PS3 Scales 1080i To 480p On HDTVs 125
Dr. Eggman writes "According to an article from IGN, PS3 owners are finding that 1080i-only HDTV sets are scaling down launch games to 480p. The scale-down occurs because the launch games do not support 1080i, however they should be scaling down to an HD resolution of 720 instead of 480p. It is unknown if this is a technical or software issue and if it can be patched soon." ABC news is reporting that a patch which should be available to PS3 owners soon will correct the backward compatibility issues we discussed the other day.
So? (Score:5, Funny)
Summary is a bit misleading (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm willing to bet that an "early adopter of HDTV" can plunk down $2,000 to get one from Ebay if he really wanted it.
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If a game isn't fun enough to be worth playing in 480p, it isn't fun enough to play in 1080i either! So why get it at all?
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Exactly my point! : )
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See yourself as pioneer. You boldly go where no other consumer sheep (like me) has gone before
While we were all watching crappy NTSC or PAL and only dreaming of DVD quality, you enjoyed exclusive HD con
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Zonk was molested by Sony execs as a child and he's still ashamed of liking it so much.
Article is unclear (Score:5, Informative)
Some PS3 launch games outputs at 720p
Lot of 2-3 years old HDTV cannot display 720p, but can do 1080i just fine.
But the PS3 is incapable of upscaling the game's graphics to 1080i. (unlike the xbox 360 for example)
Hence, the only display available for them is 480p.
To sum up : buy PS3, hook up to HDTV, play in 480p. (some games, some TV)
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If your TV doesn't support a given resolution (720p), the PS3 prefers to downscale (to 480p) instead of upscale (to 1080i), giving you low resolution games (480p).
The games' only fault is being released at 720p. The PS3 does the rest of the crappiness by turning that into 480p.
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The PS3 is inferior to the X-box 360.
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Inferior in the parent post refers to graphics for a lament only. When your Xbox 360 dies after a year and a half, don't be surprised. YOU chose the shoddy product.
In my experience, first gen PS2s are still running, and almost no first gen xboxes are. This study was conducted with most of my friends, and the units that lived or died are not hypothetical (re: I am not a fanboy; I own neither system but would buy a PS3 LONG before a 360).
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You still get far greater resolution from 1080i than from 720p. The only time the interlacing is noticeable is when you take a screenshot. 1080p HDTVs could theoretically rebuild a perfect 1080p frame from 1080i, if the fields the PS3 generates match up correctly.
1080i > 720p
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Second, you're wrong on that last point. If you could "rebuild a perfect 1080p frame from 1080i" then 1080i would never have existed. Yes, 1080i60 has more data to it than 720p60, but carries half as much information as 1080p60. So you can (if you have a good old fashioned electron gun) display 60 fields per second of 540 lines each, in a slightly
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As far as 1080p60, search Google [google.com] and see how many real products there are that actually support it. 1080p60 doesn't exist in consumer products if you ask me.
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Wheeeeee! (Score:1, Interesting)
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Summary is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
No, the problem is that they don't support 1080i. The PS3 should be scaling from 720p to 1080i (which the 360 does), not 1080i to 720p.
The issue here is that older HDTV's only support 480p, 480i, and 1080i - not 720p. This is all stated very clearly in the article.
I know that commentors don't seem to read the articles on Slashdot, but shouldn't the submitters?
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480p = 720x480 = 345,600 pixels x 60 frames = 20,736,000 pixels/second.
720p = 1280x720 = 921,600 pixels x 60 frames = 55,296,000 pixels/second.
1080i = 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels x 30 frames = 62,208,000 pixels/seconds.
So, all other things being equal, you
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"it's become apparent that 1080i is currently unsupported, at least by the machine's many launch games, as 1080i-only HDTV sets are forced to experience the visuals at 480p, rather than scaling to an HD resolution of 720p."
I had missed the IGN link in the text and thus missed the chance to get the correct information from the original story. I must be more careful in the future and fact-check as well as
Reason? (Score:2)
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The 360's scaling is done before the signal is converted to analog. Anyways, if this was actually the problem, Sony could have just made the PS3 only capable of scaling up to 1080i on analog outputs. I don't know of a single HDTV out there with digital inputs that doesn't handle 720p, and there's no question that for
sigh (Score:2)
Panasonic Plasma 42PX20...
A whopping THREE years old...
(But I knew that it didn't have 720p going in... I just got a really good deal on it at the time)
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My guess is that it will be a minor irrtation to a small portion of the early adopters, and will be fixed by the next shipment of units.
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The reason I ask is because there is a possibility that the PS3 doesn't have any scaler at all, meaning it will only support resolutions that it's capable of rendering to. The Xbox 1 had a few HD games and it suffered from this exact same problem, it was never "fixed" because it was a shortcoming of the hardware that didn't include a scaler. Since it was incapable of rendering games to a 1920x1080 fr
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The article may say downscaling, but the article may have been using the term improperly, wouldn't be the first time.
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I'm sure the journalist is completely infallible and incapable of not differentiating between a downscaled image and one rendered natively at 480p. I must be a fool to assume otherwise.
Just because BluRay downscales doesn't mean it can downscale games as well. I'm sure the hardware has enough power to downscale in software but if it sca
Patches for consoles (Score:3, Interesting)
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Alternatively, you can borrow a laptop with a modem and set it up as a router till you have the patch (which at 56k will be quite a while).
I'm pretty disappointed that patching is standard for next-gen console games. Broken games suck, and a patch is better than nothing. However, broken games should never get shipped in the first place. Platform holders should fine companies that do so and refund consumers.
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Xbox patches were a) available to download and burn onto a CD, and b) often included on game discs, and c) included on official demo discs and the discs that came with gaming magazines.
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I think it's a safe bet that consumers with no internet connection don't matter to Sony; at least not when it comes to the PS3.
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They'll bundle the update with a new game. My copy of Liberty City Stories for the PSP has a firmware update with it.
Out of curiosity (Score:1, Interesting)
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Re:All you need to know (Score:2)
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There's some question as to 1080i vs 720p in quality, and I have never heard of a 720i or 480i (although I see no reason why they might not exist).
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480i is just called either NTSC or SDTV, which is 480 lines interlaced. This is why you never hear it refered to as 480i. The whole naming by scan lines (ie: 480p, 720p, 1080i/p) is a reletively recent phenomenon since EDTV (480p) only came out about 10 years ago, and called for a new naming system.
720i does not exist, to my knowledge. By the time they got to the 720p standard, there was no reason to go interlaced anymore, because progressive scan will ALWAYS be superior in image quality when showing in a
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This is why 480p is sometimes (often?) referred to as EDTV i.e. Enhanced Definition TV, since it takes the standard Ratio and broadcast size and removes the interlacing. I am not aware of any broadcasts using it, but quite a number of DVD players and the like will output it.
Re:Describe it? No - LOOK at it (Score:2)
I guess next gen has starte.."let's just patch it" (Score:5, Interesting)
We also have Microtransactions from all sides. EA is selling us cheat codes over the marketplace for money, People are selling tutorials? I thought Micropayments were going to save us? Not make us feel like tools.
Then assume patches and micropayments are OK (They arn't). What happens 10 years from now, you find a unused Console start it up and put in your game, xbox live is probably not going to be serving the data so you can't get the updates? What happens if you don't have an internet connection? You can't get the fixes. So we are bending people to our will even more now? (first HD and now almost necessary internet)
All this just makes me, a gamer, feel like Next Gen is just a pile of crap that is just out there to bring the computer to a console. I applaud Nintendo but even there they are doing parts of this stuff to an extent.
Re:I guess next gen has starte.."let's just patch (Score:1)
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Re:I guess next gen has starte.."let's just patch (Score:1)
I don't buy all the useless stuff like gamer pictures and themes, but new maps and cars? Absolutely. To some extent it's required to play certain gametypes, but on the whole there are plenty of people who are willing to pay for the stuff even though they wish they were getting it for free.
Supply creates its own demand.
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While I say that I'm looking forward to the wii with the Virtual console, but in the end it's always companies like EA who will give us micropayments for stuff that has always been in the game (cheat codes for instance) and it's just a shame.
The biggest problem with microp
1080i is a stupid mode anyway (Score:2)
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Um...? (Score:2)
Did anyone bother to look at the cable? (Score:1)
Last I checked composite can only play 480p or 480i. I would assume that the US units shipped with the same thing. Has anyone tried this with a true HD cable?
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The PS3 is so awsome !!! (Score:2)
If it gets any better you'll need a third job to buy one!
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"Stale" meaning that they may have been drawn as long as 0.0333 seconds ago. This is where Persistence of Vision comes in handy.
Why do we bother with interlaced formats nowadays? Progressive's nicer/more sensible/easier for us to work with in the cutting room!
Interlaced video allows the perceived framerate to be doubled without requiring an increase the bandwidth of the signal. Given the choice between 1080i @ 60fps and 1080p @ 30fps, I suspect the average person
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Confusing transmission with encoding (Score:2)
720p is only the same quality as 1080i if you were working from a 720p or less source. If your source material is encoded at 1080p than broadcasting it at 1080p or 1080i is the only way to get all 1080 lines. And if you're using a Plasma, DLP or LCD HDTV (read: 95+% of HDTV owners), than your TV *is progressive anyway* - your TV is de-interlacing that 1080i/60 into a XXXp/30 signal before it is displayed. That "XXX" is the native resolution of your display.
C
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That's exactly why I got a 1080p TV even though I have no plans to get BluRay or HD-DVD until the format war is settled (either by settling on one format, or dual-use players). A 1080p native TV lets me see all 1080 lines in a 1080i encoded broadcast, making 1080i *actually better* than 720p, which it rarely is.
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Enjoy.
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On a CRT set, this may be the case. AFAIK, all fixed-pixel displays must internally convert a signal progressively before displaying it. Thus, a 1080i signal (1 frame of 540 lines sent 60 times per second) is internally interlaced to generate 30 frames of 1080 lines. Native progressive signals (480p, 720p, 1080p) provide the full number of lines 60 times per second, thus providing more natural-looking motion. This is why (IMHO) sports look better in 720p than
Re:1080i 720p? (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, it only shows 540 lines "at a time", but the next 540 lines are not the same 540 lines, but the ones in between the previous 540 lines, making up the full 1080 line display. Your eyes don't work fast enough to see that one is off while the other is on, and the chemicals on the inside of the CRT keep their "glow" long enough to minimize or even eliminate flicker. Non-CRT sets, like dlp/plasma/lcd/d-ila/sxrd work a little differently and showing interlaced footage in a progressive manner can lead to visible "combing" unless the set de-interlaces, but I won't go into that here.
1080i has 1080 lines of resolution, but like your old standard definition television, it refreshes every other line alternately. So, the first half of the refresh mode (1/60th of a second) refreshes lines 1,3,5,7 etc (fields a) and the other half refreshes lines 2,4,6,8 etc (fields b). So that while it refreshes 60 times a second, it only shows you 30 full frames.
720p conversely, shows you 60 full frames of 720 lines in sequence, per second.
If it's shot at 1080/30p, it still gets broadcast as 1080i, and you still see 30 full 1080 line frames per second.
If it's shot at 1080/60i, it gets broadcast as 1080i, and you see 60 "half-frames" per second, because the movement of the subject changes between fields a and b.
If it's shot at 720/60p, it usually gets broadcast as 720p, but some stations only broadcast 1080i regardless of source, in which case each set of 720 lines would be interpolated to 60 full frames of 1080 lines, and then only half of each gets broadcast. Still looks great, but it's not as detailed.
If a station broadcasts at 720p regardless of source, it gets a little complicated. 1080i sources are basically converted to 540p and bobbed (fields b are moved up one line so the image doesn't shake up and down), and then gets stretched to 720p. It retains all the information of the 540 lines, but doesn't have as much detail as 720 lines, obviously. Now, if the 1080i source was shot 1080/30p and gets broadcast at 720p, each frame needs to be downsized, and then repeated, to make up the missing 30 frames from the 60p signal.
Additionally, if a movie comes in a 1080/24p source, it gets broadcast either as 1080i with 3:2 pulldown, or it gets broadcast as 720p with 2:3 frames (3:2 pulldown repeats fields, 2:3 frames repeats frames) in order to bring it up to 60 fields (for 1080i) or 60 frames (for 720p).
Confused yet?
It's not that hard when you understand why it is the way it is.
In the case of the PS3, it's pretty lame that 720p gets converted down to 480p, but since it's a slightly simpler process (1 full frame = 1 full frame vs. 1 full frame = 2 half frames), I can't really blame them for using it on the launch games.
I have an older CRT HDTV that only does 1080i/480p/480i and can't do 720p, so of course I'm disappointed, but all good things to those who wait.
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> Your eyes don't work fast enough to see that one is off while the other is on, and the chemicals on the inside of the CRT keep their "glow" long enough to minimize or even eliminate flicker.
Your eyes won't typically notice flicker on moving images, but it can be quite noticable on static images, like you might see at times in a video game. For instance, if there is fine text in a small status indicator on the screen, you may see the flicker in the text.
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Fast motion in the frame, either of the subjects or the camera tends to hide flickering, this is correct.
A still frame is more likely to have visible flickering as your eyes are able to adjust to the static image, so any variation
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PAL (Score:1)
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depends on the video being shown... (Score:2)
ALL consoles? (Score:2)
Ha! This is one problem that certainly won't happen to the Wii!
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Can you name launch issues with even two or three of the above?
Most appliances work. Gaming consoles used to be appliances but the more they veer towards being general computing machines and the more they veer towards working with a wide variety of hardware, the more they veer towards having hardware and software issues.
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Cybermorph and Trevor McFur come to mind here. You know, now I mention them both together, it looks like Atari were aiming at a Star(Fox|Wing) knock-off, but at the last minute stuck the furries in space* into their own R-Type knock-off.
* If you make a search on that phrase, I am not responsible for the results.
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In North America/Europe, yes, the issues with the ZIF bridge on the cartridge connector didn't arise until later, when they started weakening. But the first release of the Famicom in Japan had motherboard problems so severe that Nintendo of Japan had to issue a recall for all consoles sold, spending millions of dollars to repair them.
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