I'd like at some point to upgrade to a Blu-Ray player. My 46" Samsung DLP has a native resolution of 720p. I'm a little confused at how my setup will handle the 1080p source.
1) Am I correct in thinking the movie is always encoded in 1080p?

2) Or is the movie encoded 3 different ways on the BRD? 480p, 720p, and 1080p

3) If I can change the setting on the player to output in 720p, how does the player actually turn a 1080p image into a 720p image? Is it just tossing out 360 lines of resoultion?

4) Would I be better off still outputing from the player in 1080p and letting my DLP convert it to 720p which I'm assuming it would? FYI, it technically converts every source to 720p since that is the native resolution however 1080p didn't exist when my TV was made so I'm worried it may not know how to handle that source.
5) I read somewhere that the PS3 doesn't output 720p but only 1080p. Would this be a problem for my Samsung DLP?

Most movies are 1080p (with a few exceptions).

I have a 720p Samsung 56" DLP and a PS3 and it looks marvelous. Yes the PS3 currently only outputs 1080i for PS3, but the Samsung scales it correctly. Eventually (hopefully) the PS3 will be fixed so it outputs a native 720p. There is no reason why it can't.

The PS3 only outputs 1080i? I thought it did 1080p. Well I'm sure it make still look good but I'm not excited about my movie be translated as follows.

DVD Source => PS3 Output => DLP Native Rez
1080p => 1080i => 720p

You can't tell me something isn't lost in the translation. It may look good but it may not look as good as it could.

PS3 outputs several ways. Mine is set to 1080p and I let the set change it. I change the output for certain games because they need it 720p for HD output on certain games. I don't know where Eric got only 1080i output. If your TV has a decent scaler, just let it do the work of converting it, if the player you buy has a better scaler, let it do the work - that simple.

The PS3 will output 1080i if the display device does not display 1080p. It cannot output bluray at 720p currently.

Well, the easy way around that is send it into a $20 switcher from monoprice and 1080p will go to whatever device you want and then can be scaled as needed. That is what I do and have had no problems. I never noticed it would not send out 720p, sorry about making it sound as though it would. I always output games at 720p so I just assumed it would do the same for BD movies.

Jamers, of course something will be lost in the translation. All of us with 720p displays are losing some resolution. We still feel the step up from DVD is worth it.

After all, did your first DVD player have progressive scan? Could it decode DTS? Did you have it connected to a 16x9 set so you could take advantage of anamorphic encoding? Maybe not, but it was still worth it, right?

And don't forget the size of the display and the distance you are sitting from it. Even if it were pure 1080p to 1080p I'm not buying that a human can see that resolution on a set under about 60" and sitting at a reasonable distance.
So if you can't see it, who cares if it is there or not.