Is a 32 inch HD TV good enough for an Xbox 360?

[+Random Terrain]

I went to a store the other day and I saw that a 32 inch HD TV will fit in my entertainment center. It seems you can get one for as low as 400 dollars. Is a 32 inch HD TV good enough for an Xbox 360? Is there anything I should look for when the time comes to buy one? Is there anything I should avoid?

 

 

Thanks.

[moycon]

As long as it does 720p you should be good.

Really at that size it doesn't even matter if it has an HDMI port, since you can't really tell the difference on a screen smaller than like 41, but if it's a fairly new model it should have an HDMI port anyways.

I do most of my 360 gaming on an old 23" HD TV in my office. The picture looks super great even though it doesn't have an HDMI port.

I will say though love playing more on my bigger screen HDTV's.

32" will work fine.

No more excuses. GET A 360!

[+Random Terrain]

As long as it does 720p you should be good.

Really at that size it doesn't even matter if it has an HDMI port, since you can't really tell the difference on a screen smaller than like 41, but if it's a fairly new model it should have an HDMI port anyways.

I do most of my 360 gaming on an old 23" HD TV in my office. The picture looks super great even though it doesn't have an HDMI port.

I will say though love playing more on my bigger screen HDTV's.

32" will work fine.

No more excuses. GET A 360!

Thanks for the info. I hope HDMI doesn't stand for High-Definition Mostly Imaginary.

[Hyper_Eye]

A 32" 720p display will look great. At that size I really don't think you need to go higher than 720p. That is the size set I have in my family room and it puts out a really nice picture. You should be pretty happy with it if you don't yet own an HDTV. For a bigger set you really have to consider seating distance in determining what the right resolution versus cost ratio is. The closer you are to the picture the higher the resolution needs to be to maintain the same visual clarity. But 720p will look good even at 120" and 13' between the display and the viewer. In my media room I use a 720p DLP front projector at 80" with about 8' - 9' between myself and the display and it looks great.

 

Good luck with the coming setup. I hope it turns out to be everything your hoping for.

[+Random Terrain]

A 32" 720p display will look great. At that size I really don't think you need to go higher than 720p. That is the size set I have in my family room and it puts out a really nice picture. You should be pretty happy with it if you don't yet own an HDTV. For a bigger set you really have to consider seating distance in determining what the right resolution versus cost ratio is. The closer you are to the picture the higher the resolution needs to be to maintain the same visual clarity. But 720p will look good even at 120" and 13' between the display and the viewer. In my media room I use a 720p DLP front projector at 80" with about 8' - 9' between myself and the display and it looks great.

 

Good luck with the coming setup. I hope it turns out to be everything your hoping for.

Thanks. I plan to get an Xbox 360 and an HD TV some time in 2009 (hopefully within the first 3 to 6 months if the world doesn't blow up).

[yuppicide]

I don't know if it makes a difference, but I wouldn't buy any HDTV unless it's 1080p. I have a 42" RCA 1080p I got at Wally World for around $800 and love it.

[moycon]

I don't know if it makes a difference, but I wouldn't buy any HDTV unless it's 1080p.

 

My experience is is DOES indeed make a difference to get an HDTV under 42" with the ability to do 1080p, it make it more expensive. Visually... not so much difference.

[Hyper_Eye]

I don't know if it makes a difference, but I wouldn't buy any HDTV unless it's 1080p. I have a 42" RCA 1080p I got at Wally World for around $800 and love it.

 

There are valid reasons why someone would go with 720p over 1080p. At 32" you can save money by getting a 720p set and you aren't going to see much of a difference. Also, if the set is going to be used to watch a lot more SDTV content than HDTV content (say 480i or 480p) you would get a better picture with a lower res set like 720p because low-end (say-$800 1080p sets) tend to have crappy scalers in them and SD content may look like ass.

 

Of course there are valid arguments for getting 1080p even at a small size but I wouldn't put it out there as if it were a clearly black and white issue to the point of saying "I wouldn't buy...". There are multiple things to consider. Seating distance is probably one of the biggest ones and will have a larger impact than resolution will (and will determine whether a higher resolution is a necessity or not.)

[+remowilliams]

32" is just fine for an HDTV 360 set. It should support 1080i/720p and you'll be ready to go.

[THE 1 2 P]

A 32" lcd widescreen 720p is perfect for any system. I just got mine earlier this year and it works just as good on my retro systems as it does for my next gen systems.

[nonner242]

720p you'll be fine, altho I DO notice a slight/moderate difference in 1080p on mine from switch'n' modes, but not worth paying too too much more for. Certain games can only use the 1080p mode. HDMI is nice, but comp. cables look great too.

I got my (Main TV) Poloroid 37" HD 2 years ago a WallyWorld for $800 has 2 HDMI,1 VGA, 2 Comp, 5 A/V and a couple other inputs......Never use the PnP like I always thought I would tho. VGA input is Awesome for watching my movies on my laptop thru, Even HD movies too.

I Love it still, I just wish older system didnt look so, odd.

[+Random Terrain]

Thanks for the info everybody. Can't wait to get one.

[+legeek]

I do my 360 gaming on a 27" SDTV and enjoy the hell out it. (component input is a must though).

Edited December 23, 2008 by legeek

[+Cobra Kai]

32" HDTV 720p is perfectly adequate for the 360, especially since I've noticed that most 360 games only display at 720p anyhow. It's gonna look damn good man, enjoy!

[Hyper_Eye]

32" HDTV 720p is perfectly adequate for the 360, especially since I've noticed that most 360 games only display at 720p anyhow. It's gonna look damn good man, enjoy!

 

You mean most render at 720p. They will display at whatever resolution you have your console set to. With the 360's awesome hardware scaler a game rendered at 720p will look great displayed at 1080p.

[+remowilliams]

With the 360's awesome hardware scaler a game rendered at 720p will look great displayed at 1080p.

Hell yeah, the scaling is fantastic on the 360. I see all of my games in 1080i.

[+Cobra Kai]

32" HDTV 720p is perfectly adequate for the 360, especially since I've noticed that most 360 games only display at 720p anyhow. It's gonna look damn good man, enjoy!

 

You mean most render at 720p. They will display at whatever resolution you have your console set to. With the 360's awesome hardware scaler a game rendered at 720p will look great displayed at 1080p.

I guess I don't understand how that works.

[Hyper_Eye]

32" HDTV 720p is perfectly adequate for the 360, especially since I've noticed that most 360 games only display at 720p anyhow. It's gonna look damn good man, enjoy!

 

You mean most render at 720p. They will display at whatever resolution you have your console set to. With the 360's awesome hardware scaler a game rendered at 720p will look great displayed at 1080p.

I guess I don't understand how that works.

 

With the 360 it is simple. Whatever you set the console to display to is what it is going to display at. It does not change resolution for different games. If you set it to 720p it is going to display everything in 720p. If you set it to 1080p everything will display at 1080p. That is the simple aspect of it and the only part users see or generally care about. There are no surprises in that you could put in a game and the resolution change. The resolution is always what you set it to.

 

This is the work of the systems hardware scaler. When you set a game resolution on a PC game the game itself will generally render at the resolution you display at. As you increase the game resolution the demand on the system grows and the framerate goes down. With the 360 the developer chooses a specific resolution for the game to render at. The game will use that resolution no matter what. The 360 has a hardware scaler which will upscale, downscale, or pass-through the image so that it is displayed at the resolution you have selected. Crappy scalers produce badly scaled pictures. Good scalers produce well scaled pictures. The 360 has a really good hardware scaler that produces a great picture. So, the developer will decide to render their game at 1280x720. Even if you set your resolution to 480p the game is still rendered at 1280x720 and the 360's hardware scaler takes care of the difference. If you set your resolution to 1080p the game will still render at 1280x720 and the 360 will handle that difference as well. If you set your resolution to 720p that particular game will not require scaling. So it is not visible to the user what resolution a game is actually putting out. What they see is the resolution the console puts out. The truth is that some 360 games actually render lower than 720p in order to keep the framerate up. Anybody that can point out to you which games those are simply read the fact on the internet. I doubt even the most hardcore videophile could set their console to 720p and tell you which games required scaling from the 360. Even harder for them to do would be to pick out which ones required downscaling and which ones required upscaling.

 

Due to the hardware scaler the 360 is able to do great quality scaling without a hit to resources. This is one thing the 360 has over the PS3. The PS3 scales in software which means the work is done by the same resources the game relies on (CPU/GPU). No matter what game you pop into the 360 it should perform the same no matter what resolution you choose to display it in.

 

The exception to all this is DVD's. If you are using HDMI or VGA cables than DVD's will also display at the resolution you have set. If you use any other cables the 360 will switch to 480p when a DVD is inserted. This is due to rules that state DVD's cannot be upscaled over analog cables (though it is completely possible and the rules are dumb.) An exception is made for VGA cables due to the wide use of VGA cables in PC usage.

[yuppicide]

I'll still stand by that I'll never buy anything unless it's 1080p or greater (future).

 

I do realize that getting a lower-priced 1080p set may not look as good or be as bright. Wally World has a return policy with no restocking fees I believe, so I was happy to test it out.

 

The TV for the most part looks good and I am satisfied with it. The only bad part is it sometimes won't turn on and you have to get up and remove the power cord, put it back in, then it'll turn on. Weird no idea why it does it.

[Hyper_Eye]

I'll still stand by that I'll never buy anything unless it's 1080p or greater (future).

 

I do realize that getting a lower-priced 1080p set may not look as good or be as bright. Wally World has a return policy with no restocking fees I believe, so I was happy to test it out.

 

The TV for the most part looks good and I am satisfied with it. The only bad part is it sometimes won't turn on and you have to get up and remove the power cord, put it back in, then it'll turn on. Weird no idea why it does it.

 

I'm glad your satisfied with your set. I am not trying to say that you made a bad purchase. I am just saying that your way of thinking (1080p or bust) is not valid in all situations and with a small set, like 32", is not valid in probably most situations. If you were in the market for a front-projector that you intended to project at 120" I would say that 1080p-or-bust is almost always going to be a valid way of thinking because you would have to sit way back to invalidate the difference. But that doesn't mean you can't get a fantastic looking 120" picture out of a nice 720p (DLP) PJ because it is absolutely possible. I have installed some.

 

Personally I would go with a 720p set with a higher contrast ratio, better dark levels (these will provide pop), and better color clarity over a 1080p at the same price any day. I don't care how good the resolution is. If the contrast ratio and the black levels suck the picture is going to look like crap.

Edited December 25, 2008 by Hyper_Eye

[S1500]

If it makes people feel any better.

 

I paid too much for my 26 inch store demo HDTV for $800. It only goes up to 720. Now I see bigger HDTV sets that do 1080 for significantly less. But I figure it's early adopter prices.

[Hyper_Eye]

If it makes people feel any better.

 

I paid too much for my 26 inch store demo HDTV for $800. It only goes up to 720. Now I see bigger HDTV sets that do 1080 for significantly less. But I figure it's early adopter prices.

 

My first HDTV set was a 27" 4:3 Samsung CRT that only did 480i/480p/1080i. It was over $1200. The biggest problem was the fact that it was 4:3 but that set put out a great picture. It was very early in the HDTV world. I didn't know a single other person who had one.

[NE146]

I actually prefer the smaller sizes. I play my 360 on my 50" tv's and I feel like there's just way too much screen real estate for me to look at, and I have to move far back to take it all in. But the problem with that is I'm then way far back.

 

So at the end of the day I end up playing more on my 13" sdtv.

[frank_c]

i've got a PS3 running into my 32" Vizio LCD and it looks great.

[+Random Terrain]

When I sit at my computer, I'm around 13 feet away from my TV. If I'm lying on my adjustable bed, I'm about 17 feet away from the TV. If I sit where my old couch used to be (I hope to replace it with an armless chaise lounge chair), I'll be around 6 feet away from the TV. If I use a wireless controller, I could play 17 feet away, but that seems pretty far away for playing games on a 32 inch screen.