Hi, this is Anthony Thomas with DISH Network Customer Service. Just wanted to clarify a little about resolution, as this can be a highly debated topic. There is a general rule I use when determining this. ALWAYS default to the native resolution of the screen when connected with an HD source, whether it be DISH Network or another device or television provider. If your TV is native 720p, the 720p setting should be used. This requires less processing by the chip in the tv, and gives the best picture to your display. If you have a 1080i or 1080P set, set the resolution to 1080i, as the tv (if 1080p) will deinterlace and display 1080p, even though it shows the signal coming in as 1080i. These changes on the box only affect the HD output (HDMI or Component Video). To take this a step further, Blu-ray is FORMATTED 1080p, as are some VOD now. This of course gives the best display on a 1080p set as there is no processing needed in displaying the image. On a 720p set, it really has no affect on picture quality setting the resolution higher, as the TV cannot display the resolution native to the source, but it does look sweet anyway!
Seperate of that is the refresh (60HZ vs 120HZ etc). This is the frequency at which the panel itself refreshs EVERY LINE on the display. Although related to video quality, it is slightly different then actual resolution. In an i or interlaced picture, a 60HZ frequency would refresh the entire screen 30 times in a second, half the lines on one pass, half on the second. On a p or progressive scan, the whole picture refreshes 60 times in the same second. Hard to see no matter what. The big push for the 120HZ and subsequent "faster refresh" tv's was Blu-ray. Video from most devices streams at 30 fps, and Blu-ray is 24FPS(and now 1080p VOD). What that meant was that on a 60 HZ tv, the picture would refresh frequently with Blu-ray and "lose" some frames in the middle of a refresh, while the video at 30 FPS did not. Solution, 120hz and faster. The screen could refresh 5 times with all 24 frames in that second on Blu-ray and 4 times with 30 frames on video. No loss. Hopefully this makes sense, as the post itself can be hard to follow. Most of this is not noticeable to the human eye, except that part in the film where you get motion sick due to fast camera panning and insane scenery. Hope this helps!