It seems that many people are in the market for an HDTV right now. With the Super Bowl fast approaching and the holiday splurges fading from memory, the lure of that new TV is hard to resist.
There are a lot of decisions to be made when choosing an HDTV. Do you want Plasma or LCD? Direct view or rear projection? How many inches? And then there’s the thousand-dollar question:
What resolution do you really need?
Of course, almost everyone would take the very best solution they can manage. However, you can save yourself a considerable amount of money if you realize that you can’t see or dont’ care about the difference between 720p and 1080p. That knowledge could mean a difference of $1,500 or more for the same size television.
I have found composed a resolution comparison demo video help illustrate the differences between the different television resolutions. The source file is a 1080p clip made by Red Digital Cinema with their jaw-dropping Red One (2540p @60fps native) camera.
The video is 1920×1080, silent, and composed of several sections:
SD (standard definition)
ED (enhanced definition)
720p
1080p
In the full-length comparison, each of the reduced resolutions is demonstrated in two ways. First, it is displayed in native resolution to demonstrate the original pixel dimensions of the clip. Next it plays again in fullscreen to simulate the picture quality of a television of a fixed size stretching the indicated resolution to cover.
The comparison ends with a fullscreen side-by-side comparison with 1080p, 720p, and 480p bars of the same film striped across the screen. This side-by-side segment is also available by itself in a separate download.
Most computer screens aren’t as big as 1920×1080. If your screen is not that big, I suggest watching the video at 100% zoom so the pixels aren’t distorted.
Download Torrents Here
There are two versions of the HD resolution comparisons available:
Torrent full comparison video. (232MB)
isnoop.net blog 
I have no time for comparison shots. Like the DVD/Blu-Ray comparisons you see, they always try and show DVD in the worst possible light. Basically they’ll take a screen grab of a DVD connected by SCART or composite and then compare it to all singing all dancing HDMI 1080p and say “come here and witness the majesty of Blu-Ray”. Well duh, of course Blu-Ray will look all that.
But it speaks volumes. If they had so much confidence in it, they’d side-by-side test upscaled DVD over HDMI and put it next to the 1080p Blu-Ray. Especially in the PAL territories where we already have 576 vertical lines over NTSC’s 480…upscaled 720×576 looks amazing, leaving Blu-Ray to shine only on the biggest of TV screens.