Not sure anyone here who doesn't have 4 large plasmas and one very large projection screen with a touchscreen remote for all, situated in between large speakers in a huge home theatre room, and who can afford to blow 100k on this kind of setup has any right to comment on what they would have done differently. Don't like the 720p? Fine, make your own home theatre this nice, or shut up. Sure it can be done...so do it...and post it on gizmodo.

yougottabekidding

I wonder how many %8,000 cables it took to build that?

Vexorg

I think I'll get me one of those Mitsubishi 12-million-pixel 340-degree DLP set-ups. Sure there's no actual media available anywhere that I can watch in full resolution on that rig. And most of the time I'll wind up watching hockey in 720p but upscaled to a ludicrous degree and I'll have spent millions of dollars for nothing.
But at least I'll impress all the peeps writing in comments at Gizmodo.

Lorne

i like being able to see the movie stars in the background at an HBO boxing match.

I like seeing the hot girls behind the backstop at a basketball or baseball game.

i like being able to read the headstock logos on guitars in concerts.

i like reading the posters and signs in the background of tv shows and movies, which are often filled with jokes.

in short, HDTV is for me.

drewheyman

Well, this really depends on when the theater was actually designed and built. It didn't just pop up over night and 1.5 years ago the Sharp 12000MK II was a $10,000 projector and probably the best projector around. Now, it's stupid to buy the electronics until the theater was finished, but I am guessing that a job like this had everything designed first including the projector so that they could run all the electronics to the exact right throw distance.

gwlaw99

@mthrndr: thanks for pointing that out, I assumed it was obvious enough that interlacing significantly changes the comparison, to the point that 720p would indeed look better than 1080i.

The question I have is whether or not all this owners sub-HD content would look better on 720p display vs 1080p display. I guess it mostly has to do with the native resolution of the projector and the scaling processor, but would tend to think that it would scale better to 720p, at any viewing distance and screen size.

There is a very long thread about this on the AVS forums:
[www.avsforum.com]

Fierock

@joe23521: I'll take the $1000 50" plasma.

luckypictures

let me qualify the "so the color of both types is the same" by saying i dont see "more" colors in HD. color is represented very differently as i say later, but in terms of quanta, i do not percieve a gain.

nutbastard

@reebs82:
well, if i bought a ps3, i would want HD just to be able to see very small things far away. im not even sure if you can hook a ps3 up to a regular tv. thats one situation where the extra detail would be very important to me. counting nose hairs on news anchors - not so much.
@dynastius:
im color retarded in a way thats impossible to explain, so the color of both types is the same.

to get into detail, here are my beefs with HDTV. Bear in mind that I probably haven't seen any ultra nice expensive HDTVs, but recognize that theres no point in doing so - i care about the quality of something i could potentially afford, not something i could never buy. you dont hear me bitching about lambos and bugattis.

1. Black ain't black. It's very dark grey. I know about contrast ratios but again, this is looking at sets i could actually afford.
2. Solid colors move in colonies. I dont know about you, but the borders between similar neighboring colors are very appearant, which i believe is a problem inherent to using a digital color pallete. I see all these shifting "islands" of solid colors instead of a smooth gradient. similar but dlightly different colors dont blend nicely, they fight for territory... and again, this is looking at sets i could actually afford.

nutbastard

@babaki:
Yup, you beat me to it.
Everyone watch a basketball game on in HD and then go watch it in SD. HD absolutely wins. Hell, my Mom couldn't believe what an HD game looked like, she said something to the effect of it being "too good."

OmegaRed59

if you cant tell the difference between SD and HD, you are one of those people who didnt set up your TV properly. the difference is night and day. and if you say you like SD better, you are just plain lying.

babaki

I disagree with all of you....well, sort of. I can't believe there are this many posts about the quality of SD vs HD and everyone just keeps talking detail and sharpness and so on. The MUCH more obvious diffrence in HD vs SD is the COLORS man. I mean the color difference in ANY HD signal compared to an SD signal is nuts. NTSC SD color space is big and beautiful, but SD TV's only do a fraction of it. (In fact, even in HD, very few if any sets can handle the entire NTSC color space.)

I agree though that 1080p will make a difference on a 144 inch screen. Hell...just wait til Ultra HD comes out. Now THAT will be an upgrade. The number of pixels from SD (480i) to full HD (1080p) was a 6X increase...from Full HD to Ultra HD its a 13X incrase. HOLY CRAP. Overkill?? Not if your entire wall is a screen. (coming soon to a home theater near u....by 'soon'...i mean 10 years...lol) Yes, I'm a hopeless geek...but I don't care...my girl is HOT and she's not made of latex so its all good. I WANT A FULL WALL ULTRA HD. GIMME!

dynastius

@Fierock: There were some people in the comments above that seemed to think 1080i is somehow better than 720p. This isn't true, as 1080i is interlaced (only showing half the lines of resolution at a time) whereas 720p is progressive -showing all lines. That's why some ED tvs can display 1080i but not 720p. Where you see the most difference is in sports broadcasts - if the camera is 1080i you'll see a lot of pixelation during fast movement, because the eye can detect the resolution switching. 720p is far better. 1080p is obviously better still, but you'll only ever REALLY tell with HDDVD or Blu-Ray on a big screen (like the one in the original post). So the bottom line is, if this guy wanted to future proof his setup, for $100k it seems obvious that he should go with the best projecter he can find @ 1080p.

mthrndr

@nutbastard: "I guess my problem with HD is, im not seeing anything im not seeing in standard def."
Then you are most definitely NOT watching HD. SD is not even close to HD. People thought DVD's were an advancement in picture quality over standard TV broadcasts, and they were, but that leap is NOTHING compared to what HD brings to the table. I can barely bring myself to watch SD anymore. All that grain and fuzziness and pixelation. Horrible.

ninjamurf

@nutbastard
i hear what your saying if your watching a show like curb your enthusiasm it doesnt really matter how you watch it. but when it comes to sports if you are a fan, and movies like a 300 or lord of the rings it will definately add to the tv watching experience.
i really cant afford one either, i still watch tv on a 32 inch tube tv. but i have neighbors and friends with them and find myself going over to these people house to watch the big game or watch and action movie, or play 360 or ps3 a lot just because of how good it looks compared to my tv. really i think though that if your just watching regular tv shows it's harder for me to watch on HDTV as i end up paying more attention to how good it looks and stop paying attention to the show, which is very frustrating when you really are trying to watch and like the show.

also unless you have directv it isnt worth getting one unless you want to watch alot of HD movies. one of my friends has cable and he has like 7 HD channels compared to directv's 70 and 100 by the end of the year. last i checked i think dish network only had like 15-20.

sorry about the long post, started writing and it just kept coming.

reebs82

@sixsixtysix: that isn't the debate. The debate is whether or not a 1080p projector is better than a 720p projector. All other factors being the same, yes the higher resolution of the 1080p projector has the potential to be "better" than the 720p.

But reading the article, the owner set up this system mainly to watch his existing collection of regular DVDs, which I don't think would benefit from 1080p. Certainly it would be slightly less expensive (though relative to the entire cost of theatre it is somewhat insignificant). And maybe the quality would actually be better on 720p?

Though I think if he used some kind of upscaling his DVDs on 1080p would undoubtedly look better.

Fierock

@reebs82:
I guess my problem with HD is, im not seeing anything im not seeing in standard def. I don't see any gain. I dont know. Im one of those people who is perfectly happy watching Curb Your Enthusiasm on a 2 inch LCD. Im just not picky enough about it. If i can see whats happening, well, isn't that the point? Are movies really "enhanced" by being able to see all the pores on Ron Perlmans face? And if so, are they enhanced enough to warrant a $1000+ purchase? Really? Maybe im just way poorer than the rest of you. most of my cars didn't even cost $1000.

nutbastard

I think its time for everyone to have a refresher course on why 720P is better than 1080i...

The Serious
[alvyray.com]

The Not Serious Explanation
[www.neopoleon.com]

sixsixtysix

haha
"you could sleep with my wife"
"she's not that hot"
haha
Good joke
780p vs. 1080p.
Which one do i choose????????? hmmmmmmmmmmm.
1080p hands down. I'd sell my 100k home theatre to some1 else and get me a 95k home theatre with 1080p TV's.
Maybe the moral of this story is that all technology expires soon.??

SneakerFiend

@nutbasterd
the difference is huge between HD and SD. go over to a friends house with HD and have him flip between a HD channel with a sporting game on and a regular channel with the same game. even @ 720p the difference is huge.

reebs82

Why is there bickering over the most trivial of things? You can argue technical specifications all you want, in the end it is a subjective choice. Maybe he looked at and compared a 720p and 1080p projector, and couldn't tell a difference in picture quality. Or maybe he thought the 720p was brighter. Or maybe he just thought the 720p was a cuter box. Or best yet, maybe he didn't really care, he just wanted a big effen TV? In the end it's his choice, and if he is happy, it is the right one, regardless of what the rest of us think.

ester

@gokor
come on man why rain on our parade, thats funny shite man. and i think alot of people could notice the difference on a 144 inch screen.

but you are right though that if the dude has that kind of money he can afford to buy a new projector later.

reebs82

Hooray for an uneducated resolution dispute! Seems like some of you could benefit from some time over at the AVSforum.com. Here's a hint, in the 5 things that go into making up your interpretation of picture quality, resolution is LAST on the list. Color contrast, brightness, black levels, etc. all come before it.

In all seriousness, 144-inches is certainly big enough where you'd actually be able to tell the difference between 720 and 1080p, but I'm sure the 720 is no slap in the face. And it's only a projector. Surely it can be swapped out at any time.

Machines

I'm pretty sure most of you can't tell the difference. It's a sweet theater and he surely makes enough money to upgrade when the technology of the broadcasts reaches the technology of the projectors.

gokor

@nutbastard:

I respect your opinion but there is a huge difference in picture quality with standard versus high definition. I wish every single channel was broadcasted in HD.

yoshi

@redman042:
HDTVs are over rated. Standard def never looked so bad as it does on an HDTV. I honestly, seriously have spent a lot of time watching em in stores and bars, and I have to say im not impressed, 720, 1080, both meh. Im with Palestina; tube TVs are just fine. I'd take a decent CRT over the equivilantly priced HD any day.

nutbastard

@DocGratis: Hear, Hear! I'm am so sick of people/blogs trashing 720p/1080i set ups. In the end it doesn't matter what you have if you don't have content. Maybe I'm out of touch, but I haven't heard of any broadcasters putting out 1080p. Even if Mr $100k has money to burn, is a couple of grand worth it just to make your HD-DVD/BluRay movies look a little, a very little, better?

draconis2941

Oh wow red, blue and green beams coming together to make a picture on ghetto ass canvas! I call that shit archaic, old, ghetto, outdated (no matter how many new computer chips you put in them, or how nicely you style them,) a projector is a projector is a projector no matter how advance you make it, it is still an image traveling through air to hit a screen to make a picture…GHETTO! Movie theatres have shitty detail I just like it because they are big, a home theatre is different. Am I impressed by your 144 inch screen? NO! The screen is a drape and the imaging device is a projector.
I hate projectors and I always will, give me Plasma or LCD any day. When OLED and SED TV's come out projectors can go take a flying fuck off a short runway. If you had a 150 inch OLED or SED screen, wow id be impressed.

lol this is simply mad hostility towards projectors lol... I just fucking hate them.

Daimyo Nintendo

Indeed. Projectors are upgradeable are they not?

Why the hate?

strider_mt2k

This actually just happened between a co-worker and me. He came in the other day bragging about his new HDTV and how awesome the picture is and all that. When I asked him if it does 1080P he was like, yeah it does 1080 no problem... Then I asked him what he got and he brought it up on the manufacturers website and when we saw the specs I saw that it was only 1080i and 720P... I totally buzzkilled him on that one. LOL.

UpIrons

@Palestina: What are you doing visiting a gadget blog if you are happy with a regular tube TV. C'mon man, you're really missing out! If you like gadgets, you GOTTA have an HDTV.

@wk1234: I've been to some home theater stores recently that still sell very high end 720p projectors - we're talking $8k or more. Now in some ways they are better than a low to mid range 1080p projector- especially in terms of color reproduction and black levels. But I'd rather spend $2k on an Epson 1080 Home Cinema projector (which I recently did, in fact).

redman042

@nightsky:

There has been some concern among porn stars that with the level of quality and detail with HD, they may not look as good. They are concerned about skin blemishes(zits, rashes, razor burn, herpes,etc...)

My suggestion would be a middle ground. High definition porn (720p) without the obvious skin blemishes mentioned above.

yoshi

You have to consider where the money was spent. I imagine the bulk was on the construction of the room, along with furniture, etc. Then there is automation and big fancy remote control.
Audio and speakers make up a big part. For the video, the plasmas seem good, but the 720p projector is a little underpowered. Maybe the XV-Z20000 was not available or too much (still $6000) for the homeowner.
I can't slag it too much, as my crap setup is all I can do.

wk1234

@Monty: yeah dude u're right. All I got here is a 420i non-flat tube TV. And I'm pretty happy.

Palestina

@nightsky:

Here's an illustration. Note that you don't have to look at the woman's "butter" face.

[en.wikipedia.org]

yoshi

Let's clear up the misconceptions here. A 720p projector can accept 1080i signals. But in the end you get 720 lines of pixels. On a huge screen like that, you will see those pixels. It's not the end of the world, but it's distracting and you don't get a film-like image, which is what home theater enthusiasts want. A 1080i or p projector has a MUCH finer pixel grain projected on that same screen. Even with 720p sources, it will look better, because you won't be able to see those pixels.

Some 720p projectors probably do wobulation or other tricks to hide the pixels - and that will certainly reduce the difference.

As for 1080i vs p, I still don't get what all the hype is about. Any projector with a good deinterlacer will make the differences between these two sources almost impossible to detect.

redman042

this is lame. there are no broadcasts in 1080p. theres nothing wrong with his setup. maybe 1 out of 1,000 of you could tell the difference between 720p and 1080p when watching it anyway. and im not that 1.

babaki

@nightsky: Picture yon cowgirl on her horse. Now...turn her around.

Pixelologist

I really hope the reasoning behind this being 720p is just that it's a few years old. If somebody spent $100k on this and it's a NEW setup, then yeah they overpaid...

jennyfur

@yoshi: Ah, found the answer. How is that better in 720p?

nightsky

Now that I've actually read the article, the projector is actually capable of 1080i and 720p. That's a little better. Still seems odd to not bother getting 1080p, for that kind of money.

Bender

@yoshi: Please elaborate on the reverse cowgirl.

nightsky

@yoshi: Or light switches, for that matter.

joe23521

I'll take the $1000 42" 1080p Vizio, thanks.

joe23521

To be honest 720p is a great resolution for analog, digital, and HD reception.

I've seen where my Samsung 42" ED (enhanced def.) looks better than my Sony 65" LCD 1080p. Especially, on the standard digital channels. Go Figure!

For the wife... that's why we have doggy style and reverse cowgirl. :)

yoshi

OK, I've got no problem with 720p TVs. They provide a great picture. But 720p on a 144 inch screen? Eh, not so hot. Why would you spend 100k on your home theater and then cheap out on the projector?

Bender

@Monty: I agree. And am not quite sure why Gizmodo has stooped to mocking people who build systems that are ONLY 720p.

Name the sources that are 1080p.

And I'm pretty sure that mr $100k home theater system could say... replace the 720p projector with a 1080p once the football games are in 1080p.

DocGratis

lol
"she's really not that hot."

*glad this was the first thing I saw on the internet today*

WorkingOnYourInvoice

If I actually had a setup like this with 1080p, I could laugh.
But, I don't, so I can't.

Monty

ha ha

EMoShunz

hahahaha

720p

wonderful

jakebathman

Way to go Gizmodo, talk about something when you clearly have no clue. A solid 720p projector will run circles around a decent or less 1080p projector. Lets talk smaller, for example. The Pioneer Kuro 720p models look better than the highest end 1080p LCDs and plasmas from the competition. My nice DVD player looks better on S-Video than most of the players that upconvert to HD via HDMI. Why? Because it does it right.

havok2022

@havok2022: Yeah, those seats are also about five feet away, with is a ludicrous distance to watch a 720p screen. And his Sanyo projector is fine, but a Kuro it is not.

Mark Wilson

I don't really notice much of a difference on regular TV shows and such. Maybe if I was watching something like "The Most Intricate Wonders of the Amazonian Rain Forest" I would give a shit, but I don't, so I'm good with standard picture.

HoldenCfld

Why has no one mentioned that this setup can do 1080i ?!

jeffj-nj

@redman042: aint them epsons grand? just got one myself

LastAndLeast

@Daimyo Nintendo:

While everyone is entitled to an opinion I have a dislike for ignorant acting people people who can't seem express themselves without profanity...

Who do you know with a personal 100+ plasma?

I consulted on and helped install several projector setups because obviously there situations where a dinky plasma isn't enough and spending $54,000+ of a single 100-inch plasma, or more on a modular banks of screens is ridiculous. I would suspect that this person did not feel the need to spend $60,000 of his budget just on one TV.

I don't know what "ghetto" setups or theaters you go to but you may wanna get out more.

The $3,700.00 1080p HDMI DLP projector - 121" screen setup I helped install in my uncle's home theater is just as eye-bleeding clear(no lines or dots), vibrant, and crisp, as the $4,100.00, 55" plasma that I helped my friend spec for his dad.

Planet Earth, on Blu-Ray on PS3 in my uncle's theather? Yes Please!...You want to climb in the screen, the image is so true-to-life. My own personal pref is for a 65" 1080p DLP projection TVs.

At any rate, back on topic, that theater setup's a bit much. I don't know what the fascination is for multiple screens, since you can't watch all of them at once and comprehend them too. Plus since I doubt that there's audio running to all of them simultaneously, I wouldn't want to be constantly flicking from source to source and/or channel to channel, I would want to relax in a theater not spend all night pressing buttons.

GreyKlaw

I have been designing, installing and calibrating video systems like this one for closing on 15 years now - and you can certainly tell the people that have posted on here that know little about video and are very ignorant about the realities of 720p/1080i/1080p. This looks like a very well engineered system from the photo - and the owner was probably very smart. Going from video sources to a video displays with a DOT FOR DOT resolution is AWESOME! Scaling of ANY kind can introduce artifacts, especially during motion intense graphics like sports or video games.

Well done.

And those people that want to go out and blow more money on 1080p sets that have no native software for them for years to come - enjoy those extra shifts at McDonalds.

coffeeeman

Gizmodo is a gadget blog, not a videophile one. Videophiles know that a good calibration counts way more than pixel count for picture quality.

I have a 720p projector, and am very happy with it. Sure I can see the pixels on the windows desktop, but not in video content. A 1080p wouldn't do much on my screen anyway. Sure I'll upgrade someday, but I don't feel the urge right now.

720p, like 1080i, is real HD and part of the spec. The only ones believing that 1080p is the only real HD are Sony fanboys.

franssukse

@DocGratis: Because it was a stupid choice, thats why you mock them. Mock the stupid and maybe we will have less stupid people and less stupid decisions made by otherwise smart people.

WCD_Thor