) that have progressive scan mode (480p) look great using OSSC's passthrough mode. 720p games like some of my Xbox 360 look OK but I'd say native 1080p games look best on it.
Issac Zachary
Posts: 163
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:54 pm

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by Issac Zachary »

With the mention of Plasma, I started looking more into them thinking that even with the bigger bezels I'll make one work if I can get my hands on a good one. I found 4 models of 32" plasma TV's that used to be manufactured, some 720P and others 1080i:

Vizio VP 322 HDTV10A
LG 32PC5RV
Philips 32FD9954
Norcent PT-320

Sadly I can't find any of these for sale anywhere. I got alerts setup on eBay, so hopefully I'll get one if they don't go for too much. It sure is hard to search for a plasma TV. Everytime I google "32 inch plasma TV" I get lots of listings for LCD TV's.
gray117
Posts: 1233
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:19 pm
Location: Leeds

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by gray117 »

Just go low lag 1080.

Save yourself a ton of hassle. It's a full time job to stay on top of TV models and another full time one to research and find anything manufactured longer than about 3 years ago... And any bad luck with parts/shipping and it'll be a wasted effort.

Plus things have generally gotten better with the new - better uniformity in particular.

Aside from this you'll have a load more utility from 1080 set for consoles, pcs, streaming boxes, casting...1080 is substantially better for general use over 720 (asides from often not actually being 720). 4k (or rather 2k...) is nice but really little is truly setup to take advantage of it except new films, next gen, or pc enthusiasts/applications - which didn't seem to be your use case.

Ossc is the way to go if you want to add a scaler for 240-480 pixel content IMHO ... so any extra effort could just be spent seeing if there's a good low lag pairing to go with that.

Convenience is king... Aside from some favorites like the nes, I'd be surprised if emulation doesn't feature more in your future - it's certainly the way to really render those early 3d games in higher resolution if that's something that is of interest... Had years of fun tweaking ps1 games in this way...

And even for 2d emulation is generally the best way to tailor a crt filter to your exact tastes with the best possible scaling - something that can't always be done otherwise no matter how much you spend (or so easily mixed and matched depending on specfic titles/platforms).
Issac Zachary
Posts: 163
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:54 pm

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by Issac Zachary »

Thanks @grey117 ! I do think low lag is key. I'm not so sure I want to trade my CRT gaming for upscaling or emulation just yet though.

So far my experience with those things has been on a couple friends' Switches, and it was not good at all. It just feels like something is wrong when playing NES and SNES games on one. I'm not sure if it's the TV's lag, the controller or if Nintendo's emulation is just plain bad. But I feel so much more at home playing on my CRT with original consoles, for what ever reason that I can't quite point out.

Right now I have three consoles connected to an S-Video switcher, and it seems to work just fine. It's quite convenient I think. About the only inconvenient part is unraveling the controllers and trying to keep the cables straight.

I mainly want the flat panel for HD content (both videogames and regular TV use), and for trying the 480P content to see what it's like. Maybe I'll just start out with whatever's the cheapest option, with low lag, and go from there if I don't like it.
Issac Zachary
Posts: 163
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:54 pm

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by Issac Zachary »

Well It's Black Friday and I see a TV that appeals to me but wanted some input here.

Samsung 32" 4K Q50 is on sale at about $400. It's a "quantum dot" LCD screen (QLED) in 4K resolution. No local dimming and has a VA panel with a narrow viewing angle that I'm not sure will be ok with 4 people playing and watching on it. Looks like at about a 20° angle it really starts to darken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpsPBrH ... e=emb_logo

I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking this. All I know is that the 1080P 42" Vizio we have seems to big and doesn't fit along with my Sony Trinitron. I also don't like its translucent grey "blacks" and over all dim picture on it, making the Sony CRT seem way better in picture quality even though it can only display 480i/240P.
fernan1234
Posts: 2175
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2017 8:34 pm

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by fernan1234 »

Issac Zachary wrote:Well It's Black Friday and I see a TV that appeals to me but wanted some input here.

Samsung 32" 4K Q50 is on sale at about $400. It's a "quantum dot" LCD screen (QLED) in 4K resolution. No local dimming and has a VA panel with a narrow viewing angle that I'm not sure will be ok with 4 people playing and watching on it. Looks like at about a 20° angle it really starts to darken. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpsPBrH ... e=emb_logo

I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking this. All I know is that the 1080P 42" Vizio we have seems to big and doesn't fit along with my Sony Trinitron. I also don't like its translucent grey "blacks" and over all dim picture on it, making the Sony CRT seem way better in picture quality even though it can only display 480i/240P.
I didn't know they're making such a "small" 4K TV. Doesn't sound bad, and although no commercial TV upscales 720p and 480p optimally to 4K, the small size and higher pixel density may help make such content look decent. Too bad according to the RTings review the BFI pulse is weird and introduces artifacts, since an LCD at least can compensate for BFI brightness loss better than any commercial OLED.
Issac Zachary
Posts: 163
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:54 pm

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by Issac Zachary »

So I think I've decided on a flat panel TV that will fit my needs. I have two Samsung Syncmaster T260 monitors I picked up with an old Dell desktop all for $50. They are 25.5", 1920x1200, 16:10 TFT, HDMI/DVI panels. I think I'll use one of them along with my Sony Trinitron. Images look a lot better on these than our Vizio. There's a lot more contrast for sure. They say they have a 5ms response time on the front of the monitors. These were from a gamer. Obviously I'll have to use a sound bar or speakers with these.

What do you think?

Should we go with one of these 25.5" monitors as our TV?
Issac Zachary
Posts: 163
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 2:54 pm

Re: Is 1080p or 4k worth it for 480p and 720p content?

Post by Issac Zachary »

Well, I found a Panisonic 1080P Plasma TV with composite, S-Video, VGA, composite and HDMI for free. The only problem is that there is noticeable burn in along the bottom. I can see what news channel the previous guy watched. I'll try to see if using a "snow" screen helps it or not. It's not always visible, but most of the time it is.
Post Reply