1080p Beauty is in The Eye of The Beholder

Oh, Mike Miller, you are such a kidder. Michael J. Miller is senior vice president for technology strategy at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm and author of the blog Forward Thinking on PCMag.com. He is also quite the kidder. He conducted a little unscientific HDTV resolution experiment to determine whether people can tell the difference between the state of the art technology in television displays with a resolution of 1080p and 720p. Miller gives an easy to understand definition so I’ll quote him,

“The difference is the number of horizontal lines on the display; the “p” stands for progressive, meaning the display refreshes the lines one after the other.”

He put to similar LG TVs side by side and set the resolution on one of them at 720p and the other at 1080p. He then played the recent Star Trek movie and watched the reaction of his 64 guests. Well he didn’t tell them which was which either.

Fifty-nine percent thought the 1080p was a better, sharper picture. Twenty-nine percent selected the 720p picture as best, and 16 percent thought the picture looked the same on both. Miller did not provide the age or visual acuity of his friends.

Look, part of this technology progress is just because we can, part of it is demand creation (we all have to work you know), and part of it, at least for 59% of Miller’s friend, is because you can really tell the difference.

Most everything in TV, camera, and entertainment land is moving to 1080p so jump on board. Now there is a slight price difference for those extra 360 lines on the screen.

Here’s a search at B & H Photo for 1080p 42” Plasmas

Compared to a search for 720p 42” Plasmas.

The difference in dollars may be worth it to you, and more than half of your friends. Hey look at it this way, if you get the 720p screen, you’ll probably need to buy less food for next year’s Super Bowl party. Ha, more savings.

Books Can Be Deceiving

These are cool ways to jazz up a wall. Combination optical illusion and space savers, this selection of bookcases found by Will Maak, co-founder and editor of Fashion Furniture is a blast to look at. Below are a couple of my favorites, check out the rest at the Fashion Furniture site.

Above is the Pyramid bookcase by Fitting

For a slightly different play on triangles, try this

This one is call make/shift designed by Peter Marigold. It’s interlocking pieces are cleverly made so you can create a different look by arranging each separate section together with the others.

Books afterall are square or rectangles, and this one below incorporates those shapes with an eye toward an urban skyline.

And it’s appropriately named, this Skyline Bookcase is the work of Italian designer Vincenzo De Cotiis