720p PS3 games downscale on older HD sets

[ape2020]

Interesting findings about about PS3 down scaling 720p games on some older HDTV to 480p/i. It seems some older sets that do 1080i but don't do 720p will get downgraded instead of upscaled to 1080i. Doesn't bother me since I don't have a HDTV yet.

Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2006/11/15/720p-ps3-games-downscale-on-older-hd-sets/)

-chimp1010

[Ty]

I think you're misunderstanding what they're saying in the article. The PS3 isn't forcing 480p resolution on you, it has no way of knowing what resolutions your tv supports and will just send the resolution you've set it up to send. What they're saying is that many older HDTV sets could not ACCEPT a 720p signal at all and take only 1080i or 480p. That's an issue with the tv and has nothing to do with the PS3. In this case you should just set the PS3 to output 1080i.

If, on the other hand, they're saying that when the PS3 is set to 1080i and it is displaying games that are made in 720p it downscales to 480p instead of upscaling to 1080i then that would indeed be kind of a drag, but the article's wording isn't clear whether or not that's why they're trying to reveal. If that's the case it's a stupid choice by Sony, but I kind of doubt that's what's going on.

[DustoMan]

[ QUOTE ]
Xcalibur said:
If, on the other hand, they're saying that when the PS3 is set to 1080i and it is displaying games that are made in 720p it downscales to 480p instead of upscaling to 1080i then that would indeed be kind of a drag, but the article's wording isn't clear whether or not that's why they're trying to reveal. If that's the case it's a stupid choice by Sony, but I kind of doubt that's what's going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is that this is what is happening. The PS3 is not upscaling the 720p signal to 1080i instead it's downsampling to 480p. How did the console even ship with such a bug?

[ape2020]

[ QUOTE ]
DustoMan said:
[ QUOTE ]
Xcalibur said:
If, on the other hand, they're saying that when the PS3 is set to 1080i and it is displaying games that are made in 720p it downscales to 480p instead of upscaling to 1080i then that would indeed be kind of a drag, but the article's wording isn't clear whether or not that's why they're trying to reveal. If that's the case it's a stupid choice by Sony, but I kind of doubt that's what's going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is that this is what is happening. The PS3 is not upscaling the 720p signal to 1080i instead it's downsampling to 480p. How did the console even ship with such a bug?

[/ QUOTE ]

If its true (and I not totally convinced yet it is) then hopefully it can be fixed with a software update like the 360 was to support 1080p.

I wonder if all the buzz of the launch is fogging up all the news of the console. I mean reviewers are likely setting this up at the optimal setup 1080p HDMI and all that. Could be like when King Kong came out for the 360 and it was too dark on standard TVs.

-chimp1010

[Ty]

[ QUOTE ]
DustoMan said:
[ QUOTE ]
Xcalibur said:
If, on the other hand, they're saying that when the PS3 is set to 1080i and it is displaying games that are made in 720p it downscales to 480p instead of upscaling to 1080i then that would indeed be kind of a drag, but the article's wording isn't clear whether or not that's why they're trying to reveal. If that's the case it's a stupid choice by Sony, but I kind of doubt that's what's going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is that this is what is happening. The PS3 is not upscaling the 720p signal to 1080i instead it's downsampling to 480p. How did the console even ship with such a bug?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's all rumors at this point, but if true it may not be a bug but simply a limitation of the hardware. I've seen dumber mistakes by hardware companies. Sony probably just figures everybody will be glad to buy one of their $4K Bravia 1080p tvs and everything'll be peachy.

[badasscat]

[ QUOTE ]
DustoMan said:
My understanding is that this is what is happening. The PS3 is not upscaling the 720p signal to 1080i instead it's downsampling to 480p. How did the console even ship with such a bug?

[/ QUOTE ]

Doesn't sound like a bug to me. I commented in that Joystiq thread; as I usually do there, I did a hit and run so I don't know what anybody said after me. (Many of the people there are under the age of 12 and it's really not worth arguing with them; I just comment on the posts themselves or a comment that's already there and move on.)

Anyway, this affects so few people that it sounds to me what Sony probably did is have the PS3 downscale instead of upscale so that programmers designing 720p games wouldn't have to worry about also optimizing for 1080i... which is presumably why they're doing the game in 720p in the first place. The Xbox 360 upscales, which means 720p games have to go through extra overhead in the conversion, and that can have sub-optimal results. Sony's way leaves developers free to optimize only for 720p, getting the game to look the best it possibly can at that res, without worrying about whether it'll be choppy or otherwise messed up at 1080i. They do this at the expense of potentially annoying 10 or 15 people. (Seriously, Joystiq is hugely overstating the number of these types of TV's that have been sold.)

It's not "all CRT HDTV's" or even most that don't do 720p. In fact, any CRT with a built in tuner (which is technically the only kind that can even be called an "HDTV") can display 720p upscaled to 1080i; otherwise you wouldn't even be able to watch two of the four major networks. Most CRT monitors without tuners can do the same - these are ATSC standards, after all, and it's in the manufacturer's best interests to support them. A few can't, though, because the manufacturer has cut costs by relying on the fact that the outboard tuner will scale for you. It was always a dumb idea to buy a TV like this, though, because many early tuners wouldn't scale either and initially, it was a crapshoot what you'd get from your cable or satellite company if you went that route. So you were always taking a chance if you bought a monitor that didn't support 720p at all.

Anyway, sales of CRT HDTV's were never very high - maybe a few hundred thousand total in the USA. Of those, I would doubt more than 20,000 couldn't support 720p at all. There will be similar numbers for RPTV's. Honestly, most of those people are probably due for an upgrade anyway because those TV's are probably among those with smaller screens, they weigh a ton, they may have only one component and no HDMI input. In other words, they're just not very capable TV's by today's standards in general, and anyway there aren't very many of them. I don't think you can fault Sony for not supporting these TV's better, especially if it was in the name of getting 720p games to look their best.

Just to give you an idea, I paid $560 for my Samsung 26" CRT HDTV a couple years ago, and even it displays 720p just fine (upscaled to 1080i). It has a built-in tuner, so it has to - but that's just to give you an idea that this isn't a problem with all CRT's or even low-end CRT's. It's mostly *really* low-end, and really old, CRT's and RPTV's that have this problem... and it is a problem with the TV's, not the PS3. It's not really Sony's responsibility to compensate for the fact that an "HDTV" cannot display all of the ATSC standard HDTV resolutions. It's kind of like buying a radio that only supports FM frequencies over 100 and then bitching that a radio station broadcasting at 92.3 doesn't support your radio. It's ass backwards.

[Ty]

I agree. I think people are confusing the issue of tvs that are incapable of displaying 720p with tvs that simply incapable of accepting 720p as a signal. Nearly all HDTVs can handle the 720p signal format, most simply convert it to whatever they need to for display purposes.... usually 1080i.