HDTV and the PS2 Question

[Kaikou]

I've been having problems setting up my PS2 to display properly on an 720p HDTV.

I have done the following (game being used is FFXII):

I changed the system menu to 16:9, as well as video output as component.

I set the option in FFXII to widescreen.

When I set the TV to "aspect" the screen maintains a 4:3 ratio. Which also happens on the Wii, so I felt that was normal, (key me in if it's not normal on the Wii. :P) and set my TV to "Full screen" to stretch the image. The end result ends up having black bars on all four sides of the image. Is this normal? If not any suggestions to try and rectify the problem?

Any help is appreciated.

[Ty]

That's funny.... I tested FFXII for this exact situation on somebody else's HD set and had no trouble. Setting his set to fullscreen produced a full 16:9 image. The alternative to this is the same thing you have when you watch a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD, meaning the aspect is correct but to fill the screen you'll have to use the zoom which is unfortunate. Why your tv behaves differently than what I've experienced I can't say.

[Swordfish_II]

Video games don't seem to contain the signals that tell the TV to automatically change the aspect ratio like a DVD does.

And the black bars are probably the overscan area. I'm assuming you have an LCD or something?

[Kaikou]

Video games don't seem to contain the signals that tell the TV to automatically change the aspect ratio like a DVD does.

And the black bars are probably the overscan area. I'm assuming you have an LCD or something?

Yes I have an LCD, but my Wii displays in full screen without any bars. Also I've read posts on other people who are able to run FFXII in full screen on an LCD HDTV.

[DiGiKerot]

Yes I have an LCD, but my Wii displays in full screen without any bars. Also I've read posts on other people who are able to run FFXII in full screen on an LCD HDTV.


Yeah, it works for me, but most/all FMV scenes (like the stuff running behind the title screen) in FFXII have borders around all four edges. When you actually get to the gameplay it goes all fullscreen.

[Kaikou]

Yes I have an LCD, but my Wii displays in full screen without any bars. Also I've read posts on other people who are able to run FFXII in full screen on an LCD HDTV.


Yeah, it works for me, but most/all FMV scenes (like the stuff running behind the title screen) in FFXII have borders around all four edges. When you actually get to the gameplay it goes all fullscreen.

Actual gameplay for me has bars about an inch or two wide on all four sides. In game movies like the title movie have bars on all four sides about six inches wide on all four sides.

[Ty]

Yes I have an LCD, but my Wii displays in full screen without any bars. Also I've read posts on other people who are able to run FFXII in full screen on an LCD HDTV.


Yeah, it works for me, but most/all FMV scenes (like the stuff running behind the title screen) in FFXII have borders around all four edges. When you actually get to the gameplay it goes all fullscreen.

Actual gameplay for me has bars about an inch or two wide on all four sides. In game movies like the title movie have bars on all four sides about six inches wide on all four sides.

Ah, now I understand. Did you just get this LCD recently? An inch sounds right if your tv has no overscan because the PS2 underscans by that amount. The FMV sequences in FFXII are not anamorphic so you're watching a 16:9 image within a 4:3 frame if that makes sense to you. It's just one of those things unfortunately.

[Kaikou]

Yes I have an LCD, but my Wii displays in full screen without any bars. Also I've read posts on other people who are able to run FFXII in full screen on an LCD HDTV.


Yeah, it works for me, but most/all FMV scenes (like the stuff running behind the title screen) in FFXII have borders around all four edges. When you actually get to the gameplay it goes all fullscreen.

Actual gameplay for me has bars about an inch or two wide on all four sides. In game movies like the title movie have bars on all four sides about six inches wide on all four sides.

Ah, now I understand. Did you just get this LCD recently? An inch sounds right if your tv has no overscan because the PS2 underscans by that amount. The FMV sequences in FFXII are not anamorphic so you're watching a 16:9 image within a 4:3 frame if that makes sense to you. It's just one of those things unfortunately.

The HDTV that I have is a Olevia 542i, that I believe is a few months old. So for my TV it shows all of the PS2's video signal, which is purposely set to compensate for the overscanning of some TV's?

[Ty]

The HDTV that I have is a Olevia 542i, that I believe is a few months old. So for my TV it shows all of the PS2's video signal, which is purposely set to compensate for the overscanning of some TV's?
TVs overscan to hide the static and garbage that used to be at the very edges of broadcasts before HD. New HDTVs shouldn't have to overscan anymore but some of them do. Yours doesn't, and in fact the option to do so at your choice (for the reason above) is in your menu on your tv. Pretty much all CRT sets have some overscan though and the PS2 was designed while they were still king so to compensate and prevent stuff on the edges of the screen from being cutoff it purposely underscans the image a bit. The result is that you see very little actual overscan on older tvs, but on digital sets like yours it leaves the edges of the screen blank. Short of a custom zoom option there is no way to correct this, but be aware that it's totally normal and nothing to worry about.

[Kaikou]

The HDTV that I have is a Olevia 542i, that I believe is a few months old. So for my TV it shows all of the PS2's video signal, which is purposely set to compensate for the overscanning of some TV's?
TVs overscan to hide the static and garbage that used to be at the very edges of broadcasts before HD. New HDTVs shouldn't have to overscan anymore but some of them do. Yours doesn't, and in fact the option to do so at your choice (for the reason above) is in your menu on your tv. Pretty much all CRT sets have some overscan though and the PS2 was designed while they were still king so to compensate and prevent stuff on the edges of the screen from being cutoff it purposely underscans the image a bit. The result is that you see very little actual overscan on older tvs, but on digital sets like yours it leaves the edges of the screen blank. Short of a custom zoom option there is no way to correct this, but be aware that it's totally normal and nothing to worry about.

Thanks for the detailed response, makes perfect sense now.

[CrazyAsano]

TVs overscan to hide the static and garbage that used to be at the very edges of broadcasts before HD. New HDTVs shouldn't have to overscan anymore but some of them do. Yours doesn't, and in fact the option to do so at your choice (for the reason above) is in your menu on your tv. Pretty much all CRT sets have some overscan though and the PS2 was designed while they were still king so to compensate and prevent stuff on the edges of the screen from being cutoff it purposely underscans the image a bit. The result is that you see very little actual overscan on older tvs, but on digital sets like yours it leaves the edges of the screen blank. Short of a custom zoom option there is no way to correct this, but be aware that it's totally normal and nothing to worry about.
If it's true Smashingblue's TV has an overscan option in its menu, couldn't that be used to correct the problem?

[Kaikou]

TVs overscan to hide the static and garbage that used to be at the very edges of broadcasts before HD. New HDTVs shouldn't have to overscan anymore but some of them do. Yours doesn't, and in fact the option to do so at your choice (for the reason above) is in your menu on your tv. Pretty much all CRT sets have some overscan though and the PS2 was designed while they were still king so to compensate and prevent stuff on the edges of the screen from being cutoff it purposely underscans the image a bit. The result is that you see very little actual overscan on older tvs, but on digital sets like yours it leaves the edges of the screen blank. Short of a custom zoom option there is no way to correct this, but be aware that it's totally normal and nothing to worry about.
If it's true Smashingblue's TV has an overscan option in its menu, couldn't that be used to correct the problem?

I tried the overscan option in the TV's menu, but it barely helped.

[indigo0086]

Progressive material doesn't mean that it's going to be free of overscan. You'll get a bit of overscan in 4:3 and 16:9 non-HD material. Maybe when broadcast changes to digital will that change, but with the ps2 you'll get it.

[Ty]

TVs overscan to hide the static and garbage that used to be at the very edges of broadcasts before HD. New HDTVs shouldn't have to overscan anymore but some of them do. Yours doesn't, and in fact the option to do so at your choice (for the reason above) is in your menu on your tv. Pretty much all CRT sets have some overscan though and the PS2 was designed while they were still king so to compensate and prevent stuff on the edges of the screen from being cutoff it purposely underscans the image a bit. The result is that you see very little actual overscan on older tvs, but on digital sets like yours it leaves the edges of the screen blank. Short of a custom zoom option there is no way to correct this, but be aware that it's totally normal and nothing to worry about.
If it's true Smashingblue's TV has an overscan option in its menu, couldn't that be used to correct the problem?
A little bit, but it's really a nicety there for when a person is watching 480i broadcast material. Some people don't like the static or little yellow line that's visible when there's no overscan with 1:1 pixel mapping. The feature is probably only 1-2% though which wouldn't be quite enough. Plus depending upon how it works it could soften the image a bit if it's achieved through any kind of processing or zoom.

[CrazyAsano]

That's a shame, I thought it would be more like my projector's setting which has about 5,000 levels of overscan.

[jecca-neko]

Some HDTVs don't adjust automatically. My Sharp Aquos needs to be manually adjusted back and forth between fullscreen and widescreen. Doesn't matter if it's DVD or video games.

I've had this TV since maybe February though so I've gotten used to switching it.

[Ty]

Aspect auto-detection is nice when it's there. It can spoil a person.