Sharp's AQUOS LC-32GS is "world's first" 1080p 32-inch LCD: why?
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Dec 12th 2006 7:00AM
posted Dec 12th 2006 7:00AM
[Via Impress]
posted Dec 12th 2006 7:00AM
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You ask why? Because there is a market for it. I was to put a 32" LCD in my bedroom and WANT a 1080p to do it. This could also go in my small living room. As well as young adult in their dorms and those who rent rooms in big house.
I don't know why you guys always assume that TVs this small would be used as a TV..
Monitor anyone? FOr that purpose, viewing distance is a merely 2-3 feet.
Most can't afford a $2400 PC let alone a $2400 monitor...
A 32" 1080p TV is a waste unless you sit only 4-5' away.
Why oh why isn't PC output display ever talked about with 720p vs 1080p discussion? With the convergence of PC's and the TV...it is going to become more and more common to have PC hooked up to your HDTV. In fact a home theater PC, might become the centerpiece of your HDTV setup. Once this happens, then 720p vs 1080p is not about whether I can see the difference when watching movies...it about basic PC screen real estate. The same reason why someone wants a 20" LCD over a 17". Do I want to browse the web in 720p or 1080p? Do I want to interact with YouTube in 720p or 1080p. In order to display text crisply, the resolution of the display must match the resolution of the video card output. This is why I will insist on only a 1080p HDTV when it comes time to buy. Please keep the PC usage involved in the discussion.
Yes I had the opportunity to see my friends Laptop connected to his new 36" LCD flat panel and it was amazing! Text was completely crisp and legible and the screen could be used for anything you would do on a PC just fine. I was very impressed as I've always thought hooking up a PC to a TV was only good for watching media...but not browsing the web or anything that required lots of reading.
So I agree 1080p has it's uses even on a small screen such as this...but don't fool yourself if your wanting to just use this as a screen for watching Movies. I think everyone on the blogsphere has come to the conclusion that 1080p is perceptually no better than 720p on screens smaller than 55" or so when watching Movies, TV or Games.
The whole paradigm of TV sizes has completely shifted. When CRTs were the norm, you hardly saw anything over 36 inches... anything over 32 inches was considered large and 40 inch TVs were crasy huge. Now, people are using 32 inch TVs as their secondary displays; in the bedroom or kitchen, etc. These arent being used for 'home theatres' where you sit 10+ feet away from the screen.. so, people will still benefit from the 1080p display.
Dell/Apple 30" LCD monitors are an alternative.
If you want to give up the tuners, speakers, and HDMI, you can get a 30" Dell for around $1300 and it does better than a 1080p. Its resolution is 2560x1600 or something like that. The Apple monitor can be had for $1999. While the built-in tuner, etc may be nice, if anyone is going to use this TV for their computer needs, it is better to just buy the 30" LCD since you get an even better resolution. I am pretty sure both monitors will get an upgrade to HDMI/HDCP soon.
30 inch computer monitors have an aspect ratio of 16:10 not the 16:9 ratio that televisions use.
This could indeed be a great convergence device. Hopefully it will be the standard 16:9 shape and not cost as much as they're saying. (And hopefully those speakers come off!)
Two words: COLLEGE DORM. My mates up in Madison all have 32" TVs.
Why 1920x1080 ? Probably because of the down conversion you will avoid if you are trying to display 1080p native content. Since a 720p native resolution LCD cannot natively reproduce a 1080x image, it needs to process the image and down convert it to a 720p native image. Depending on the quality of the hardware doing the down-conversion (PC, video player, or TV set), your image quality can be affected in varying degrees. Not only is the image lower in resolution, it may also have noticeable variations in the resultant image. By having a native 1080p display, there is no additional processing applied to a 1080 based image when transfered from source to TV. Basically, it allows you to get the best quality from the best resolution available.
A simple analogy can be made that most people were/are ok with Composite video, yet some preferred to have S-video or Component. The majority don't care, but for those that do, better options are available.
I second the comments made by John Gettler. PC/TV convergence requires you to have 1080P just for the added real estate it provides for web browsing and using pc apps.
Who in the world wants to browse with only 720P vertical space? Add a couple IE toolbars into the browser and you have hardly any space left for web content!
Bob H
I don't mean to dig up an old article, but this TV doesn't support the PC at 1920x1080. If you read the manual, the highest widescreen resolution it supports from a PC signal is 1366x768, which is not native and obviously defeats the purpose of having 1080p. If you have your video card output with an HDTV signal, then it still won't work because the TV is not capable of turning off HDTV overscanning at its native resolution (which makes no sense, but oh well). I was looking at this TV for use as a PC monitor.
Wrong! You HAVEN'T read the manual! 1080P is totally possible on this TV as a PC monitor.
Read this thread: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1171795
Don't just read the first page. Keep reading.