Does one need 1080P TV to take advantage ...

[Mako Koiwai]

... of Blu-Ray quality dvd's ... or will they still look better on a 720 tv?

[Robert Puertas]

Everybody sees these things a bit differently.

I could tell the difference in the store (Magnolia/Best Buy) when the 1080p plasma was over 50" but couldn't tell the difference on the smaller screens. This was viewing a blu-ray on all sizes and resolutions.

Your mileage may vary depending on:
Your eyes.
The room you're viewing it in.
How far away you sit.
What type of tv, eg: plasma, lcd, led.
What store you go look at them in, and how they have things set up.
How thick your wallet is, and what you're willing to spend.
Etc.

[Mike Shin]

I say 1080p Full HD 120hz at minimum. Blu-Ray Movies on our LG look awesome.

[Kristoffer Gjevre]

...
I could tell the difference in the store (Magnolia/Best Buy) when the 1080p plasma was over 50" but couldn't tell the difference on the smaller screens.
...

was this comparison between DVD and Blu-ray?

[Kristoffer Gjevre]

I have not bothered that get a Blu-ray player yet as pretty much all we view is recording on the or SD-DVR and HD-DVR of shows for the kids and us...

What I am curious about though is what resolution the typical Blu-ray disk has as I see from this that there are many options:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Randy Chase]

I think the general consensus is that for bluray it does not matter below around 50" diagonal.

[George Schilling]

Consumer Reports says it's a moot point with screens 42" or smaller.

[Christos Adam]

A bit funny but when I got my 40" Sony Bravia I was watching some Blueray DVDs I got and I was really amazed from the clarity and the resolution of the screen. My friends which watching the movie were also shocked from how good it looked!
Imagine how much shocked I was when I figure out (2 weeks later) that all of this time the blueray was only sending 480 lines to the TV
Then I adjusted it to 1080p and it was (i guess }:) ) better... but my point is that I doubt if that many people would complain about quality in a 720p (relatively small -46) screen... but the price differences aren't that huge either so I wouldn't probably mind paying 5-10% more to get a 1080p TV - since I don't change them that often anyways...

[John Stimson]

Yes, even on a 720p display, you'll be able to notice the quality difference between Blu-Ray and DVD. A 720p display is 1280x720 pixels. DVD video resolution is 720x480 pixels. Blu-Ray video resolution is 1920x1080 pixels. Either DVD or Blu-Ray will be scaled to fit the 1280x720 pixel screen. In the case of Blu-Ray, you lose resolution when the image is scaled down. However, in the case of DVD, you can't gain resolution by scaling the image up -- the best you could hope to achieve is to have the scaling performed without introducing aberrations, so that your 720p television looks like a very, very good 480p display. Note - all TVs, and some DVD players, can perform this scaling. Some of them, but not all of them, do it extremely well. Ultimately, you are comparing video images with 720x480 pixel resolution (DVD) to those with 1280x720 pixel resolution (Blu-Ray scaled down). I'm sure you have a sense of what that difference is like.

1080p is better, of course, for large displays or for small displays that you view from up close (my computer monitor is only 20", but I sit 2 feet away so 1600x1200 is beneficial). But you'll still see a benefit from upgrading to Blu-Ray on a 720p display.