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October 12, 2007
Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday! It's raining here in San Francisco today and, boy, do I welcome it! There's nothing like a good old-fashioned, natural wash down for the city--and we seriously need the water here. Anyway, enough of the weather broadcast from where I'm at, let's get right down to the topic on HDTV purchasing decisions, where our member Yves is having a hard time deciding between a 720p or a 1080p HDTV.
This week we received a lot of great advice and recommendations from our members and, for the most part, a lot of them had very different opinions, advising either to save your money and go with a 720p or future-proof yourself by going with a 1080p HDTV in case you choose to go with HD DVD or Blu-ray. All-in-all it's ultimately a decision you'll have to make. Just be reminded that if you're waiting for the HD DVD and Blu-ray format war to be settled, you will be waiting a long time.
From my perspective, I have been advised many times when choosing between 720p and 1080p HDTVs that depending on the size of the TV (especially TVs that are under 50 inches) and also depending on your seating distance from the TV, that with both 720p and 1080p TVs using an HD signal source other than HD DVD or Blu-ray you will hardly notice the difference in picture quality--unless you get close up to the TV, then you may notice the difference. However, this is not to say you won't notice it. And if you are going to buy into a high-definition DVD player (Blu-ray or HD DVD) go for the 1080p to take full advantage of the higher resolution.
In short--go 1080p if you are going for a larger screen (50 inches or more). Go 1080p if you are going to get an HD DVD or Blu-ray player in the future, but other than that it may not be worth it. But that's just what I've learned. So enough of my two cents, let's head over to our member advice. To get you started, here are a couple of answers from our members. But don't stop at that--read through all of the recommendations, as they all are great. I hope the information provided by our members gives you a clearer understanding between 720p and 1080p HDTVs, so that you can make a better buying decision. The topic is open for discussion, so join in. Have a great weekend, folks!
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Member Question of the Week
Hi, I have a question for you guys. I am not sure which model
of Panasonic plasma HDTV I should buy with Viera line. The
50 inches with 1080p (TH-50PZ700) or the 50 inches with the
720p (TH-50PX75). Will I see a difference in screen quality
from the 720p to the 1080p if I only use the HDMI cable from
a regular DVD player 480P to upconverting the signal?
I know for sure that with a Blu-ray or HD DVD the difference
will be day and night but like I said if I only use the 480p
DVD player will it be worth to spend that money on 1080p.
Since I am not going to buy a Blu-ray or HD DVD player soon
because I don't know which format will survive. I am
only going to use a DV with the HDMI connection to upgrade
the signal from a basic 480P DVD player to hook up my plasma
TV. Any help here is appreciated!
Submitted by:
Yves L.
Vote for the most helpful answer
 Below are the answers we've selected for you to vote on. Click on the title to read the answer by the member.
Here are the selected submissions grouped in one post.
Time to vote! Now that you've read our members' answers, which would you consider the most helpful? Click on the button to weigh in on the decision.
(Note: Below is the section to vote, please read the individual answers above before casting your vote below.)
 Vote for answer by HiDefBob
Vote for answer by Frank_B11
For the member whose answer was voted the
most helpful by our community, we will send
this member some cool CNET branded gear.
 Previous week's Q&AThe votes are in! Below is the answer voted most helpful by our community to last week's question.
I'm not what you would call an experienced user, and this is
the first time I've encountered this problem. Is there any
way that I can get rid of a whole list (was recently on
holiday for a month and there were 350 of these!) of spam
from people (all seemingly with real names!), wanting to
increase the size of my xxxxxxx, give me my winnings from
lotteries, sell me cheap pharmaceuticals, give me a new
mortgage--and a whole lot of other stuff. I delete them
without opening them and wonder if I shouldn't open them to
find an unsubscribe button? Is the only solution to change
my e-mail address? I've had this one for a long time, and
that might create some interesting glitches. It's only within
the past couple of months that these delights have been
showing up, and it seems to be increasing at a horrifying
rate! How did this all start? What can I do to stop it? Any
suggestions? Thank you!
--Submitted by:
Jo B.
Jo, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, UNDER PAIN OF DEATH, NEVER, EVER, EVER SEND A REPLY TO SPAM!!!!!!! Not even if you think your life depends on it.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I'll tell you why. Spammers sometimes send out an email with a destination that's "close" to your email address. For instance, your email might be job@somewhere.com. The spammer might send one out to jobS@somewhere.com - note the extra S. Many email servers, thinking they're doing you a favor, will automatically forward such emails your way, thinking the sender may have misspelled your email address by mistake. It happens...
(read more)
Congratulations to the winner!
Community Buzz
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Have fun and enjoy!
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Check out next week's question:
Hi, I need some opinions for the members who currently use VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) or who had previous used this service and discontinued it. My cable and broadband provider Comcast has been pushing this service and I'm really curious as to why. The deal sounds amazing, it's cheap and has many features that I would take advantage of like unlimited calling anywhere, and offers inexpensive additions for international calls. Currently I pay a hefty amount for my landline service and VOIP seems to be the solution. However, I don't really know anything about the service except that it is cheap and it uses my cable lines to make calls rather than using the telephone line. Also if it's such a great deal, how come none of my friends and family use it? I'm currently only getting one side of the story of how great it is from the VOIP companies (checked out Vonage and others also). What's the real deal here? Is there a catch to all this hype? Will I regret switching? I would love to hear from the people who use VOIP and tell me exactly how it works and what are the advantages and disadvantages of the service, so that I can make the right choice for me. Thank you.
--Submitted by:
Maria M.
We feature a new question every Friday, and if you have the answer for our member, you can submit it above. If your submission is picked by our members as the most helpful answer, you'll receive some cool CNET branded gear.
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