1080p Movies: The Best Way To Enjoy High-Quality Resolution

When it comes to your home entertainment, there are really two camps: SD and HD. And while the best viewing experience is currently reserved for those lucky enough to own a 4K TV, if you don't own one yet or can't afford the upgrade right now, 1080p resolution remains a relatively budget-friendly option.

This A4 blog will give you all the info you need about what 720p and 1080p are, how they're different from each other, and why they're both so important in today's HD market. Below is a related blog post about movie watching and downloading:

👉 Movie Watching and Downloading 👈

You will learn more about why 1080p is becoming the new standard of HD entertainment and what you need to look out for before deciding on your next streaming device.

The first thing you need to understand is that 720p and 1080p resolution are both examples of high-definition or HD resolutions, meaning they display over twice as many pixels as a standard definition (SD) image.

Standard-definition television sets display images at 480i, where each frame consists of 640 x 480 pixels. HDTVs on the other hand have 1,920 x 1,080 pixels per frame which gives them more than two times the resolution.

Furthermore, as HDTVs have become more widespread in the past 10 years, they've also been receiving a lot of attention.

This has led the industry to develop better and more attractive HD sets, and they've now reached a point where most TVs are capable of displaying high-definition video at least 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. Keep in mind though that this is still considered "HD", not necessarily "1080p" resolution.

Perhaps the most important thing you need to understand about these terms is that "resolution" alone does not always mean "quality". This may seem counterintuitive, but there are two aspects to display quality: picture resolution and overall sharpness.

The first is resolution, which simply refers to the number of pixels displayed in a frame. The second has to do with how each pixel is created or "rendered".

MPEG-4 encoding refers to the process of compressing an image so that it can be streamed over a network. Higher levels of compression result in lower image quality.

Standard Definition images are encoded into MPEG-4 at a level of 0.5 while HD images are encoded at 1.0 and above.

As you can see, this means that an HD video will always be better quality than SD even if their resolution is the same, but 1080p will give you more quality than 720p regardless of whether it's an SD or HD video because its encoding level is higher (1.0 vs. 0.5).

Today, 1080p is the industry standard for high-definition because it can be played on all modern Blu-ray players and game consoles like the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 4, as well as on many streaming devices like Roku2 and Apple TV.

That said, not all 720p movies are terrible quality – it depends on how they were encoded when they were made.

While most home video content is compressed at a standard encoding level of 0.5 or 1.0, some movies are encoded at 0.6 or higher (720p HD) or 1.0 or higher (1080p HD) which results in significantly better image quality.

And while Blu-ray discs do not allow for variable encoding levels, they still provide better quality than standard DVDs with their higher resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

This is why when it comes to watching movies at home, you want to make sure that they're encoded at a level of at least 1.0 and preferably 1.5 or higher if your equipment supports it.

HD resolutions have now become the industry standard in the entertainment industry, and 1080p is the standard for movies. While it's true that most older movies are not encoded at 1080p, today's high-definition movies are being rendered at a higher resolution and are much more detailed.

If you're looking for high-quality home video content, look no further than 1080p (or 4K) movies on your Netflix or Amazon Prime account. You can also download them to your computer to watch on your TV with a Blu-ray player or other HDMI device.

Keep in mind that not all movies are filmed in 1080p, so even if your current TV supports 1080p, you might not have access to all of the movies on Netflix or iTunes.

In fact, most 4K movies will not be available on your TV because most are still being encoded at a level of 0.5 or 1.0. To watch the best of the best, you will need to buy a new 4K set or stream them from sites like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

There are also other reasons why 720p is not the best TV resolution. Being a lower resolution than 1080p, 720p images have fewer pixels and thus don't look as realistic or sharp. In fact, if you want to make sure that you're getting the best quality possible for your home entertainment budget, we recommend going with a 1080p TV even if you can only afford a 720p one.

The image quality difference between the two is much more obvious on HDTVs as compared to standard-definition sets like your computer monitor or cable TV, so while it's not always easy to see, there is almost always a difference in real-life viewing quality between 720p and 1080p images.

It's important to remember that 720p TVs have not gotten much more expensive recently, and they're still selling for the same price you can find them for a year ago.

You just won't be getting the same sharpness and detail as most 4K TVs with their 1080p HD resolution, but they'll still do a good job displaying your favourite shows and movies.

If you want to compare newer models, check out our Best TV of 2015 category for our recommendations.

If you are currently considering a new TV set with 1080p resolution but only can afford a 720p one, don't panic! There are ways to make your current set look like an upgraded 720p model.

We recommend upgrading your cables to HDMI 2.0 and supplementing that with the use of a component video cable to deliver upgradeable 1080 video signals from your Blu-ray player.

You can also purchase a 4K set and connect it to your TV with HDMI 2.0 or choose to use Wi-Fi instead of an ethernet connection for internet video streaming, which will provide you with high-quality images as well.

Thank you,

Hope you like it.