1080P on 720P television harmful?
I have an interesting issue with a high-definition telivision my wife and I recently purchased. We bought a Dynex HDTV from Best Buy that was supposed to be 720P. For the last couple months that's been fine. However, recently we bought a DVI-to-HDMI adapter for my dekstop and a Sony Playstation III Slim. When we use the Playstation or the computer, the upper right hand corner of the television displays 1080P, not 720P like it used to. The quality looks much better than it did when we had 720P running through the computer and our old blu-ray player (an LG), but I'm worried I'll burn out the television faster than I would using 720P. We also managed to adjust the Playstation to display in 720P, but the quality isn't quite as sharp as when it's in 1080P mode.
My questions are this:
First, could Best Buy have accidentally given us a 1080P television? We noticed that it was different from the display model we had picked out, such as the hookups and the button placement, the lack of an S-Video plug which the display model had, and two HDMI plugs instead of one. The booklet that came with it is generic, for all Dynex televisions of this type, and doesn't say how to tell the difference.
Secondly, if that's not the case, will continuing to run the television in 1080P display mode ruin it or shorten its' lifespan? I've read on other sites that some televisions will automatically downscale 1080P to 720P to keep that from happening, but I have a friend with a two-year-old Dynex the same size and in 720P, but if you set it to 1080P, it simply won't display.
I would greatly appreciate any answer to this predicament, as I want to get the best picture possible without destroying my new television. Thank you all for your time and patience.