Xbox 360 adds 1080p Support

Ha! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:30 · Score: 0

Eat it, Sony! I wish they'd add upconversion on regular DVDs though. Isn't that possible with the hardware?

Re:Ha! by stuffisgood · 2006-09-20 01:05 · Score: 2, Informative

Errr....they did....in the last dashboard update.

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Re:Ha! by Psykosys · 2006-09-20 01:08 · Score: 1, Flamebait

If you want your DVDs to look exactly the same, only blurrier, then upconversion's definitely the way to go.
Re:Ha! by Enderandrew · 2006-09-20 02:58 · Score: 1

Exactly. I bought a high-end ($250) DVD player that upscales and I regret it. There is a difference between native resolutions and upscaling. BluRay and HD-DVD put out native 1080p. If upscaling was worth it, we wouldn't need hi-def DVDs like BluRay and HD-DVD. Upscaling the game won't match the native resolutions put out by the PS3, but the average consumer will see the term 1080p on both and think there isn't a difference.

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Re:Ha! by lowe0 · 2006-09-20 03:28 · Score: 2, Informative

Not over component. The last update added upconversion for VGA only.
Re:Ha! by krakelohm · 2006-09-20 04:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think the problem is you consider a $250 DVD player high-end. I am not flaming you by any means my DVD player came in under a cool hundred bucks and it works great for my lil 27 incher. I would assume a higher end dvd player ($500-1k) would do a better job but you really need to appreciate movies to drop green like that.

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Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 05:06 · Score: 0

A surprising amount of the HD content you will be buying on HD-DVD and Bluray will actually be professionally upconverted SD. We're talking a LOT.

You probably won't be told this. The reviewers certainly aren't. And the upconversion they use is surprisingly convincing (far better than the crappy deinterlacing and scaling in use more commonly at the moment, we're talking proper motion estimation, and weird fractal stuff - unfortunately, I fear the Xbox360, three cores wide and nice for this kind of acceleration though its pixel shaders are, still does not have the oomph required to do the really advanced algorithms, but then optimisation may prove fruitful).

Of course, it would obviously be better if the decoder could do it at that sort of quality as a sort of postprocessing step, but the tech is just too proprietary - they won't let go of it and work together to make that happen, so for now it sits on hardware-acceleration cards that cost a ton of money and signed documents to get.

Another reason you may well see more high-bitrate MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 ASP (XviD) content rather than VC-1 (WMV) or MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) - the professional-grade encoders for the newer codecs just aren't as mature yet.

Of course, the movies are being digitised and remastered as part of this process from the original imprints (in some cases, the positives, in other cases, the negatives, and in even more cases, a combination of both, depending on the state of them) at a much higher resolution than 1080p, and losslessly archived. Presumably for a future codec or disc format, or an "improved edition" with a higher bitrate later on in the lifetime of the medium.
Re:Ha! by UnknownSoldier · 2006-09-20 05:37 · Score: 1

Damn straight.

This is why I bought an ED Plasma TH42PWD5UY. DVDs are only 720x480. The Plasma's native resolution is 852x480, which means no vertical scaling (perfect 1:1 scaling), and DVDs look fantastic on it.
Re:Ha! by Babbster · 2006-09-20 05:40 · Score: 1

What if there isn't a difference? Consider: Sony has already backed off on their original intent to make every PS3 game 1080p (as they've backed off on so much about the PS3), which would seem to indicate that the balance between graphics horsepower and desired detail isn't there to push that many pixels and polygons. Thus, most PS3 games will likely render at 720p/1080i, outputting whichever resolution is requested in the system settings. If the same is true for the Xbox 360 with most games rendering in 720p/1080i and a few future games taking advantage of 1080p, then there is no difference on this count between the two consoles.

Keep in mind that the media is virtually irrelevant. For example, a PC game that comes on a couple of CDs could still be rendered at multiple high resolutions. The only real advantage of Blu-ray in this area would be its ability to store more static 1080p content.

I should also note that there's a huge difference between upconverting from 480p to 720p/1080i/1080p and upconverting 1080i to 1080p. The latter process can be done with virtually no artifacting because it's a simple line-doubling exercise. For a better comparison, hook a (regular NTSC) DVD player up to a digital TV that upconverts NTSC signals to 480p and see how nice that looks - since NTSC and the ATSC 480p standard are close in "resolution" the change to progressive looks great (with a good original signal of course).
Re:Ha! by Cowclops · 2006-09-20 06:37 · Score: 1

To put even more "law-sounding," any scaling whether to a bigger or a smaller resolution ALWAYS degrades the image. The best upscalers degrade the image minimally but you can NEVER improve the image by upscaling it.

BUT, DVDs always have to be upscaled when you're watching it on a 720p/1080p/whatever fixed pixel display like LCD. It is occasionally the case that a tv may have an awful scaler and your DVD player has a good scaler, but that is a matter of which is degrading the signal less, not that an upconverting DVD player is "improving" the signal.

The same can be said for any a/v component that claims to improve the signal by way of modifying it unnecessarily.
Re:Ha! by drinkypoo · 2006-09-20 07:17 · Score: 1

do you mean upconversion to HD? SOMETHING will be upconverting in a case like that, whether it's the device or the TV. as long as you can turn it off on the device, it's a great feature to have in case you end up with a TV with crap conversion.

--
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Re:Ha! by hords · 2006-09-20 07:32 · Score: 1

Keep in mind that the media is virtually irrelevant. For example, a PC game that comes on a couple of CDs could still be rendered at multiple high resolutions. The only real advantage of Blu-ray in this area would be its ability to store more static 1080p content.

While what you say is true, there is another advantage of Blu-ray, no(?) disc swapping. One thing to consider is that games on a PC get installed to a hard drive so they can come on multiple CDs and you only have to swap during the initial install. Unfortuntely, The Xbox 360 didn't put a hard drive in every unit so swapping discs at some point will come into play. If done right it won't be bad though, it didn't bother me on Resident Evil 4 for the Gamecube. While I'm no PS3 fanboy, I do love larger capacity media and I think at some point it will be a big advantage for the PS3. Games are likely to just get bigger and bigger with more and more detail. Resistance: Fall of Man would take three DVD-9s to put on another system with how much space they are already using (could probably be knocked down to two though.)

Quote from Ted Price (Insomniac Games) "The second topic that has been surfacing a lot lately is our support of Blu-ray as a medium. Yes it is true - we are currently using more than 20 gigs. And yes, we do compress our level data. The fact that we store so much on disc is actually not that surprising when you look at the numbers. Consider that even with compression, each of our "levels" (or loaded areas) has more than 300 megs of unique data. And keep in mind that we're also streaming data during level playthroughs. It doesn't take too much level data before you've gone past what can be stored on a dual-layer DVD. And between single player and multiplayer we have a lot of level data (over 40 different large loaded areas) - yes, more than will fit on a dual layer DVD. We also include a lot of data in the form of game movies in both HD and PAL formats, high quality audio streams for all supported languages and some of those Insomniac "extras" that our fans have come to expect. I realize that some people will still be skeptical unless we provide an actual layout of the disc. But for now I wanted to give you some better info."
Re:Ha! by JimDaGeek · 2006-09-20 07:50 · Score: 1

852x480? With no scaling, wouldn't you always have black bars on the side? If so, what is the point of having the Plasma display at 852 instead of 750? What content would actually fit in that weird 852x480 resolution?

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Re:Ha! by Enderandrew · 2006-09-20 07:53 · Score: 1

Your arguement is based off a good deal of assumptions with little to back them up.

First you assume that upscaling is comparable to native resolutions. This simply just isn't the case. Upscaling is never as good as a native resolution. Blowing up a JPG, using scaling in an emulator, or using a DVD player or TV that upscales and you will see the proof is in fact in the pudding.

Next, you assume that because Sony isn't promising that EVERY game will be 1080p that means MOST will be 720p. There is no way to tell what MOST games will run until well after the system launches. What I do know is that the XBox 360 hardware doesn't have the power to run at 1080p at decent speeds. For it to generate content at 720p or 1080i at full speed, it must then also have processing power to spare to then scale (via software or hardware) to 1080p. If they didn't have the processing power in the first place to generate the native resolution, where is the scaling power coming from? If I were to make an assumption, I would assume there might be lag. Why do I make such an assumption? Because I have seen the proof of it.

Presently people who own expensive TVs that upscale already complain about the lag generated by upscaling. This is a slightly different issue because the "lag" comes from the fact that the upscaling is happening outside the XBox, but upscaling does take time and power. Turn scaling on or off in an emulator and watch the effect on your FPS. There is a very noticable effect. You write this off and assume upscaling will come with no trade-off, and at magically better image quality than upscaling has been able to pull off historically.

Your last argument assumes that the upscaling will come from 1080i to 1080p, and that line doubling produces no artifacts. Again, fire up any popular emulator and use a simple 2x filter to double lines and see what you get. It is far from the native picture. Next, Microsoft has said that EVERY game is designed around 720p, not 1080i. The XBox 360 can put out an 1080i picture, by upscaling the native 720p image. Since the game is designed to run at 720p, it won't be a simple line double to produce 1080p either way.

Mind you I buy every major console every generation, and I'm not a fanboi. These are just the facts.

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http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Re:Ha! by Enderandrew · 2006-09-20 07:57 · Score: 1

That is why I listed the price because I know that are levels in DVD quality. Most "higher" end players in the $500-$2,000 range actually increase primarily in sound quality over picture quality that I've seen. I already have a very killer sound system, and I'm pretty happy with the sound quality.

My $250 DVD player I got on open box for $80, but it is considerably better than your average $45 DVD player. Even so, my point is that upscaling wasn't as incredible as I thought it would be. The picture doesn't really look any better than the native resolution. And I am a stickler for such things. I just can't afford the really high-end systems.

Money goes to the baby and wife first, and me last.

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http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Re:Ha! by Crunchie+Frog · 2006-09-20 11:15 · Score: 1

Surely a punter who pays 1k for a dvd player is fairly serious about their viewing pleasure and would probably opt for hi-def equipment anyawy, rather than an upscaling solution.
I think the upscaling solution is aimed at the person who cant afford the higher end kit.
But then im cheap.

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Re:Ha! by Crunchie+Frog · 2006-09-20 11:19 · Score: 1

He said no vertical scaling

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Re:Ha! by JimDaGeek · 2006-09-20 14:49 · Score: 1

I know. I am just trying to figure out how the picture will look. If a DVD is 720x480 and his plasma does 852x480, than there is no scaling at all. It would distort the image if it did horizontal scaling without vertical scaling. So I was just wondering if he has to watch DVD's with black bars on the sides to make up for the difference between 852x480 (his plasma) and 720x480 (DVD).

--
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
Re:Ha! by mabhatter654 · 2006-09-22 20:16 · Score: 1

the main thing 1080p is good for is marketing right now. Bandwidth wise 720p and 1080i are the same. With the advent of LCD/DLP televisions 1080p came to market as a sort of step-child.. it's not really an offical standard, but because things like LCDs don't understand the idea of interlacing anyway the manufactures thru it in there. There's no such thing as 1080i on an LCD... it's linescanned to 1080p by default of how LCDs work. But adding the feature is a checkbox serious people think they need so why not.

1080p, me! by pjr.cc · 2006-09-20 00:30 · Score: 1, Informative

I have a nice big plasma hooked up to a digital tuner... and in Australia digital tv is very prevalent (as in, every station that used to transmit analog now also transmit's digital with very very few exceptions). On top of that alot of progs are 1080p, and a htpc looks great at that res too:)

Re:1080p, me! by CaymanIslandCarpedie · 2006-09-20 00:33 · Score: 1

What is the make and model? It wasn't all THAT long ago I was looking for 1080p plasmas but couldn't find any. Glad to hear there now are some.

--
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Re:1080p, me! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:39 · Score: 2, Funny

I have a 60" 1080p capable plasma, and let me tell you it cost a huge amount of money, probably more money then many Slashdotters earn in a year! But I also want to make this clear: I earn *lots* of money, probably more then the vast majority of slashdotters. I don't buy things this expensive very often (although the Aston Martin I bought last week set me back a few hundred k), but I like to splash out occasionally.
Re:1080p, me! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:42 · Score: 0

I was also not aware that a 1080p plasma was available - esp in Australia.
Re:1080p, me! by kingturkey · 2006-09-20 00:52 · Score: 1

"very prevalent" means all 5 stations have digital... honestly, most of the crap they show isn't worth watching, digital or otherwise.
Re:1080p, me! by drsmithy · 2006-09-20 00:59 · Score: 5, Informative

I have a nice big plasma hooked up to a digital tuner... and in Australia digital tv is very prevalent (as in, every station that used to transmit analog now also transmit's digital with very very few exceptions). On top of that alot of progs are 1080p, and a htpc looks great at that res too:)
No-one in Australia transmits anything at 1080p. ABC and SBS "HD" are 576p, although they have almost no "real" HD content - most all of it is upsampled SD. Seven is also 576p, although I think their "HD" broadcasts actually have 1080i sources. Both Nine and Ten broadcast in 1080i (even sport, which kind of sucks).
Re:1080p, me! by gEvil+(beta) · 2006-09-20 01:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

I suspect we won't hear anymore from pjr.cc now that he's actually looked up the specs of his TV and looked at the specs of the broadcast signals he's receiving.

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This guy's the limit!
Re:1080p, me! by PhoenixAtlantios · 2006-09-20 01:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Translation: I work at McDonalds and wish I could afford cool stuff, but I can't so I make up stories about how rich I am online to satisfy my desires.
Re:1080p, me! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:20 · Score: 0

lol, no, it accepts such res, but its native res is different, way lower, check your specs :D
Re:1080p, me! by numbski · 2006-09-20 01:21 · Score: 1

Not to mention that I think Taco asked the wrong question. The right question is:

"Show of hands, who here plans on buying a display capable of 1080p in the next 5 years?"

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Re:1080p, me! by Nazmun · 2006-09-20 01:21 · Score: 1

Plasma's mostly seem to have low pixel density. Link your plasma =P, although there are a few new 1080p plasmas.

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Hmmm... Pie...
Re:1080p, me! by balbord · 2006-09-20 01:22 · Score: 1

hmmm
I think HTML really needs a <sarcasm> tag.
</sarcasm>

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Re:1080p, me! by Ucklak · 2006-09-20 01:28 · Score: 1

I believe only the 56" and above are 1080p.
I was in a big box store just looking and got hammered by sales people touting their wares and they said that only the highest end are 1080p for now.

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if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Re:1080p, me! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:34 · Score: 0

what programs are 1080p ?

afaik only hi-def dvds are using 1080p at the moment and at 25 fps and tv production is all 720p (usually at 60fps)

Addionally, what lots of people seem to miss at the moment is HD DVD (and blueray) content is at 25fps and any good 1080i display will split each frame into two 720p frames doubling the frame rate but preserving the picture quality.

Until there is 60 fps 1080p content available there is little need for an expensive 1080p display when 1080i with support for a 1080p signal is good enough.
Re:1080p, me! by Omroth · 2006-09-20 01:35 · Score: 0

You, sir, know precisely nothing about what you're talking about. Digitial TV is not relatively prevalent in Aus, and there certainly aren't more than... zero 1080p programs being broadcast.
Re:1080p, me! by rsk · 2006-09-20 01:48 · Score: 1

May already have been pointed out, but unless you dropped $10k on your Plasma relatively recently, it's not a 1080p display, so displaying 720p is most likely going to look the best on that set.
Re:1080p, me! by PrvtBurrito · 2006-09-20 01:55 · Score: 1

Not plasmas. There really aren't very many 1080p plasmas.

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Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
Re:1080p, me! by dohzer · 2006-09-20 01:56 · Score: 1

It's just a shame the sarcasm tags wouldn't also make the post funny.
Re:1080p, me! by PrvtBurrito · 2006-09-20 01:57 · Score: 1

Oops submitted too early. They are also very expensive. There are DLP and LCD options, though. The 24" Dell widescreen might suffice as well.

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Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
Re:1080p, me! by gatzke · 2006-09-20 02:05 · Score: 1

My 30" inch dell runs 1080P in a little window, since the native resolution is like 2650x1600...

Now I need 1600p video!
Re:1080p, me! by srk2040 · 2006-09-20 02:58 · Score: 2, Funny

Ummmm, when are we going to see some 1080p porn?
Re:1080p, me! by cailyoung · 2006-09-20 03:02 · Score: 1

ABC is now 720p; Nine and Ten's HD channels are at 1080i but very little programming is delivered that hasn't been upscaled at the broadcast end - generally all the primetime American dramas are 1080i, and there's a few morning shows that are as well. The problem is that up until the start of this year there just weren't enough broadcast-grade 1080i cameras in the country to produce the content. Big Brother 2006 changed that - it was produced entirely in 1080i - and then relayed and broadcast at 576i. Sigh.
Re:1080p, me! by Aladrin · 2006-09-20 03:07 · Score: 1, Offtopic

Nobody has definite plans to buy a luxury electronics more than a year out. The market is too unpredictable.

Having said that, at a guess, yeah, I'll probably buy a 1080p TV by then. My current one does 1366x768 native. It says it'll accept 1080 input (I forget which one) but of course it's going to downsample that.

I only paid $1700 for mine about 6 months ago. It's a Polaroid, so I didn't expect much from a cheap LCD, but I've been very very happy with it. I could wish it would accept the signal from the PC at 1366x768, for example... 1280x720 or 1600x1200 and it resamples both. Oh well. Still looks amazing.

My dad has historically bought all my TVs when I upgraded, so he's been asking (for like 4 months) "When are you going to sell me that TV?"

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"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Re:1080p, me! by grapeape · 2006-09-20 03:35 · Score: 1

from my experience in that industry...trust me you really dont want 1080p porn.
Re:1080p, me! by pyrote · 2006-09-20 06:49 · Score: 1

I could wish it would accept the signal from the PC at 1366x768

It can, get an NVidia card and go into the nView Display settings tree...
Click Device Settings, Treat digital display as HDTV.

you may need to go into the 'screen resolutions & Refresh rates' tree and click 'show standard HDTV formats' Worst case solution, add your own resolutuion in there.

I run a HDTV (1366x768) like this all the time... hell it'll take 1080p on that LCD and negate the need for anti-aliasing in games.

oh ya, turn off the auto-scaling on the monitor, XP only likes the resolution 1360x768.

Good luck

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THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
Re:1080p, me! by Petersson · 2006-09-20 07:20 · Score: 1

that confirms my opinion that HDTV is a porn killer.

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I'm not insane. My mother had me tested.
Re:1080p, me! by Hijammer · 2006-09-20 07:48 · Score: 1

I havw a 1080p 57" projection TV and it was under 3K.
Re:1080p, me! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 09:42 · Score: 0

Strike that... the truth is that porn is an HDTV killer. Look at what happened with Beta vs. VHS.... ;)
Re:1080p, me! by bxmnky · 2006-09-20 11:11 · Score: 1

There are quite a few 1080p plasmas on the market.... pioneer has some of the most exceptional ones.... but my main gripe is about the whole "HD" marketing ploy that has managed to draw everbody in.... I write this post on a 10 year old.... yes thats right.... 10 yr old monitor that does 1080p and then some... computer monitors (crt's) have been capable of high def for the longest time.... so why all the hype now? oh yes.... good ol capitalism.... he who has the best toys wins because it put more money in our pocket.. kinda like buying a hallmark card for valentines day.
Re:1080p, me! by Millenniumman · 2006-09-20 11:37 · Score: 1

Oh yeah? I have a WQUXGA screen. I can run 20x1080P videos at native resolution.

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Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Re:1080p, me! by Aladrin · 2006-09-20 11:40 · Score: 1

Thanks, but sorry. The TV manual specifically says it will only take certain resolutions as input from the PC. I did try that already, though.

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"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Re:1080p, me! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-21 15:10 · Score: 0

not true, i just purchased the westinghouse 37w3, a 37 inch 1080p LCd TV...so this xbox360 news just turned my day into christmas. Guess I'll be lugging my xbox360 from my 53inch 1080i livingroom hdtv to my 1080p LCD bedroom tv from time to time.
Re:1080p, me! by pyrote · 2006-09-21 16:35 · Score: 1

my manual says that too. try losing the VGA connector and using a video card that has DVI or component.

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THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
Re:1080p, me! by Aladrin · 2006-09-21 21:19 · Score: 1

I've used DVI from the start. I suspect that I could use component cables and make it happen, but my worry was that it be a worse image than the DVI port. Am I wrong? I know the difference between the VGA and DVI port on my last monitor was immense. (Mainly color.)

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"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM

2nd question by the_skywise · 2006-09-20 00:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why wasn't this turned on by default?!

Re:2nd question by pan0k · 2006-09-20 01:58 · Score: 1

$$$ - what do you expect?
Re:2nd question by zlogic · 2006-09-20 02:37 · Score: 1

Simple.
Microsoft: "We don't have 1080p".
Sony: "We'll be the only hi-def console! We are going to gain all hi-def marketshare! We'll base our entire strategy on hi-def!"
Microsoft, when Sony's console is about to be released: "We had hi-def the whole time! And because our console is sold for nearly a year, we have a lot more titles than PS3!"
This reminds me how Intel released their first 1Ghz chip only two days after AMD did theirs.
Re:2nd question by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 02:59 · Score: 0

It wasn't added until Sony scarred Microsoft into adding support so now Sony can't say thier console is the only one supporting "Full HD." It's not going to matter though since the 360 only renders games at 720 lines of vertical resolution and upscales for 1080i/p anyway.
Re:2nd question by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 21:00 · Score: 0

Wasn't it because 1080p wasn't locked down as a standard until *after* the Xbox 360 had been released?

more importantly... by maynard · 2006-09-20 00:34 · Score: 4, Informative

Is that 1080p/24, 1080p/30, or 1080p/60? Because 1080p/30 has the same bandwidth requirements as 1080i/60 (duh). I haven't seen from either Sony or MS any technical specs which indicate real 1080p/60 support, even over hdmi.

Re:more importantly... by gatzke · 2006-09-20 00:48 · Score: 1

Is there any way to check this on a monitor? I am currently looking into a 37" 1080p Westinghouse monitor (around $1500) but it would be nice to know if it does these 1080p versions. I am guessing the LCD sync rate can easily handle 24,30, and 60, but you never know.

How do you check this on a source? Do people publish this info? I have not seen much of it.

Where is a good source for X info for LCD screens? They have VGA inputs, but for linux/mythtv I think you may need a modeline to make it all pretty...
Re:more importantly... by cgicw · 2006-09-20 01:00 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure the PS3 is 1080p/60 as some of the 3rd party developers have mentioned running demos locked at 60fps in 1080p. I also have not heard anything concerning the framerates for the Xbox360 at 1080p.
Re:more importantly... by interiot · 2006-09-20 01:10 · Score: 1

I'm typing this on a 37" Westy as well... great display. CNET says it'll do 1080p/60, and there's a "system info" menu that mentions the vertical frequency.
Re:more importantly... by mitchskin · 2006-09-20 01:21 · Score: 3, Informative

I've got the Westinghouse LVM-37w3 hooked up to a PC over DVI, and it works great. It's doing 1920x1080 @ 60hz; when I watch DVDs the computer is doing the 24fps->60fps conversion. This does introduce some judder; it seems like the LCD ought to be able to do 24hz or a multiple thereof but I don't know how to do it.

The judder, by the way, is only rarely noticeable and is pretty much the same everywhere else AFAIK, but it would be nice to get rid of it. The software infrastructure for detecting the frame rate of the source and auto-switching the display mode just isn't there though. In other words, I want it to be 60hz most of the time, and automatically switch to 24 or 48 hz when I'm watching a DVD that originally came from a (24 fps) film source, but not when I'm watching a DVD that originally came from a (30 fps) video source. Getting the display and X and the media players to work together to do that is a little way off though AFAICT.

This is my X modeline:
ModeLine "1920x1080" 138.5 1920 1968 2000 2080 1080 1082 1087 1111
The standard autodetection/setup in Fedora Core 4 didn't set up the display right, but after trying it, I found the above numbers by looking in the X log output.
Re:more importantly... by gatzke · 2006-09-20 01:43 · Score: 1

Thanks for the useful info. Sounds like it could hold most frames in 24 fps signal for two frames, but 1/4 of the frames are held for three frames, to give 60 fps. Or do they actually process the frames and interpolate the signal to fill gaps I wonder.

Do the DVD players figure this crap out? Do they run both 24fps and 30 fps? The output to my analog tv is the same no matter, I assume.

If you rip it to HD, can you reencode a 24fps to 30 or 60 fps? It still judders, I assume...

Anybody got a suggestion on DVD player for upscaling to 1080p? Looks like you need one that can handle 24 and 30 fps on the fly...
Re:more importantly... by Malc · 2006-09-20 02:12 · Score: 1

It's called 3-2 pulldown, or something like that. It applies in NTSC regions. For PAL regions, DVDs run something like 4% faster at 25fps with no 3-2 pulldown.
Re:more importantly... by conigs · 2006-09-20 03:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

3:2 Pulldown is correct. The way it works is that when you have a 24fps source, and need to get it to traditional video (roughly 30fps/60 fields*), you have to repeate frames.

Here's how it works. Four film frames have to fit into 5 video fields/frames. Let's label these film frames A, B, C, and D. We'll use numbers for the video fields. So what you have is:

1.AA 2.BB 3.BC 4.CD 5.DD

Now for a 60 FRAME output, it's a little easier:

1.A 2.A 3.B 4.B 5.B 6.C 7.C 8.D 9.D 10.D

So, getting a 24fps source to a 30 fps output will require an interlaced signal, while displaying on a 60fps output translates much more directly.

Then there's the whole 3:2 pulldown removal in some TVs. And many DVDs today actually employ a 24fps source, but add the pulldown before sending it out through the composite/S-Video connections.

*Actually, it's 29.97fps. It has to do with the transition to color broadcast signals from B&W. If I'm not mistaken, this actualyl carries over to HD signals as well. They might actually be 23.976fps / 29.97fps / 59.94fps.

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Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
Re:more importantly... by kingsean · 2006-09-20 04:01 · Score: 2, Informative
FTA

You will finally be able to experience all 60 frames per second of visuals that your 1080p HDTV can provide. Unfortunately there has been no HDMI cable yet announced so this is only over component and VGA. Even better, users can expect 1080p upscaling immediately on current games and DVDs while native 1080p on compatible HD DVD titles.

Emphasis mine of course... I see a few problems with what's going on here.
1. I have never seen a television that is able to reproduce 1080p over component cables. Some units could probably be able to push a 1080p picture through component, but most limit that feature to a dvi-d interface. (I could very well be wrong, though, please correct me)
2. This is up-conversion. Therefore the games currently are sent natively through 720p (interchangeable with 1080i, no?) and upconverted to 1080p via the xbox. This picture is then sent to the television to handle. If the television can't handle it, I'm assuming it will end up 1080i.
3. In response to the article... If my first point is correct, that no television can take a component 1080p signal and display it, then there can be no native "1080p games" developed.
Re:more importantly... by maynard · 2006-09-20 04:20 · Score: 1

It's my understanding (from reading AVS Forum threads) that component actually has the bandwidth to support 1080p/60 (even if no HDTV manufacturer yet supports it). However, due to the influence of media conglomerates (MPAA) the migration to 1080p/60 will be limited to hdmi for content protection purposes. RE: conversion from 1080i to 1080p/30, that's simple de-interlacing - store one interlaced frame in memory, grab the next frame, combine, pass progressive frame to display. That's why there's no bandwidth difference between 1080i and 1080p/30 - it's exactly the same data. Upconverted 720p is different is another beast entirely, since that defaults to 60fps. Presumably upconverting 720p to 1080p/60 would look noticeably better than upconverting to 1080i, especially for fast action and panning scenes like viewing sports.
Re:more importantly... by ben+there... · 2006-09-20 09:34 · Score: 1

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most movies still shot on 24 fps film?

And DVDs/HDDVDs/BluRay are either p/24 or telecined to i/60?

And reconstructing (IVTC) p/24 from i/60 looks exactly the same as p/24?

You need p/60 source film or broadcasts for p/60 TVs to do anything useful. Unless "upscaling to 1080p" in games means something different than for movies, in which case you might see some benefit for games.

Raises Hand by aesiamun · 2006-09-20 00:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

I have my 360 hooked up to my 50" Grand Vega 1080p. I honestly haven't experienced anything where I can compare 720p to 1080p when it comes to games, but if the difference is as good as it is with Video, i'll be happy!

Bad surprise by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:34 · Score: 0

Again Microsoft have the best cards on their hand, and they seem to play them right. I like having the option not to buy a expensive _might-be_ nextgen drive. /duckie

The Perils of Today's Console by eldavojohn · 2006-09-20 00:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p? Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?

I agree with you. Most of the time, I'm a good little consumer and prefer all the options possible on whatever I buy. A console is no different. And 1080p entices me. I'm not willing to pay two or three times more for this functionality but I would certainly enjoy knowing that if ever displays capable of this resolution drop in price, I can take advantage of them.

The primary problems is that games for consoles usually are only made for that console for about 3~4 years. So the price drop on 1080p displays has to drop in that time frame to give me a bit of time to enjoy it.

A secondary problem I see is that consoles are consoles. They're supposed to be a standardized unit in which I can assure myself that everyone is having the same playing experience. This seems to no longer be true with the different models of Xbox360 or PS3 they are planning. And, frankly, it turns me off a bit. Is it a good thing that consoles are becoming more like computers? And if it is, why aren't we just buying a special USB controller from these companies and running everything on our computers?

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My work here is dung.

Re:The Perils of Today's Console by LoudMusic · 2006-09-20 00:45 · Score: 2, Interesting

The primary problems is that games for consoles usually are only made for that console for about 3~4 years. So the price drop on 1080p displays has to drop in that time frame to give me a bit of time to enjoy it.

I was going to make my own parent post but you pretty much summed it up already so I'm just going to bandwagon.

A secondary problem I see is that consoles are consoles. They're supposed to be a standardized unit in which I can assure myself that everyone is having the same playing experience. This seems to no longer be true with the different models of Xbox360 or PS3 they are planning. And, frankly, it turns me off a bit. Is it a good thing that consoles are becoming more like computers? And if it is, why aren't we just buying a special USB controller from these companies and running everything on our computers?

I've not done any research lately, but with other advancements surely it's on its way. What I'm talking about is a Linux based 'console' distribution that runs on a PC. Take a DVD, smack a super trimmed down bootable Linux image and a game on it. Throw it in a PC and you're gaming. Create hardware standards that the disk checks for during boot. At certain intervals the standard could be increased. Now you have a decent 'console' system without the detriment of selling hardware units at a loss. I dunno, maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like an idea worth kicking around.

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No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by mattsday · 2006-09-20 01:04 · Score: 1

This seems to no longer be true with the different models of Xbox360 or PS3 they are planning.
AFAIK, the 1080p upgrade for the 360 will be little more than a firmware upgrade...
Matt

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Now there's one hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is!
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by Zach978 · 2006-09-20 01:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

I dunno, maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like an idea worth kicking around.

I think you're crazy. PC's are more expensive than consoles, and they have windows, so just release the game for windows. You don't have to reboot the box, you can Alt-Tab and get on ICQ or IM, or check your email. You can click on content on a website that will launch the game right then (ie., a replay, a new map, a server to play on). People like consoles becuase they are cheap, they can get the games at blockbuster, they ALWAY work, and one of my biggest things is that you can play from the couch. I sit at a computer all day at work, going home and sitting on the computer doesn't sound good to me.

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"I told you a million times not to exaggerate!"
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:22 · Score: 1, Funny

why aren't we just buying a special USB controller from these companies and running everything on our computers?

You mean the $30 xbox360 controller i bought for my PC doesn't make me an xbox360 owner ???
Heck, now i'm starting to understéand why all those "xbox marketplace" games come as a .torrent file and the "xbox live" client is called "xfire"
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by rcamera · 2006-09-20 01:22 · Score: 0

A secondary problem I see is that consoles are consoles. They're supposed to be a standardized unit in which I can assure myself that everyone is having the same playing experience.

i picked up a used n64 the other day and went to play one of the zelda games. on startup, i got a message stating that i could not play the game because i did not have the n64 expansion card. apparently, consoles have been upgradealbe for a long time now. in the n64 case, not having the upgrade causes certain games to not even play.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by Jonny_eh · 2006-09-20 01:26 · Score: 1

Your looking at the problem the wrong way. The PC is not going to make the console obsolete, it's the other way around!
People can have a laptop and a console. The two combined will give you everything you need that a current PC can offer you. Don't forget that the Wii is going to support web browsing.

I've always bought desktop PCs because I'm into gaming, but since I got my 360, I felt it was too costly to keep my PC up to date. And I just can't be bothered to play games at my desk anymore. Instead, I'm going to buy a laptop (a macbook, now that I don't play games), and play games on my 360.

I have my hacked xbox for playing downloaded digital content on my TV too. Apple's iTV should fill in that gap nicely for the ordinary consumer when it's released.

Summary: Generalized PC is on the outs (not gone but less important), specialized devices (ipod, iTV, xbox 360) are in.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:43 · Score: 1, Insightful

But the developers can't assume anything about the resolution of the screen any more. If they want to provide HD content, but don't want to block out everyone who are still using standard televisions, they'll end up having to run and test it on several different configurations which is starting to leach away the console's advantage to developers.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by Einstein_101 · 2006-09-20 01:50 · Score: 1

Yet another common misconception I'd love to see die.

Laptop have major speficification restraints that will never allow them to surpass PC. Heating problems limit what kind of parts you can put in there. Laptops also runs on AC power, which isn't strong enough to power those GeForce 7900 GT's that serious gamers run (usually in SLI mode I might add...) Space limitations restrict space, and pratically eliminate upgradability, making it damn near impossible to have the drive space needed for those who like to make their tivo boxes. More importantly, I can't crack open my laptop and fix/replace parts myself like I can with my desktop.

With laptops, you usually get equal performance (at best), for double the price of what you'd pay for the pc. That alone assures me desktops aren't going anywhere.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by kamapuaa · 2006-09-20 02:31 · Score: 1

Did you not read the part where he said he doesn't play PC games? Most non-gamers don't give a fuck about Geforce 7900s or whatever.

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Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by AcidLacedPenguiN · 2006-09-20 02:31 · Score: 1

meh, you're not missing much, that was the one that sucked.

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disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by InsaneProcessor · 2006-09-20 02:40 · Score: 1

Just one more reason I won't buy a XBOX!

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Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by vhogemann · 2006-09-20 03:57 · Score: 1

I'm with you.

Add a USBDrive to the mix, and you can save games, and custom preferences without messing with the local HD.

You know what, somebody should start such a distro. Knoppix already gives you good hardware detection, and Morphix adds modularity to the mix. A Nexuiz or EnemyTerritory LiveCD should be easy enought to setup... I can see one with small networked RTS too, such as Boson, Stratagus and NetPanzer.

If made right, you can make it dead simple to create your own customized LinuxUberGamerLiveDVD, as Morphix gives you all the modularity needed.

Also, this can have a huge impact on the distribuition of game demos. Today, we have to mess with our Windows installation, or with several wine issues, to test some game... But if they came on a bootable CD, it would be a much better experience!

Humm, seems that I have a reason to test that Google Project hosting now ;-)

--
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by DragonWriter · 2006-09-20 04:04 · Score: 1

The primary problems is that games for consoles usually are only made for that console for about 3~4 years. So the price drop on 1080p displays has to drop in that time frame to give me a bit of time to enjoy it.

So, since PS2 games started being released in 2000, they stopped making PS2 games in 2003 or 2004?

And PS games stopped being produced in 1997 or 1998?

Games for a given console will continue being made as long as there are a market for them; further, you can use a game when it is no longer being made, if you have it, so if you get a game for a console before you get a 1080p display, you can still enjoy the 1080p features if they stop making the game before you get the 1080p display.

And if it is, why aren't we just buying a special USB controller from these companies and running everything on our computers?

Uh, you can. If you think that's what you should be doing, there are plenty of gamepad-style controllers and games for computers. Personally, I'd rather play Civ IV, The Sims, or Rome: Total War on a computer, and I'd rather play most racing, sports, or GTA-style (what to call that? "Third-person shooter?") games on a console. So that's what I do, mostly. No one is holding a gun to your head and making you play games on a console if that's not what you want to do.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by smbarbour · 2006-09-20 04:28 · Score: 1

GTA-style (what to call that? "Third-person shooter?")

Technically... Grand Theft Auto (and any copycats) would be considered RPGs. It's just not of the typical Fantasy/Sci-Fi variety.

Think about it: Missions = Quests, and although I'm only really familiar with San Andreas, you do have skills that gain experience as you use them. The only convention that isn't there is character levels.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by RESPAWN · 2006-09-20 04:36 · Score: 1

3DO tried something similiar back in the early 90's. As well as their console, you could purchase a 3DO Blaster for your PC which would allow you to play 3DO games on your PC. It failed miserably. http://assembler.roarvgm.com/3do_blaster/3do_blast er.html

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If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by staticneuron · 2006-09-20 04:39 · Score: 1

"A secondary problem I see is that consoles are consoles. They're supposed to be a standardized unit in which I can assure myself that everyone is having the same playing experience. This seems to no longer be true with the different models of Xbox360 or PS3 they are planning. And, frankly, it turns me off a bit. Is it a good thing that consoles are becoming more like computers? And if it is, why aren't we just buying a special USB controller from these companies and running everything on our computers?" While that may hold true for the 360 it does not for the PS3. The higher end SKU has slightly more space,wifi, and and hdmi port but that does not change how programmers will dev the game. The most important components remain the same so the devs only have to keep the lowest common denominator in mind which is ok because the Higher end does nothing for performance.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by MattSausage · 2006-09-20 04:56 · Score: 1

For what its worth, the 360 wired controller plugs into a USB port on the PC and I've been playing the PC version of Madden 07
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by RoadDoggFL · 2006-09-20 05:17 · Score: 1

"Space limitations restrict space..."
So that's what they do...

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"This is considered plagiarism."
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by kieran42 · 2006-09-20 06:19 · Score: 1

So the price drop on 1080p displays has to drop in that time frame to give me a bit of time to enjoy it.

I just bought a 1080p 42" Westinghouse LCD LVM-42W2 "monitor" (there's no tuner, so it's technically a monitor) for less than $2k - the price has already dropped in my book!

I for one am glad to see the new consoles supporting full HD. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that my PS2 and GameCube both sucked so badly in the HD department :-(
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 06:43 · Score: 0

Westinghouse?!

*cough*

My friend, in two months you will understand why that particular monitor was a steal.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by hardburn · 2006-09-20 09:01 · Score: 1

Very true, and it goes back further than that. The FX chip for the Super Nintendo (what Star Fox came with) was essentially a graphics accelerator. The Sega Genessis had 32-bit expander and CD drive upgrades.

However, most of the upgrades flop. Nintendo alone has a long line of extra accessories and ideas, starting with R.O.B. and going to the GC -> GBA hookup, that were used in a few games and then discarded. The FX chip is an exception because it was integrated into the cartridge. Even that was only used on a handful of games (though Star Fox was obviously very popular at the time).

If you're going to make upgrades work on consoles, you need to have an extremely awsome game that everybody wants and is willing to spend the extra cash on the upgrade. Zelda: Majora's Mask was almost such a game, since (after the awsomeness of Ocarina) everyone was itching for more Zelda.

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Not a typewriter
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by krakass · 2006-09-20 09:36 · Score: 0

The developers can just put the patch on the game disk and require it to be installed before you can play.
Re:The Perils of Today's Console by DragonWriter · 2006-09-20 10:31 · Score: 1

Technically... Grand Theft Auto (and any copycats) would be considered RPGs.

I think (perhaps because I'm a long time tabletop RPGer) of "RPG" as a content rather than interface description. I agree that GTA is an RPG, and come to think of it, most current CRPGs use a similar interface, so perhaps that is the best label for what I'm thinking of.

Fancy but no more by eebra82 · 2006-09-20 00:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

While I do think that 1080p is a great thing, I doubt it is going to make people go crazy about it simply because 1080p is still a few years away from major distribution.

Some people will already be on 1080p and a few already are, but any sane company would go for the masses, not the less than 1 percent cake of people who are looking for top notch hardware.

I am definitely waiting for 1080p as my next TV replacement, but anything above $2,000 is just not gonna do it for me, so I'll wait a little longer and stick to 720p, which is also very nice.

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Full Tilt

Re:Fancy but no more by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:59 · Score: 1, Insightful

if you haven't found a 1080p for under 2,000 yet, then you are lookin in the wrong places my friend. while i paid 2200 for my 50" sony sxrd, i have seen plenty of DLP models for under 2000.
Re:Fancy but no more by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:02 · Score: 0

I already use 1080p I have been using it for over a year and I can't see myself using anything less, the thing is that people don't know what they are missing. Once you get top experience the quality there is no going back. lol. Even on a projection TV 1080p look very good and amazing. now if cable companies in the us decided to puush media giants to better standards.
Re:Fancy but no more by hador_nyc · 2006-09-20 01:59 · Score: 1

I am definitely waiting for 1080p as my next TV replacement, but anything above $2,000 is just not gonna do it for me, so I'll wait a little longer and stick to 720p, which is also very nice.
Westinghouse 42 inch LCD is below $2000 in the US. I saw one at a major US retailer for $1599 and free shipping.

No, I don't work for them, but I do enjoy that TV. I bought it from another company for $1800 earlier this year.

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- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
Re:Fancy but no more by timeOday · 2006-09-20 02:26 · Score: 2, Informative

It is just Microsoft stealing bragging rights from Sony. One less way for Sony to argue the PS3 is worth the high price.
Re:Fancy but no more by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 03:11 · Score: 0

Westinghouse have just changed their prices. The 47" now comes in at $1999, if you can find anyone with stocks. So yes, you can now buy a 47" 1920x1080 1080p monitor for less than two grand. But don't go rushing off to sites like J&R just yet, next month is supposed to have a number of manufacturers entering this very arena, so we may have a little price war just before crimbo :-D
Re:Fancy but no more by DrEldarion · 2006-09-20 07:02 · Score: 1

I am definitely waiting for 1080p as my next TV replacement, but anything above $2,000 is just not gonna do it for me

1080p-capable sets are cheaper than you think. You can get a 42" Westinghouse 1080p LCD for $1599 at Best Buy right now (and get a free home theater system with it...). The 37" version of this set has been around for $1199 (not sure of current prices).
Re:Fancy but no more by Geekboy(Wizard) · 2006-09-20 09:18 · Score: 1

its a software update that enables it. not additional hardware. so why not make it an option for those of us that have compatible hardware.

btw, you can get 1080p displays for less thant $2000. I got mine for $1400. Westinghouse 37w3. 37" of purdy 1080p colours. Doesn't include any tuners, but if you have cable or satellite, you won't care.
Re:Fancy but no more by josh.m.vh · 2006-09-20 09:55 · Score: 1

Yeah, because if the PS3 launches at 600$ and the Xbox360 is 400$ + the HD-DVD attachment of 200$, they sure are sticking it to them huh?!

Does DVI LCD count? by emj · 2006-09-20 00:35 · Score: 0

me, but I guess I never am going to be able to connect my LCD to a gaming rig..

Re:Does DVI LCD count? by gEvil+(beta) · 2006-09-20 00:56 · Score: 1

Well, if they ever release an HDMI cable for the 360 you'll be in luck...

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This guy's the limit!

I do by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:36 · Score: 0

I have a samsung DLP with native 1080P. Just bought it a month ago and that is one of the reasons why I bought the TV for the 1080P. I also have my xbox360 hooked up to my DLP. So to me that would be awesome, now we just need MS to make an HDMI cable for the 360 and we will be set!

random number with a letter at the end by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:39 · Score: 0

Now honestly, show of hands: who knew what 1080p was before googling it?

Re:random number with a letter at the end by Constantine+XVI · 2006-09-20 00:54 · Score: 5, Informative

1080 lines of resolution, progressive scan (shows every line in every frame). You can thank me later.

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"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Re:random number with a letter at the end by mpathetiq · 2006-09-20 01:21 · Score: 1

*raises hand*

I think the better question would be who didn't know what 1080p meant.

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Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
Re:random number with a letter at the end by UltimApe · 2006-09-20 04:13 · Score: 1

1080p means no more page tearing on fast moving objects! yay for crisp clear images.

bob and weave

p > i

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"Infecting minds with my own memetic virus, one post at a time." Ultimape

7 Years Late by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:39 · Score: 0

So what. My TNT2 Ultra on my K6/2 400 back in 1999 could play Quake 3 at 1024x760. Nowadays I have a bargain basement graphics card ($40) that does most things at 1600x1200 without breaking a sweat.

Why would I want a games console? Especially one from the Evil Empire.

Re:7 Years Late by EGSonikku · 2006-09-20 01:05 · Score: 4, Informative

err, you do realise 1080p is 1920x1080 right?

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- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Re:7 Years Late by Ant+P. · 2006-09-20 02:27 · Score: 1

Why would I want a games console?

Because it's more power/space-efficient?
Re:7 Years Late by buysse · 2006-09-20 04:26 · Score: 1

Err, you do realize that 1600x1200 is about 93% of the resolution for 1080p (in total pixels rendered), right? It's a very, very small difference. Not defending the PC gamers vs. the Console gamers (I actually use both, and tend to prefer the consoles for most games, but I'll be dead before I play Civ4 without a mouse and keyboard.)

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-30-
Re:7 Years Late by SeattleGameboy · 2006-09-20 07:38 · Score: 1

Err, you do realize that for $40, the best graphics card you can buy is either Nvidia 5xxx series (may be 6200LE) or ATI 95xx series, right? You tell me how many frames per second you get with that running 3D games at 1600 by 1200 resolution. You would be lucky to get 10 to 15.
Re:7 Years Late by buysse · 2006-09-20 16:46 · Score: 1

I was only commenting on the parent, who seemed to imply that there was a very large difference between 1080p and 1600x1200 -- I'm not gonna judge the cards available. He just annoyed me by ignoring basic math. ;)

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-30-

Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Criffer · 2006-09-20 00:41 · Score: 2, Interesting

Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?

Me. Just as soon as I can find one without Digital Compatibility Prevention.

Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by ldhertert · 2006-09-20 00:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

The 360 1080p is not over HDCP, it's over component.
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Criffer · 2006-09-20 01:00 · Score: 1

Yes, but that's not the point. I want a TV capable of native 1080p, with digital inputs (even if they're not used on the 360), and without any Draconian Restrictions on Media.
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:45 · Score: 1, Interesting

You will not be able to purchase it. Ever. They will keep trying to slam a lock on the content (and failing) until consumers at large (read as "ever clueless sheeple") get tired of and offended at being treated like thieves when they're distinctly not. This is unlikely to ever happen.

Instead, I would just sit back and enjoy the show as multiple groups discover multiple ways around the system. Since professional cryptographers have already demonstrated that public key cryptography can *never* work for a system like this, all we have to do is wait for someone unafraid of the DMCA to develop some useful hacks.

Fair Use will be reclaimed at some point. At that point, I won't be buying DRM'd media in support of the men that purchased these draconian laws, but I will pick up new hardware and hack it to work the way I like it. Then I'll probably e-mail the RIAA and MPAA to inform them I've done it, just to make sure they know that I don't want DRM, nor will I tolerate it.

Honestly, I'm not against companies being allowed to use DRM. By all means do so, and suffer when market forces stuff you in a garbage can for treating customers like thieves. I'm only against laws that cram it forcefully down my throat and the men that purchase those laws. Both should be publically drawn and quartered.
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Palshife · 2006-09-20 01:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

Color me confused, but any TV you buy is free of these draconian measures. HDMI is an interconnect. HDCP is a protocol that may or may not be in use over that link. On top of that, HDMI is DVI.

Check out Westinghouse's selection of 1080p monitors. They have no tuners, which makes them trend-agnostic when it comes to that can of worms. They support all the HD resolutions and they have HDMI and DVI connections in addition to all the component, s-video and composite you could neeed. The digital ports are able to communicate using HDCP, but again, it's not compulsory unless your source device is demanding it.

Sounds to me like your beef is not with the TV's, but with the content providers. Of course, if your point is that you wont buy any device that has the ability to use HDCP, that's a different story.

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Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Criffer · 2006-09-20 02:02 · Score: 1

if your point is that you wont buy any device that has the ability to use HDCP, that's a different story

That is exactly my point. HDCP should be boycotted, and I will not buy any equipment which subscribes to such draconian measures. That means no players, no consoles, no screens, no scalers, no tuners, and no mixers which have the ability to either encode or decode HDCP.

Whether it uses DVI or HDMI or HD-SDI is irrelevant. HDMI is actually quite a good cabling specification (although given that HD-SDI (with embedded six-channel AES audio) goes over coax, rather expensive); HDCP however, which can be present on any digital link, is what I am boycotting.
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by stu42j · 2006-09-20 02:27 · Score: 1

I don't really get it. Is it just the principle or does HDCP actually prevent you from doing something useful?
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Schraegstrichpunkt · 2006-09-20 02:52 · Score: 1

It prevents you from doing EVERYTHING except what is explicitly allowed. Goodbye, creativity.

--
http://outcampaign.org/
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by mofag · 2006-09-20 02:57 · Score: 0

Hmmm, am looking at buying a wall projector and wondering whether I should get one that supports HDCP. Clearly I am not in favour of such schemes but it seems like, things being what they are, it is desirable to buy viewers which support HDCP and players which circumvent it. Is that correct or have I missed something? Do I need to jump on or steer clear or can I play both sides?
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by heinousjay · 2006-09-20 03:11 · Score: 1

What sort of creativity are you referencing? Is it creative to rip a DVD and make a torrent out of it?

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Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by heinousjay · 2006-09-20 05:21 · Score: 1

You said "sheeple" and I stopped reading. I assume your point was probably stupid.

--
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 05:25 · Score: 0

HDCP prevents me from connecting a STB to my 19" and 24" WS LCD monitors. I have to use the downgraded analog signal. Why should the content providers prevent me from using two nice displays digitally? The 24" is 1920x1200, slight higher resolution that top end HDTV, yet apparently I'm not allowed to use it at its best.

Now thing of all those people that think that have HD TVs that aren't HDCP compatible. They'll have to replace their sets if they want to connect up digitally to the HD services, or put up with analog connections. I can't wait for the outrage to start.

Interestingly, HDMI isn't supported by my cable company, they say it still have a number of issues that DVI doesn't. There is also a image quality issue with HDMI because it doesn't use the full 8 bit range for some reason. avsforums is loaded with people complaining of image colors over HDMI that are fine over DVI.
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 06:02 · Score: 0

How do you rip a DVD and create a torrent with a HDMI HDCP encumbered TV? Pirates can already buy HDCP strippers for $300, but the connection cable has nothing to do with DVDs. You can just pop it on any computer and rip the contents. Their is no need for HDCP on TVs. Why do you accuse someone of something, just because you cannot come up with a reason for HDCP to be built into a number of devices, and those costs passed on to the consumer. HDCP is not a feature, it's a restictions mechanism!
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Palshife · 2006-09-20 06:09 · Score: 1

HDCP prevents me from connecting a STB to my 19" and 24" WS LCD monitors.
This makes no sense. HDCP doesn't prevent you from using an unencrypted signal on the port. If your set has HDMI and your set-top box has DVI, you can connect a set-top PC to it using an HDMI-DVI cable. If you can't then something's wrong with your TV. I'd take it back.

--
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Schraegstrichpunkt · 2006-09-20 06:36 · Score: 1

I'm referring to making hardware that interfaces with other hardware that implements HDCP. Copy protection is an interoperability disaster by design.

--
http://outcampaign.org/
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by stu42j · 2006-09-20 06:51 · Score: 1

I was hoping for some actual examples. What kind of hardware would you be building if not for HDCP?
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Criffer · 2006-09-20 08:37 · Score: 1

Which is exactly why I coined the more accurate acronym expansion "Digital Compatibility Prevention".

I can't wait for the fun when a major manufacturer - say Sony or LG - gets hacked and has their HDCP key spread over the net and hence revoked. And everyone's TV stops doing what was paid for because of stupid restrictions. That is the danger of HDCP, and its further-reaching brother DRM (Draconian Restrictions on Media) - that a company you have never heard of can, remotely, disable your equipment. Through no fault of your own, you get labelled a thief, and you're left with a pile of junk that doesn't work.
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Schraegstrichpunkt · 2006-09-20 10:06 · Score: 1

What, so I have to invent something in order for you to accept that somebody might invent something?

I dunno, something like MythTV maybe?

--
http://outcampaign.org/
Re:Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by Palshife · 2006-09-20 15:17 · Score: 1

Your concerns on DRM are founded, but they don't apply here. HDCP devices can't be remotely disabled.

--
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!

Don't need it by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:41 · Score: 0

640x480 ought to be enough for any*whack*. ;)

Re:Don't need it by HoboMaster · 2006-09-20 03:31 · Score: 1

"640x480 ought to be enough for any*whack*."

No, I require porn at higher than 640x480.

--
Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.

(Raises hand!) by nweaver · 2006-09-20 00:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

The next TV I buy, when the dinky current one gives up the ghost whenever, WILL be 1080p.

Why? Because the true 1080p, rear projection, 50" TVs are not much more expensive than a 1080i TV, but I plan on hooking up a Mac Mini or similar computer output, thus I'd want all the pixels when displaying text etc on the big screen.

--
Test your net with Netalyzr

Re:(Raises hand!) by arivanov · 2006-09-20 00:53 · Score: 3, Informative

In that case what you should be looking is the supported res and if it is supported on the DVI (or analogue VGA) inputs. These are quite different from the HD ones. For example, recent JVC LT26 LCD tvs support HD 1080p, but their native panel resolution is actually 1366x768. Frankly, I have no idea what is the supported frequency and resolution on the VGA input as it is not written anywhere.

--
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Re:(Raises hand!) by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:44 · Score: 0

support HD 1080p, but their native panel resolution is actually 1366x768

I think that's called "HD Ready", which means the screen can somehow display an HD stream (you could even label a gameboy B&W screen "HD Ready", provided it had a hd-compatible downscaler).

Screens that can actually display 1080 lines of content are called "Full HD"...
Re:(Raises hand!) by rsk · 2006-09-20 01:54 · Score: 1

Nicholas,
That is a nobel endevor and one I fully support. I just wanted to add that every 1080p set out right now (the new Sony A2000s, the Samsung 87 series and the Mits 731/732/831 series) all create a bit of overscan, on par with about 3% when displaying a PC signal. So if this is a huge thing for you, make sure the set you are looking at provides adjustments to correct for this, or even your PC can do it (but only if it's hooked up over a VGA (uggg) or DVI (yay) connection, over DVI->HDMI the PC cannot get timing information and most won't understand what they are hooked up to, in which case you will need to rely on the set for the correction controls.
Re:(Raises hand!) by gEvil+(beta) · 2006-09-20 02:18 · Score: 1

"HD Ready" identifies whether it is simply a monitor or if a tuner is included. If it includes an HD tuner, it is a full HDTV. As to whether it's "HD" or not, if it displays a minimum of 1280x720 (720p), then it is HD.

--
This guy's the limit!
Re:(Raises hand!) by _Swank · 2006-09-20 02:26 · Score: 1

at least earlier in the HDTV cycle i believe that 'HD Ready' actually meant that it could display HD signals (720p and/or 1080i) but did not have a built-in HD tuner capable of receiving and processing the HD signal so you'd need another piece of equipment (typically a cable or satellite box) that would do this for you.
Re:(Raises hand!) by djbentle · 2006-09-20 03:32 · Score: 1

This isn't much of a problem with the latest graphics drivers. I have a native 1920x1080 display with some overscan. NVidia's drivers, and I believe ATI's too, although I have no experience there, allow you to specifiy a resolution within a resolution. So I set the screen resolution to be something like 1876x980 (just made up for an example) and it runs with the 1920x1080 timings so that I have 1 to 1 pixel mapping, with little or no overscan, at a slightly lower that 1920x1080 resolution. It works through the DVI to HDMI connector, since it's done manually, there is no communication necessary.
Re:(Raises hand!) by fanblade · 2006-09-20 08:23 · Score: 1

A word of advice: be sure that you don't get a TV with pixels so small that your computer's text will become unreadable. I'm running Windows XP on a 50" DLP at native 720p and even with large fonts enabled I have a tough time reading my file names from 20 feet away. My browser is viewable but only because I enlarge the fonts, but even that doesn't work on some pages and causes others to lose their formatting.

If you do the math, a 1080p TV needs to be 75" or more just to have as big of pixels as my current TV. Therefore, I will not upgrade to 1080p until I can afford an 80" TV (or switch to an HD projector). The pixels are just too small to read normal sized text across a living room.
Re:(Raises hand!) by arivanov · 2006-09-20 08:44 · Score: 1
Yes, but WTF does it display as a monitor. Every HD TV I have looked on the market does not say a word on any of the following:
- Can it sync to a video signal in its native resolution on the DVI or VGA and if so at what max frequency and with what latency?
- What other resolutions are supported and does it shrink to fit or display them partially?
--
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Re:(Raises hand!) by dougnet · 2006-09-20 09:38 · Score: 1

I just purchased a 1080p 42" LCD "monitor" (TV with no TV tuner built-in).
https://www.westinghousedigital.com/pc-44-7-42-108 0p-monitor.aspx
While this probably isn't a brand that people search out, it's a solid monitor that has three digital inputs: 1 HDMI, 2 DVI; and it has several analog inputs: 1 vga, 2 component, 1 svideo, 1 composite. All three digital inputs have HDCP, which I know people may baulk at, but the bottom line is that you'll need that support for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players. My cable box is only capable of 1080i, but I have connected two of my PC's to it and get true 1920 x 1080 resolution, which was reason enough for me to buy it. I had a 10 year-old CRT-based TV and wanted a new HDTV I could hang on the wall to eliminte my entertainment center. When you can get a 42" LCD (no burn-in worries for console or computer use) with 1080p output for a bit over $1500 US, why on earth would you spend more $$ to get something with lower resolution ? Maybe there are very few things that use 1080p right now, but I expect to use this for more than 5 years, and I'm sure in 2 years it will be common place. I consider $1500 to be a huge (bordering on excessive) expense for a TV, so I want it to last a long time. So having 1080p will not leave me wishing I had higher resolution down the line. It's less expensive than most other brands, even in the 37" range, and prices keep dropping....

What does this mean for monitors? by DrXym · 2006-09-20 00:43 · Score: 1

My LCD monitor does 1080p just fine. What would have happened up until now if I plugged an XBox 360 into it?

Re:What does this mean for monitors? by mattsday · 2006-09-20 01:07 · Score: 2, Informative

Assuming you'd used the VGA input, you'd simply select the best resolution in the xbox dashboard (currently 1360x768 or 1280x1024 highest)
Matt

--
Now there's one hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is!
Re:What does this mean for monitors? by albino+eatpod · 2006-09-20 01:11 · Score: 1

Presumably your monitor supports 1080i and/or 720p. If so, you can select which resolution you want from the 360 Dashboard.
Re:What does this mean for monitors? by Blakey+Rat · 2006-09-20 02:43 · Score: 2, Informative

Just FYI, 1280x1024 is a bad choice because, while it's supported by Microsoft, a lot of game developers don't correctly adapt to the strange 1.25:1 aspect ratio and so games will have a tendency to either have black bars or be squished strangely. The dashboard, and all Microsoft-developed games will work correctly, as they test for that, but anything else is kind of a gamble.

--
Comment of the year

Right here! by Last_Available_Usern · 2006-09-20 00:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

Show of hands? Sure, I'll bite, I'm on of em. I have a 1080p set on it's way, and so do a lot of other people. Although a little pricey (but coming down all the time), every one of the highend Sony Bravia LCD's (40", 46", and soon-to-be 52") all support it. Lots of other manufacturers are chugging them out too. Don't be so quick to think Microsoft wasted their time on this. This is quite possibly the best reason for people who are buying new TV's now to get the XBOX360 instead of waiting for the PS3.

Re:Right here! by RhettLivingston · 2006-09-20 00:51 · Score: 1

I don't know about others, but my first 760 TV was purchased because I purchased an XBox and of course wanted the nicest display possible for it. The day I purchase a 1080p capable XBox, I will of course also purchase the nicest display possible for it. The console is neither the most important nor the most expensive portion of the gaming system in my mind.
Re:Right here! by MMC+Monster · 2006-09-20 03:44 · Score: 1

I have one as well. 1080p 50" DLP. Love it. Can't wait to get a MacMini (or maybe a Mac iTV?) to hook up to it.

For those who make enough money, it's well worth it. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. (Obviously)

--
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.

Are you kidding? by Mark_Uplanguage · 2006-09-20 00:44 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Of course my console (PS2) is hooked up to my big screen TV (54" at 4:3), which is HD capable. Of course I haven't gotten an HD tuner yet (don't feel the value is there), but I'd love to see what the heck this is going to look like. It's just going to take a while before I get a PS3 or XBox or Wii, until after I know they're all available and have good titles out. Honestly I'm completely up for grabs by any console that impresses me with the most value (please don't respond with invalid assumptions about what my sense of 'value' is). Hooray for competition!

--
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." -- Albert Einstein

Well by Sv-Manowar · 2006-09-20 00:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is all great from Microsoft, but the TV's really need to start catching up. In the UK there are barely any true HD units out, the rest just replicate it even when branded as HD, which means that not only will this not help our gaming, but it will be pretty much redundant for most of the life of the console thanks to the saturation of HDTV in the UK being so slow. I think Microsoft definitely need to think about their target markets more and how technology is improving there, because it is all well and good making the console excellent for those who can run it on top-notch hardware - but that is bound to be a small percentage of those who buy the console.

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Business Voyeur

Microsoft's Credibility Drops To Zero by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:45 · Score: 0

http://ozymandias.com/archive/2006/08/14/Home-Thea ter-Magazine_3A00_-No-Difference-Between-1080i-and -1080p-for-Movies.aspx

Andre Vrignaud from Microsoft:

"What's interesting is that a lot of folks don't realize how meaningless 1080p actually is in this generation."

"To sum up, don't get sucked into all the 1080p hype. Just make sure you have a recent HDTV that de-interlaces 1080i signals correctly and you'll be just fine."

360 games are already struggling to handle 720p with low framerates, screen tearing, affine filtering almost completely absent, and eye jarring jaggies riddling almost every game due to the screwed up ATI graphics system and the too small 10megs of EDRAM. The 360 was a machine designed for 480p - a 480p 4xAA framebuffer fits PERFECTLY in the 10megs of EDRAM.

And now Microsoft is trying to claim 1080p game support???

Microsoft, your credibility in the console market has just about reached bottom after the insane hardware defects and botched backwards compatibility and too small DVD drive that developers are complaining about.

Golf clap Microsoft...

Interlaced Vs Progressive by Phatboy · 2006-09-20 00:47 · Score: 1

If it is 1080p/30, I don't want it. 1080i with 60 fields per second will be superior.

Both have the same amount of detail, as they have the same resolution. But the interlaced version will feel smoother, because it's updating the screen twice as often.

So, is this just a vacuous PR stunt to try to get more attention back onto the 360? Surely not.

Re:Interlaced Vs Progressive by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 02:16 · Score: 0

Yes, but it is updating the screen with half the information. What you want is 1080p at 60 Hz. Unfortunately, Microsoft is only upscaling its games (no games on their console run natively as 1080 i or p). So you are basically not getting anything but a computer algorithm trying to trick you into believing you did not over-spend on your latest console.
Re:Interlaced Vs Progressive by Kjella · 2006-09-20 02:39 · Score: 2, Informative

Both have the same amount of detail, as they have the same resolution. But the interlaced version will feel smoother, because it's updating the screen twice as often.

Except it's updating half the lines, meaning any object moving will have the jagged edges of interlaced content. That fucks a lot more with your mind than a smooth line moving at 30fps. Try playing any video game (probably the most intense need for "smooth" you'll have) in interlaced. What's that? Every monitor you've had in the last 10 years is progressive? I can't imagine why that would be...

The only good thing about 60i content is that you can restore movies shot in 24p back to 24p through 3:2 pulldown, which would have been a lot harder with 30p but I'd take 1080p30 over 1080i60 on a progressive (NB: Not interlaced!!!) screen any day. Now, 1080i60 vs 720p60 is tougher, because you lose detail in low-motion screens, but gain smoothness in high-motion screens. 1080p60 would be king of the hill, no doubt about that.

--
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Re:Interlaced Vs Progressive by conigs · 2006-09-20 03:29 · Score: 1

You can actually mimic a 30p signal with a 60i display.

In the case of video games, for example, you can tell the engine to run at 30fps/full frame, but divide each frame into fields. This way you still get a (roughly) 30p display. The lines aren't drawn progressively, but one image takes up two fields, each field showing half the image.

--
Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"

The XBox 360 has a VGA cable. by DarkkOne · 2006-09-20 00:48 · Score: 1

It works well. Surprisingly well. In fact *some* games will play at any native resolution, it seems. For example, DOA4 and Prey both seem quite happy at a nice 4:3 1024x768 (I have mine hooked up to a rather pathetic, ancient LCD monitor that cost far too much, many years back). Anyway, the point being that while there aren't that many people with 1080p HDTVs, I'm sure there's a lot of people who will be happy that they can hook up their monitors, and pick 1080p-scale resolutions (not that they couldn't already, according to the resolution selection screen). I have a 720p TV but find that even on a 1024x768 monitor, games that display letterboxed on it look far better than they do on the TV (text is much more readable in Dead Rising, for example).

Re:The XBox 360 has a VGA cable. by frostedg · 2006-09-20 01:08 · Score: 1

I have a 1080p TV :P - The Sony 50" SXRD is one of the nicest TVs I have ever seen, and it's not going to take a huge chunk out of your wallet either.

Early adopters... by leland242 · 2006-09-20 00:48 · Score: 1

like me - sigh. I have a nice 50" dlp - 1080i. At least it has hdmi - god willing it is compliant with the new hdmi standard. I got this about a year and a half ago - there were 1080p sets, but they were about double the price.

not to mention, everytime this subject comes up, there is a big discussion on whats 1080i vs 1080p and if hdmi supports "true" progressive mode and how refresh rates make all the difference...

samsung should have a trade in. i would hate to make this the "basement tv".

Composite, man! by DrLungoon · 2006-09-20 00:49 · Score: 1

Nah, still got mine hooked up composite to a tube TV.

Dead Rising's text is just little blurry lines... *sigh*

--
Some people are like Slinkies - Not good for anything, but you can't help smiling when you push 'em down the stairs.

Re:Composite, man! by hunterkll · 2006-09-20 00:55 · Score: 1

S-Video man, S-Video..
Re:Composite, man! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:51 · Score: 0

RG-6/U man, RG-6/U
Re:Composite, man! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 17:47 · Score: 0

RG59, copper braid, solid plastic dielectric bitch

penis measuring by ken-doh · 2006-09-20 00:50 · Score: 1

ps3 blue ray
xbox hd dvd

ps3 1080p
xbox 1080p

when does it ever end?

ipod
zune

google
some shite ms thing

Re:penis measuring by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:46 · Score: 0

I'm really trying to set this post to Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"
Re:penis measuring by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:52 · Score: 0

It ends when MS realize there is a world out there made of other company's and consumers..
Maybe PS3 with Linux and Google software pack will refresh their mind.

I'm jealous not living on planet earth, but we have different wars here (like BSD vs Linux on earth)...
Re:penis measuring by @madeus · 2006-09-20 01:55 · Score: 2, Funny

Are you sure you didn't mean:

ps3 blue ray
some shite ms thing

ps3 1080p
some shite ms thing

ipod
some shite ms thing

google
some shite ms thing

(I kid, I kid!)
Re:penis measuring by dinofx35 · 2006-09-20 02:07 · Score: 1

ps3 - 1080p, digital out
360 - 720p, resampled to 1080p analog out
See, the 360 supports 1080p just like the PS3. It's exactly the same. Really, it is.
Re:penis measuring by NegativeFX · 2006-09-20 02:24 · Score: 0

I think this is normally called competition.
Re:penis measuring by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 03:03 · Score: 0

Who cares about measuring. With the Wii, you can SHAKE IT!
Re:penis measuring by @madeus · 2006-09-20 04:40 · Score: 1

Who cares about measuring. With the Wii, you can SHAKE IT!

I think it's always been hard to shake the suspicion that there is something slightly 'gay' about Nintendo, but the imagery that comment really nails it.

I can just imagine stores in Japan with shelves full of 3rd party homoerotic hetanti titles, which make full use of the interactivity of the vibrating wireless controller, with support for online co-op gameplay too, no doubt.

The deviants who dream up this stuff should be ashamed of themselves.
Re:penis measuring by heinousjay · 2006-09-20 05:25 · Score: 1

You think masturbation makes you gay?

You must have gallon sized balls to hold all that backed-up sperm, and I'd hate to meet the parents who fucked up your world perspective so badly.

--
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Re:penis measuring by @madeus · 2006-09-20 06:42 · Score: 1

I think you've completely underestimated the level of innuendo I was going for!

To be clear, I do think shoving a vibrating controller up your bum, while someone else on the interweb waggles their 'stick' suggestively, causing your controller to vibrate, is at the very least homoerotic and that it does make you at least a little bit gay. And your a pervert for even thinking of doing it!

updated console... by 10Ghz · 2006-09-20 00:50 · Score: 1

Doesn't this kinda defeat the purpose of a console? That is, an unchanging hardware-platform that works with all the games. Now we have models with and without hard-drive, with and without 1080p...

--
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.

Re:updated console... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:59 · Score: 0

It's a software update you moron!
Re:updated console... by Wovel · 2006-09-20 01:00 · Score: 1

You could buy optional hardware for the Atari 2600. (Some games required keypad use for example). The difference is no games will require 1080p and very few will require a hard drive (if any).
Re:updated console... by KingMotley · 2006-09-20 02:15 · Score: 1

Perhaps you should *gasp* read the article?
Re:updated console... by Ant+P. · 2006-09-20 02:16 · Score: 1

So how is this any worse than the current state of the XBox360, where consoles may or may not have 720p?
Re:updated console... by delinear · 2006-09-20 02:24 · Score: 1

I thought the purpose of the console was pretty much to allow us to play games in the living room without all the hassles associated with installation and load times you get with PCs. Besides, MS have always been pretty open about the fact that the XBOX is their attempt to eventually get a computer into the living room controlling all your media, and if they're ever going to achieve that they need to ensure their console keeps pace with the available media.
Re:updated console... by Westech · 2006-09-20 04:50 · Score: 1

So how is this any worse than the current state of the XBox360, where consoles may or may not have 720p?

...and may or may not have a hard drive, memory card, wired or wireless network connection...

Hmmm, dubious by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

I have a nice big plasma hooked up to a digital tuner..

Please state the make and model of your 1080p capable plasma set.

On top of that alot of progs are 1080p

Australia must be waaaaay ahead of the curve, I didn't think anyone had the bandwidth to broadcast in 1080p? I don't see why they would anyway since the number of people who can actually watch anything in 1080p can probably be counted on your hands.

I call BS on this one. I have no doubt that the op could have a 1080i, that's very common. And broadcasting in either 720p or 1080i is already estabished, his claims seem to be a wee bit over the top.

Re:Hmmm, dubious by ozmanjusri · 2006-09-20 01:29 · Score: 1

I call BS on this one. I have no doubt that the op could have a 1080i, that's very common.
I suspect it's more a misunderstanding of the the difference between "i" and "p" than intentional BS, but you're right about the format http://www.dba.org.au/index.asp?sectionID=15.
As it stands in AU digital HD tv's a nice-to-have rather than a great leap forward in quality. I've built a MythTV box around a Leadtek DTV2000H, and watch it on a 20" LCD monitor, but most people aren't too interested in switching from PAL, and I'd have to agree - it's not a big enough improvement to make it compelling.
I'll be watching the AFL grand final in HD a projector though...

--
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Re:Hmmm, dubious by twistedsymphony · 2006-09-20 05:09 · Score: 1

I was under the impression that they can fudge 1080p support by sending a 1080i50 or 1080i60 signal and de interlacing.

AFAIK there are a growing number of sets that can recieve 1080p via HDMI using the faking techniques (reguardless of their actual display resolution) but the few that can display a true 1080p are pretty rare.

Either way the displays WILL be here eventually and most 1080p display work with the faking methods as does will the Xbox 360 most likely. If MS can make the 360 1080p compatable now then we'll be all ready for them once they arrive. I'm excited because I'm planning on buying one of the new native 1080p projectors that come out next month for $5K like the Sony VPL-VW50 and the Mitsubishi HC5000BL. I've been using projectors in my home theater setup for years (I current have a 1024x768 DLP)... I've been holding out on buying a new one until a reasonable priced 1080p model hit the market.

--
Collector's Edition

I have 1080p already but.. by ironwill96 · 2006-09-20 00:53 · Score: 5, Interesting

I recently bought a 50" Samsung DLP TV that has full 1080p support (no upconversion cheating etc). However, I have my 360 set on 720p instead of 1080i even because the 360 is NOT very good at upconverting signals into 1080 anything. I suspect their 1080p upconversion will be the same. My tv is much better at upconverting 720p to 1080p than the 360 is at upconverting from 720p to 1080i. This is especially noticeable on my NBA 2k6 game where the 360 upconversion is much more grainy and aliased looking than the one my TV does. I'm guessing that those of us with 1080p TVs will have to wait 4-5 years until the "next-generation" of consoles comes out that actually fully support it. Many of the games don't look really nice on my TV because it is large enough to magnify any flaws in the graphics and makes most games look more aliased since there just isnt enough resolution being pushed to the TV to look smooth.

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"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson

Re:I have 1080p already but.. by rjstanford · 2006-09-20 01:37 · Score: 1

That's because 720p is more information-rich than 1080i. Your xBox is actually downconverting the signal in that case. Seriously. 1080i has the same information content that 540p has, and its smoother to boot, so its really no wonder that your TV shows a better image converting from 720p. 1080p should be just fine.

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You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Re:I have 1080p already but.. by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:53 · Score: 0

It's more likely that you are seeing the difference between 720P and 1080i... 720P is actually a better resolution than 1080i.
Re:I have 1080p already but.. by ivan256 · 2006-09-20 01:59 · Score: 1

The real question is why does the 360 need to 'upconvert'? PCs have been displaying resolutions that high at those framerates for over a decade. The graphics chip in a 360 is very similar to a PC graphics chip. Why is there a problem?
Re:I have 1080p already but.. by rsk · 2006-09-20 02:01 · Score: 2, Informative

A lot of folks out there don't understand the differences between I (interlaced) and P (progressive), which they shouldn't, it's too detailed, but for folks that do it's easier to understand why outputting 720p on a 1080p set is going to look better then interlacing the signal then asking the TV to deinterlace it.

Also a lot of folks with new HD stuff don't give their TV scalers enough credit, these things are good, most of them excellent, especially in the big-brand sets. So doing what you are doing is definately the smarter way to go for a crisper un-raped signal.
Re:I have 1080p already but.. by MikeBabcock · 2006-09-20 02:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

The point is that there's no guarantee anyone will design the games to work at 1080p at all (it would be too slow perhaps?). That said, they'll upconvert your 720p or 1080i games to 1080p so they look "right" on a 1080p digital display.

Upconversion is not the same as original content. Digg has an uneducated comment about how upconversion of DVDs makes high definition movie content less attractive (on the future PS3) -- upconverted DVDs don't look anywhere near as good as true HD original content. I watch HDTV television (heavily compressed over satellite) and it looks a whole lot cleaner, crisper and with much better contrast than upconverted DVD content ever will (on my nice new Oppo upconverting DVD player no less).

Sure the upconverted Oppo Digital DVD output is better than having the TV rescale the image but actual HD content is a lot better. I mean, a LOT better.

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- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Re:I have 1080p already but.. by conigs · 2006-09-20 03:53 · Score: 2, Informative

I see this argument all the time. I have to disagree with you. Let's look at the actual resolution for each signal.

720p: 1280x720

1080i: 1920x540 (for all practical purposes)

1080p: 1920x1080

Now, let's figure this out in terms of that oh-so-popular megapixel:
720p: .9MP (921,600)

1080i: 1MP (1,036,800)

1080p: 2MP (2,073,600)

So while a 1080i signal may not contain as much vertical resolution, the horizontal resolution is still much greater, producing 115,200 more pixels than 720p.

Each signal has it's own merits, just don't go touting 720p as having a greater resolution than 1080i.

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Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
Re:I have 1080p already but.. by chasingporsches · 2006-09-20 05:34 · Score: 1

i have to slightly disagree with you. i'm tired of the 540 argument of 1080i. yes, only half the lines are shown at 1/60th of a second. but all 1080 lines are shown every 30th of a second.
Re:I have 1080p already but.. by conigs · 2006-09-20 06:31 · Score: 1

Wait, so you're agreeing or disagreeing with me? My 540 argument in the original post was to strictly compare resolution of a 1080i signal versus a 720p signal. Yes all 1080 lines are shown for 1/30th of a second. For 1080p/30fps, that's a valid argument. However, if you move to 1080p/60fps or 50fps, that's where the advance is thrown in.

The primary factor in 1080i is the recording frame rate. If an image is captured at 30fps, but the image is divided between fields, there is will be little to no discernable difference between 1080i and 1080p. But if the image is captured a 60fps (fields in this case), then the image will differ temporally between the even and odd fields. That's where the rub is with 1080i.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not blasting 1080i. In my original post, I was simply stating that 1080i does indeed have more resolution than 720p. In fact, I actually like 1080i for the following reason: films. A 24fps film can be stored in a 1080i signal (3:2 pulldown and such), then that same interlaced signal can be reconstructed as a 24p source using all 1080 lines. Also, think of it this way: a 24fps film transfered to any interlaced signal (including 480i) only has interlaced frames 40% of the time (AA, BB, BC, CD, DD).

But to present yet another view: an interlaced image can have issues with artifacts and possibly color fidelity and dynamics.

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Re:I have 1080p already but.. by SeattleGameboy · 2006-09-20 07:43 · Score: 2, Informative

That is because it is inherently more difficult to de-interlace than to upconvert.
You have to remember that when you have an interlaced signal, the two interlaced frames are not from the same time frame. With CRT's it is not a big deal as your eyes and brain fill in the difference nicely (between scans). But when you have to convert it to a digital display, it becomes a very difficult problem.
Once you have 1080P, it will look superior to 720P since you are skipping at least one additional upconverting step.
Re:I have 1080p already but.. by rjstanford · 2006-09-20 11:38 · Score: 1

One issue here is that you're comparing the overall pixel count rather than any kind of lines-per-inch measurement. Let's take, as an example, a 42" TV (because its one I happen to have handy). This is approximately 36" wide by 20.5" tall. Looking at those resolutions again:

480i: 852x240 - 23dpi x 9dpi
480p: 852x480 - 23dpi x 18dpi
720p: 1280x720 - 35dpi x 35dpi
1080i: 1920x540 - 53dpi x 26dpi
1080p: 1920x1080 - 53dpi x 52dpi

Notice something? At the two standard progressive resolutions, the horizontal and vertical pitches are almost identical. This makes for a very even watchable image. At 1080i you get great horizontal resolution, but the vertical resolution is by far the worst measurement of the lot. And in this, as in many things, its your weakest link that's going to affect the perceived image quality the most. At an even 53dpi (on this screen size), the picture is excellent at normal viewing distances.

A rule of thumb for viewing distance seems to be a minimum of 2000/dpi in inches. For 1080p (on a 47" screen), that gives us 38", or about 3 feet. At 720p you end up with 5 feet. At 1080i you have a more distressing (but still very reasonable) 6 1/2 feet. At 480p we're really limited to 9 feet or further to get a crisp image. That's all based on a reasonable guideline, and some quick experimentation seems to bear it out pretty well. Not that you can't watch closer, but at that point the scanlines become a lot more noticable. People with good vision will appreciate higher resolution, but shouldn't be "disappointed" as long as you've got those minimum distances.

Using megapixels is pretty bad, though. After all, you could have a screen that was 19,200 x 54. That would still be one megapixel, but I doubt that anyone would be happy with it. Consistent resolution is good. Smaller TVs will give you higher DPI, of course. Personally, my TV is between 7-8 feet away from most viewing positions, which is pretty good even with 1080i but slightly disappointing at 480p. YMMV depending on your vision, tolerance, and television size.

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You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Re:I have 1080p already but.. by conigs · 2006-09-21 01:38 · Score: 1

I realize that using strictly resolution and only resolution as a measure of the different HD formats it a bad choice. I was only using that as a measure to show that 1080i does indeed have more information per field than 720p does per frame. It was just an example.

Now, onto your comparison, it's actually a decent measure. However, I HATE using dpi as a measure for video. It's a print term and should be used only in print. PPI (pixels per inch) is an okay measure for individual screens, but not for any format of video.

When you refer to an equal dpi on the progressive formats, what your actually refering to is called pixel aspect ratio. For 480 resolutions, it's .9:1, for 480p (widescreen) it's 1.2:1. And the resolution is actually 720x480 (technically 486, but who's counting?). The 852 number you got is what the image would be in square pixels. The 1:1 ratio was only seen in computer resolutions (and digital cinema/post) until HD came along.

Lastly, I think that refering to 480i and 1080i as 240 and 540 respectively is a bad measure, since the pixels are not actually stretched out vertically to fill the entire picture height, but a they are spaced out with a line inbetween each.

Again, I agree that I shouldn't have used simply resolution as a determining factor of overal quality. But a post detailing every nuance of each format would not be suited for a /. post within an XBox 360 thread.

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Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"

Microsoft Goes For The Ricer Strategy by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 00:54 · Score: 0

This is like one of those sad little ricer owners who puts bogus performance stickers on the back of their shitty little car.

Almost every 360 is chugging along at 20-30 fps with vsync turned off in 720p. And now Microsoft's marketing folk are trying to convince gamers the 360 can handle 1080p games?

You're not fooling anyone Microsoft...

Re:Microsoft Goes For The Ricer Strategy by plasmana · 2006-09-20 01:31 · Score: 1

You're not fooling anyone Microsoft...

Yes they are! There are some percentage of consumers out there (younger males no doubt) that are deciding on which console to root for based on horsepower. Microsoft probably found an inexpensive way to help level the perception playing field with PS3.
Truth be told, it's really these consumers who are fooling themselves... "I get my self worth from my toys!"

My hand is down... by steveo777 · 2006-09-20 00:56 · Score: 1

Heck, everyone I know who owns a hi-def only has 720p capable TV's and they've paid their thousands of dollars on them. Haven't seen too many 40+ inch 1080p TV's that sit under $2000. I really would love to have one, but I can easily live without.

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This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...

Re:My hand is down... by bockelboy · 2006-09-20 02:03 · Score: 1

Well steveo, I have great news for you:

Best Buy has a Westinghouse 42" LCD 1080p TV on sale for $1600. Locally, they knock it down to $1500 if you sign up for digital cable also.

Sure, I can buy a Samsung and get better color / MPEG filters for about $3300. At half the price, however, the Westinghouse looks especially gorgeous. I bought mine 2 days ago.

I am cheap by NekoXP · 2006-09-20 00:58 · Score: 2, Interesting

I have a CRT HDTV. It's big, bright and clear and fun but a little fuzzy if you want to do PC stuff on it. Playing movies and games though is a fucking dream.

It supports a bewildering choice of resolutions; not because it's got them all, but because it's so few. 480i. 480p. 1080i. It was sooo cheap (less than $300 at Thanksgiving last year)

I don't see why I would want 1080p; the 1080i mode is rock solid stable and has nice contrast. What I want is 720i or 720p support on my fucking TV, so I can buy a games console that runs in there or knock my PC resolution down to a readable level :(

Re:I am cheap by conigs · 2006-09-20 03:58 · Score: 1

If you're already watching HD signals at 1080i or 720p, your right, the incremental upgrade to 1080p might not be worth it. But let's look at it this way: 1080p has twice the total resolution of 1080i. 1920x540/field vs 1920x1080/frame. Or to put it in megapixels from a previous post of mine, a 1080i field is roughly 1 Megapixel. 1080p is almost 2.1 Megapixels. But it all comes down to interlaced vs progressive in a much wider debate.

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Re:I am cheap by tgd · 2006-09-20 04:38 · Score: 1

There's a reason for that... 1080i doesn't have a scan rate noticably higher than 480p (its 540P, basically).

Most CRT low end HD sets are exactly that, and they don't have the scan rate to do 720P.

They're great deals, though. I've had one in my bedroom for a couple years. Its nothing compared to my main set, but for the money, you can't beat 'em.

Performance? by BenjyD · 2006-09-20 01:01 · Score: 1

Does the 360 even have the fill rate available to do 1080p with a decent amount of textures and effects?

Re:Performance? by dinofx35 · 2006-09-20 01:56 · Score: 1

Am I the only one who can read this correctly. The games are not rendered at 1080p. The games were never rendered at 1080i either. The XBOX ***ONLY*** renders graphics at max 720p. And even at that resolution, many games don't even use antialiasing. So what is being announced? The XBOX will resample each 720p frame into a 1080p frame. Big deal. If you own a 1080p display, it would have done this for you already. This is pure marketing hype.
Re:Performance? by MooseMuffin · 2006-09-20 02:12 · Score: 1

Its pure marketing hype with respect to gaming, but it says this update will allow it to output 1080p hd-dvd signals.
Re:Performance? by chemguru · 2006-09-20 02:22 · Score: 1

Its pure marketing hype with respect to gaming, but it says this update will allow it to output 1080p hd-dvd signals.

Which would be great ...if it had a HD-DVD reader.

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--Chemguru
Re:Performance? by NC-17 · 2006-09-20 03:22 · Score: 1

Which it will. When the external attachment comes out.
Re:Performance? by Phil+Wilkins · 2006-09-20 16:25 · Score: 1

The 360 has fillrate out the wazoo (it's this generations fillrate king), so that's not the limiting factor here.

This is big deal to some people by Comen · 2006-09-20 01:03 · Score: 1

Buddy of mine just bought a 56" Samsung LED DLP that supports 1080p
He has been telling me now for weeks he wishs XBOX360 was going to support 1080p, and this will make him happy.
My 56" Toshiba only supports 1080i, but I am sure my next TV will support 1080p, so this is a good thing.

Good for the future by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:04 · Score: 0

When PS2 came out I didn't have an HD TV but once I did get one and hooked up GT4 I was quite happy they added support for a technology that wasn't widespread when the console came out.

First Gen Hi-Def User by StarWreck · 2006-09-20 01:08 · Score: 1

I have what I guess you could consider a first gen Hi-Def TV. Its a 52 inch rear projection Hitachi(not to be confused with those new LCD rear projections). It supports both 1080i and 540p. My hi-def cable box outputs 1080i for some channels and it looks crystal clear and my progressive scan DVD player which outputs 480p which is just as good to my eyes. However most channels, VHS players, and older DVD players all output 480i which does look like total crap (well, the DVD at 480i still blows away regular channels and VHS players).

When I go into stores and take a look at the TV's that sport 1080p they don't look much better, some look worse... much worse. Especially a lot of those lower-end brand LCD rear projections, they look much worse to me than my traditional rear projection Hitachi. I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon. I'll probably wait to see 50 inch and larger LCD flat panels with 1080p before I even consider it.

Plasmas are over-priced, wear out too fast, and get burn-in. LCD Rear Projection look comparitively bad. I think LCD flat panels are going to be what takes over once the sizes improve. So I'm happy with my 1080i/540p traditional rear projection and 5.1 surround sound for now.

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... and in the DRM, bind them.

Re:First Gen Hi-Def User by conigs · 2006-09-20 04:08 · Score: 1

Don't confuse the signal (480i) with the recording/tranmission medium. VHS has only roughly 250 lines of resolution, if I remember correctly (the equivalent to 250x480 with a really messed up pixel-aspect-ratio [not to be confused with image-aspect-ratio]). S-VHS was much better at about 350 lines. Broadcast has the problem of packing video (chrominance and luminance) with audio in the same signal with a limited spectrum. Now DVDs on the other hand take full advantage of the NTSC signal with 720 lines, which is why it looks so much better than VHS or broadcast. And many times, DVDs actually contain a 24fps video stream which the DVD player then converts to a 480i/p signal.

If your curious, the lines were determined by displaying alternating black and white lines across the screen from left to right. They would increase the number until you could no longer distinguish between the lines. So for VHS, they could only have 250 lines before it would start to fall apart.

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Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
Re:First Gen Hi-Def User by in5ane · 2006-09-20 20:55 · Score: 1

Wow, you were so busy being a first-gen HD user that you forgot to get with the times!

"Plasmas are over-priced, wear out too fast, and get burn-in."
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. These things are simply not true anymore.

Go back to your crusty old TV and try to eek whatever kudos you think you can from getting it a few months before the rest of us. Just also remember things can move on before doling out advice :)
Re:First Gen Hi-Def User by StarWreck · 2006-09-22 02:19 · Score: 1

I am seriously behind the times. I thought they still only had 42" LCD flat panels but I see that Fry's Electronics has 46" ones and damn they look nice. Oh, I'm still also using a 2.1 megapixel camera that I bought 6 years ago for $300 and its pictures still look better than any of those 4 or 5 megapixel cameras they are selling for under $200... although some of those $400 ones really really blow it away. And I'm still using an MP3 CD "Soul Player", also 6 years old. It plays up to 320Kbit MP3's and WMA's, lasts 10 hours off a single pair of AA batteries and I can fit every album in MP3 format from almost any artist/band onto a single CD so thats good enough for me. Its hard to believe I was an "early adopter" when I got my HDTV, surround sound, digital camera, and Mp3 player but I had those things long before most people did and they're still good enough that I'm not too strongly tempted to become an early adopter again. Maybe its because I take too good care of my stuff. Maybe someday I'll get a 1080p TV, an Cannon EOS Digital Camera, and an iPod... or maybe I'll just wait until the next generation of kewl stuff and then YOU'LL be the one whining about how outdated your 1080p HDTV is. :-P

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... and in the DRM, bind them.

ah....easy by IcePop456 · 2006-09-20 01:09 · Score: 1

How about people with a 22in+ widescreen LCD monitor? (I guess some of those are 1050). Obviously this isn't dirt cheap, but a 50in 1080p DLP is around $2k. 2 years ago, the 720p was around $3k. Check fat wallet, LCD TVs are getting cheaper too. Given this is slashdot, I find it hard to believe people haven't pick up on the trend - things get cheaper.

Although I hate copy protection too, HDCP on the monitor is no big deal. It is the SOURCES that suck. Either way, I still find it amazing, given this is supposed to be a tech related site, how many people hate HDTV. Yes I hate the way FOX over compresses things, but otherwise the difference is HUGE. Those that can't see the improvement, well I'm sorry for your poor vision.

Re:ah....easy by Rydia · 2006-09-20 01:51 · Score: 1

Very few (sane) people hate HDTV. What people are saying is that they don't think it's worth it to go shell out a bunch of cash for a new shiny expensive TV for their games console and a couple channels of generally bad TV. No one's saying that they can't tell the difference, just that an upgrade is not an attractive option at this time. Add to this the fact that televisions are in general extremely reliable and last for ages, you have some pretty significant barriers to even tech nerd adoption.
Re:ah....easy by powerlord · 2006-09-20 04:02 · Score: 1

Add to this the fact that televisions are in general extremely reliable and last for ages, you have some pretty significant barriers to even tech nerd adoption.

True, but as more things support HDTV there is a more and more compelling reason to make the switch.

This year:
- HDTV sets supporting 1080i/p are dropping into the sub $1000 range
- TiVo announced a dual HDTV tuner box.
- XBox360 announced support for 1080p
- PS3 will ship with 1080p support
- HD-DVD and Blu-Ray both ship
- Most cable companies now offer HDTV channels/support and cablecard support that is built into some TVs (and the new TiVo :) ) removing the need for an additional set-top box.
- All TV stations in the U.S. should be broadcasting an HDTV signal (or are mandated to start "real soon now")

Combined, there are probably enough factors to influence a large segment of the "mid adopters". The early ones already got the hardware (and are probably burned on it), but the specifications seem much more standardized, and those people who don't want to be "early adopters", but still want to keep current with technology, are probably going to start wading in to the HDTV tech, come this holiday season.

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1080p - NO ONE has that by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:09 · Score: 0

Before I start, let me specify, I'm a video engineer and a sound technician, I know my trade. 1080p is NON-EXISTENT in displays availlable on the consummer market. Most HDTV-compliant tv set are capable of ACCEPTING such a resolution but go in your spec and check that nasty spec that says native resolution, native resolution is the actual number of [pixels, lines] your display has, it will never be 1080 lines height-wise, never, it just don't exist, it would cost you your house because no manufacture produce it to date, it would have to be custom made. To have devices capable of true 1080p you have to buy some very high end projectors (Christie and Digital comes to mind) or computer monitors with very high resolutions but a less than adequate aspect ratio for viewing movies.

Maybe it will change, wait lemme rephrase, it WILL change, but as of now, NO ONE has a 1080p tv set, no one. Accepting a resolution don't mean you display it, example: most of our projectors can accept up to 1600x1200 but their native display is 1024x768...

Re:1080p - NO ONE has that by giffnyc · 2006-09-20 01:32 · Score: 1

Sony's line this year is all (native resolution) 1920 x 1080 in the higher end sets. "Full HD" resolution is one of their marketing elements. A 50" rear-projection such as the KDS-50A2000 can be had for about 2200, which, while expensive, doesn't qualify as an arm and a leg with plasmas touching the 10K price for larger screens.

Am I missing something? This is what you meant about the native resolution spec and 1080 lines of resolution, right?
Re:1080p - NO ONE has that by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:37 · Score: 0

To have devices capable of true 1080p you have to buy some very high end projectors
Lines of horizontal resolution gets confused with scan lines. HR is visually resolvable vertical lines per picture height. Lines of horizontal resolution applies both to television displays and to signal formats like produced by a DVD player.
DVD has 720 horizontal pixels (on both NTSC and PAL) and horizontal resolution can be calculated by dividing 720 by 1.33 (for a 4:3 aspect ratio) to get 540 lines. On a 1.78 (16:9) display, you get 405 lines.
DVD players provide about 500 lines instead of 540 because of filtering and low-quality digital-to-analog converters. VHS has ~230 (172 widescreen) lines, broadcast TV has ~330 (248 widescreen), and laserdisc has ~425 (318 widescreen).
Scan lines, on the other hand, measure resolution along the y axis. DVD produces 480 scan lines of active picture for NTSC and 576 for PAL.
The NTSC standard has 525 total scan lines, but only 480 to 483 or so are visible. (The extra lines are black and are encoded with other information). Since all video formats (VHS, LD, broadcast, etc.) have equal number of scan lines, it's the horizontal resolution that makes the big difference.
-- When people filter AC, la la la la la la la la la la la la la la what they're really la la la la la la la la la
Re:1080p - NO ONE has that by mitchskin · 2006-09-20 01:48 · Score: 1, Informative

I'm writing this using an LCD panel that is 1920 actual physical pixels across and 1080 actual physical pixels vertically. It cost less than $1400 to my door; well in the consumer range. This display (the Westinghouse LVM-37w3) is actually the second generation; the previous one (the LVM-37w1) came out more than a year ago.

The AVS Forum threads on these things are huge--there must be a fair number of people buying them.

It's not technically a TV since there's no tuner, but that doesn't matter for the xbox.
Re:1080p - NO ONE has that by Leviat · 2006-09-20 01:54 · Score: 0

So when you click on the link here, the text that says "Resolution: 1920x1080" is a lie? Or perhaps when I go to Samsung's website and click here and it says "HD-grade 1920(H) x 1080(V) pixel resolution", it that also a lie? I ask because I'm in the market for a 1080p television... and I thought I could take these companies at their word.
Re:1080p - NO ONE has that by Rogue+Pat · 2006-09-20 01:59 · Score: 1

Philips 42PF9830 ?
Re:1080p - NO ONE has that by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 02:36 · Score: 0

Dude, I honestly have a 1080p capable set, its the new 37" Westinghouse. The picture quality is unbelievable, I highly recommend it to anyone.
Re:1080p - NO ONE has that by andyatkinson · 2006-09-20 02:58 · Score: 1

I've got 1080p and it is great! Check out my review of the Westinghouse LVM-37w3. I've been using the TV as my primary computer monitor for about 3 months now. I picked it up open box at Best Buy for under $1400. This new development in XBOX 360 land makes me really want to pick one up since I've been on the fence anyway. Now I could have a media center, game console, and HD-DVD (1080p) DVD player for $400. That's a lot of value considering current prices for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD players.
Re:1080p - NO ONE has that by bwcook0 · 2006-09-20 03:17 · Score: 1

You are a piss poor video engineer if you think that no one has a 1080p set and you can buy one at best buy sub $2k. I have a Westinghouse LVM-W42 which is 1920x1080 = 1080p - there is also an AVS forum thread about the Westinghouse 1080p line that is a mile long, and tons of people are purchasing them because the quality:price is great. Sounds like the only thing you are familiar with is projectors, which only a small set of the population have for watching TV.

Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? by denisbergeron · 2006-09-20 01:09 · Score: 1

Me! I was waiting for nice 1080p games to go for it !

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Ceci n'est pas une Signature !

Oh, come on now. by SuiteSisterMary · 2006-09-20 01:11 · Score: 1, Troll

Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p? Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?

Here, let me rephrase:

720P should be enough for everybody!

FFS.

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Re:Oh, come on now. by Ant+P. · 2006-09-20 02:20 · Score: 1

And it is.

I'm still happy with 480i.
Re:Oh, come on now. by mgblst · 2006-09-20 03:02 · Score: 1

I wonder if we will ever need 1080p on our pdas? Possibly, though I can't see it. What about on our watches? There is a limit.
Re:Oh, come on now. by DragonWriter · 2006-09-20 04:13 · Score: 1

600dpi seems fairly common with laser printers now; if you want a paper-replacement handheld system with comparable quality, that means 1080p-equivalent resolution (1920x1080) would be adequate for about a 3.2"x1.8" display.

So, "1080p" PDAs? I'd say yes.

1080p watches? Maybe not. But maybe.

Slashdot worthy by suv4x4 · 2006-09-20 01:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm like reading the summary and it's being positive about adding 1800p on Microsoft X360 adding 1800p no fuzz and no special requirements. Whaaa? Is this Slashdot or what?

And then this tagged on comment: "Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p? Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?"

Yeaa! Let's laugh at Microsoft for adding 1800p and we don't have any! Muhaha!

Re:Slashdot worthy by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:47 · Score: 0

1800 != 1080
Re:Slashdot worthy by Blakey+Rat · 2006-09-20 02:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

You have to twist words a lot to make this sound like a bad thing.

"Microsoft adds compelling feature for free to all Xbox 360 owners! ... somehow this is... uh... bad. Because maybe not a lot of people can use it yet? Yeah, let's go with that."

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Comment of the year
Re:Slashdot worthy by suv4x4 · 2006-09-20 04:38 · Score: 1

1800 != 1080

It's called wishful thinking.

I do, with qualifiers by Guppy06 · 2006-09-20 01:13 · Score: 1

"Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?"

I've decided to hold off on getting an HDTV until I can get my hands on a set that meets the following qualifications:

1080p, 30 Hz (since it doesn't look like anybody will be producing content for anything better, I'd be able to use it for whatever I want for the life of the television)
CRT (bulletproof compared to plasma and LCD)
Under 40" (I have no desire to get a television I myself could fit inside of.)

Of course, such a television does not exist and probably won't for some time, so I probably won't be getting such a television (or any HDTV) for the life of the 360.

Re:I do, with qualifiers by NekoXP · 2006-09-20 01:55 · Score: 1

The only problem is that a 1080p CRT doesn't exist; unless you go for rear projection kind of stuff..

However Sony make some bloody nice ones that do 1080i;

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-S tart?ProductSKU=KD34XBR970&Dept=tvvideo&CategoryNa me=tv_34to36TVs
Re:I do, with qualifiers by PrescriptionWarning · 2006-09-20 01:56 · Score: 1

1. be prepared to wait a long time. besides as you get older your vision gets worse so the difference between 1080p and 1080i and 720p and blah blah blah won't mean a darn thing

2. until you drop it and it implodes. or of course if chuck norris kicks it in. i hear he does that.

3. you can get a decent 32 or 37" HD LCD now for 1000 or less. I got my 32" for 800 after tax almost a year ago. Just don't expect to find that at Best Buy (got mine at tiger direct)
Re:I do, with qualifiers by Guppy06 · 2006-09-20 13:25 · Score: 1

"besides as you get older your vision gets worse so the difference between 1080p and 1080i and 720p and blah blah blah won't mean a darn thing"

That's what the glasses are for.

"until you drop it and it implodes. or of course if chuck norris kicks it in. i hear he does that."

From what I've seen, all things being equal, CRTs have a longer lifespan, espcially for the price.

"you can get a decent 32 or 37" HD LCD now for 1000 or less."

And they'll include the dead pixels for free?

Good for HD-DVD by Wovel · 2006-09-20 01:13 · Score: 1

1920x1080p/24 is the native resolution of Most (maybe all) HD-DVD disks and last I checked, no hd-dvd players supported 1080p. (This certainly may have changed recently). This opens up a big market for MS because they will be providing a relatively low cost hd-dvd player with 1080p support.

VGA out - monitor by DJProtoss · 2006-09-20 01:14 · Score: 1

"Who will run their consoles on something capable of 1080p?"
Presumably anyone who is using a vga out cable to connect their console to a monitor* (as I do) *thats for consoles that actually support vga, not using a convertor box to adjust it.

--
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"

is 1080p a reality in this generation??? by aaronots · 2006-09-20 01:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

I have serious doubts that true 1080p is really practical in this generation of consoles. The reason being, the more resolution you push the higher the bandwidth and the higher the memory cost. I think developers that produce 1080p games will really be producing 720p games and letting the console up-sample. And that ultimately does little for quality. Lets look as some numbers

On a console running at 1080p you have 1920x1080 pixels x8 bits (for non floating point HDR) That means 15.8 meg per frame buffer. A game typically has multiple buffers it renders to (especially for post processing effects) so there is almost 32meg consumed just so you can display an image. If you are using true floating point HDR one of those buffers would be 32meg.
If you are rendering at 720p a frame buffer is 7 meg for 8bit and 14 for 32bit float HDR.

There is also an impact on fill rate. The 1080p requires more than twice the fill rate. That means (when fill-rate bound) the frame rate must be cut in half or the effects being used must be reduces.
On the PS3 with a practical fill rate of 15GB/s to local video memory, you can overdraw a 1080p scene at 60fps only 16 times. That has a serious impact on use of particle effects, multi-pass rendering, and post processing. At 720p that overdraw rate increases to 36 times.

On an xbox360 the eDRAM affords a greater fill rate (64GB/s) so it could better handle the demands of 1080p but it has to contend with the 10Meg limit on the eDRAM. This means a 1080p scene would require a 4 pass tiled rendering and a 2 pass for scene post processing.

So basically I don't think we will even see true 1080p games without those games reducing their visuals significantly. I would rather have a slick looking 720p at 60fps than a 1080p that looks last generation.

Re:is 1080p a reality in this generation??? by stretchsje · 2006-09-20 01:30 · Score: 0

I doubt it'll actually render at 1080p, you're analysis is dead-on. It sounds to me as if the hardware will render at 720p and simply scale it to 1080p. With the forthcoming HD-DVD and HDMI, the X-Box will certainly have a video scaler built to convert DVD to HDTV and HD-DVD to SDTV. I believe all HD-DVD players do this. The X-Box will look at the 720p video game output as a video stream and thus convert it without any performance hit (or resolution advantage).
Re:is 1080p a reality in this generation??? by Ant+P. · 2006-09-20 02:24 · Score: 1

Uh... the XBox360 uses 8 bit colour? What?
Re:is 1080p a reality in this generation??? by LordKronos · 2006-09-20 02:51 · Score: 1

1920x1080 pixels x8 bits (for non floating point HDR) That means 15.8 meg per frame buffer

Your math here is off in a couple of ways. First, that would be 15.8 megabits, not megabytes. That comes out to about 2 megabytes. Next, that's per 8-bit color channel. For your primary display, you are gonna need 3 of those for RGB (6MB), if not a 4th for alpha or even just memory alignment (8MB). For the backbuffer, you'll need another 8MB buffer, plus probably a 32bit depth buffer (another 8MB). So 8MB for the front buffer, 16MB for the back buffer.
Re:is 1080p a reality in this generation??? by aaronots · 2006-09-20 03:36 · Score: 1

oops you are right but the numbers come out about the same. 1920x1080 pixels x4Bytes(8 bit per component) makes a 7.9MB buffer. The PS3 must store both its back buffer and z buffer in its local video memory making the two buffers 15.8meg. Then as you pointed out you also need a front buffer which is anothe 8MB. (total of roughly 24MB of your 256MB local video memory dedicated to the most basic buffers).

On the xbox360 it takes up less space. The Zbuffer never needs to be in memory since it exists on the eDRAM. So the buffers would take up 16MB of the available 512MB.

Bandwidth considerations are the same since i forgot to figure in the bandwidth for writing to the z-buffer as well.
Re:is 1080p a reality in this generation??? by aaronots · 2006-09-20 03:39 · Score: 1

my bad... 32bit color display, 8bit per component, and i beleive it is the same on all consoles.
Re:is 1080p a reality in this generation??? by 4g1vn · 2006-09-20 15:24 · Score: 1

You seem very insightful on this matter. How do you think the PS2 pulled off 1080i with only 4MB of vram on Gran Turismo??? I have been waiting for someone to explain this to me. Thanks, Shaun
Re:is 1080p a reality in this generation??? by aaronots · 2006-09-21 01:03 · Score: 1

I honestly know very little about the PS2 hardware but it is my understanding that the 4MB of vram is similar to the eDRAM on the 360. It is there just for rendering to, and then must be copied to system memory before being read or used as video output. So when rendering an image that will not fit in this vram, you must tile it, where you render pieces of it and resolve each piece back to system memory. According to wikipedia the max resolution supported internally by the Graphics Synthesizer is 1280x1024. So they may have just rendered high res but not full 1080i. I have heard rumor that the ps2 could render interlaced fields which would cut the memory in half. Most consoles have to render the full resolution image even if the output is interlaced. Each interlaced field has half the vertical resolution so they could be cutting the memory requirements in half.

So my (not so educated) guess is they rendered well less than the full 1920x1080 needed for 1080i and instead just rendered as high as the ps2 allowed, in a tiled manner, and converted the image to a 1080i signal.

That could take awhile by tbcpp · 2006-09-20 01:17 · Score: 1

My parents have a TV that they got from their parents shortly after they were married, 30 years ago. I think the thing is close to 35 years old. It still "runs". My dad has said he'll upgrade when it dies, and he's been saying that for 5 years. So don't count on having your TV die anytime soon...

--
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.

Re:That could take awhile by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:53 · Score: 0

If his TV was made in the last 15 years, it'll go soon. If it was made in the last 10, sooner. If it was made in the last 5, it's probably almost dead.

Consumer Electronics suck nowadays.

3rd question by gormanly · 2006-09-20 01:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

Do either the Xbox 360 Component HD AV Cable or Xbox 360 VGA HD AV Cable support 1080p ?

My guess is they don't - they certainly don't list it on the product pages in the links - so 360 owners will need to pony up for another cable, one capable of the 124MHz signalling needed to do 1080p/60 (so spec'd at ~350MHz).

Another question is, what about 1080p movies (if Microsoft sell a lot of the HD DVD add-on drives)? There's no HDCP path on the 360, so either the movie studios forget all about their latest copy-protection scheme and don't set the ICT flag on the discs (sh'yeah, right) or 360 owners could have an Xbox HD DVD player that does 1080p but have to watch the movies they buy at 480p. Ouch.

Re:3rd question by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 02:09 · Score: 3, Informative

Both the VGA cable and the Component cable do support 1080p. The only issue is that most of the 1080p TVs sold do not support 1080p over component. There are some exceptions, but generally they don't. But there's a lot more TVs that accept VGA and DVI, which will handle 1080p fine.

This still doesn't answer the ICT question of course, so we should assume that ICT protected movies wont work. It sucks, but the less DRM support around, the better.
Re:3rd question by Schraegstrichpunkt · 2006-09-20 02:38 · Score: 2, Funny

There's no HDCP path on the 360, so either the movie studios forget all about their latest copy-protection scheme and don't set the ICT flag on the discs (sh'yeah, right) ...

They'll probably surprise us one day. I mean, they've got to figure out eventually that copy protection isn't worth the mess it makes, right?

--
http://outcampaign.org/
Re:3rd question by NeMon'ess · 2006-09-20 04:55 · Score: 1

If the game renders at 60 fields per second in 1080i, it will render approximately 30 frames per second in 1080p. Is there a problem with this? Users lose the faster refresh in exchange for no combing. In a game fast enough for the combing to be noticeable, I'd want 1080p so I didn't have to see that.
Re:3rd question by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 06:16 · Score: 0

People also seem to be missing a major point. PGR, for example, already runs at 30fps in 540p internally before it hits the scaler.

The real point of the software update is this: Many, many HD sets have shitty scalers that were the cause of the whole "why are my console game controls lagging on HD and what HD set can I buy to avoid it" issue of last year. These crappy scalers often inflict frame delays. If the 360 can do the scaling without a frame delay, that alone would be reason to have more options right in the console instead of having to rely on the tv to do good, fast scaling.
Re:3rd question by colmore · 2006-09-20 11:00 · Score: 1

This all sounds terribly complicated. People who spend thousands of dollars to be entertained sure are going to have headaches.

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In Capitalist America, bank robs you!

Soluion presens itself! by Adambomb · 2006-09-20 01:24 · Score: 1

Laptop + wireless kb/mouse + couch = recipe for perfect relaxation and obesity.

aeb

--
Ice Cream has no bones.

What is the Point? by Borland · 2006-09-20 01:24 · Score: 1

Ok, so I admit I'm a Sony whore because of the PS[X] RPG library. So I'm not unbiased about the XBox360.

But I don't understand what Microsoft is doing with all these optional upgrades. I think another poster pointed out that consoles are meant to be standardized hardware platforms. So why is MS attempting to play catch up if features like Blu-Ray and 1080P are useless frivolities?

I mean a developer can create a Blu-Ray HD game without having to worry if the user has an external HD-DVD drive or provide a 1080P resolution option without caring if the console has been upgraded. I mean the next thing you know, MS will have copied a copier and provide motion sensitive controllers.

Re:What is the Point? by kannibal_klown · 2006-09-20 01:57 · Score: 1

It's a Software Update, meaning they will push it via XBox Live. Likewise, games also come with various XBox 360 updates for those that can't conenct to the Internet.

You're right about there needing to be standardization. But this situation isn't an example of it.

1080p not as expensive as you think by James+Lewis · 2006-09-20 01:29 · Score: 3, Informative

Actually, if you really want 1080p on the cheap (like I did) you can get it for a bit over $1000 by building your own LCD projector. Just use a laptop WUXGA screen. I've done this and am very happy with the results. When comparing it to a commercial projector there are downsides: size of the projector, light distribution isn't totally even (or as bright), colors aren't perfectly reproduced, contrast isn't as great. However, for the price it can't be beat IMHO. Those drawbacks aren't anything I actually notice when watching a movie, it feels just like I'm in a theater . I learned how to do it at the lumenlab forums: www.lumenlab.com

Re:1080p not as expensive as you think by talonyx · 2006-09-20 08:34 · Score: 1

Wouldn't it be a better value to simply buy a 'real' projector, which while it may not produce 1080p, ought to have better image and colour quality, look more professional, and not require as much fiddling?

Then again, I once built a poor man's projector using a Fresnel lens and an old 14" monitor for Cubic Player's Wurfel-mode at a MOD party. Fuck it! Have fun!

I'll Bite by Hercules+Peanut · 2006-09-20 01:33 · Score: 1

I'll likely get a 1080p because of this. I've been playing 360 games on an old 27" Magnavox in a large room for the past 6 months or so (480i). Finally, I decided to upgrade my TV so i could fully enjoy the 360 experience. After doing a lot of shopping, I decided on a 42" plasma which supports 720p. I could have spent about $250 more for a 1080p LCD but why? The Plasma looks great, costs less and even though 1080p is technically better, I don't have a use for it yet and don't want to spend the cash future proffing when the technology is only going to get better and cheaper very quickly.

Suddenly the 360 supports 1080p. I have a 360! I can make use of 1080p right now!! Now I'm not future proofing for a price, I buying something I can use today. So why stick with the interim level of HD when I can move up and make use (would that constitute having my cake and eating it too)?

Now, all that said, I'd like to see some reviews before I spend my $$ but that should answer the question asked in the submission.

Me... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:37 · Score: 0

56" DLP w/1080p attached right now.

seems more like a hack than a solution by bryz · 2006-09-20 01:40 · Score: 1

there are many issues here where it seems unlikely that the 360 with a software patch will be able to produce the same kind of 1080p results as a ps3 which was designed from the start to support 1080p. I'm truely skeptical with something like this that was capable, but not enabled at first.

I suspect we will see a lot of complaints about scaling existing games and lower content media. And only a small handful if any games that supposedly use 1080p.

Re:seems more like a hack than a solution by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 02:05 · Score: 0

"there are many issues here where it seems unlikely that the 360 with a software patch will be able to produce the same kind of 1080p results as a ps3 which was designed from the start to support 1080p."

Why?

"I'm truely skeptical with something like this that was capable, but not enabled at first."

It was always "capable" in hardware.
Re:seems more like a hack than a solution by Osty · 2006-09-20 06:45 · Score: 1

I suspect we will see a lot of complaints about scaling existing games and lower content media. And only a small handful if any games that supposedly use 1080p.

You're talking about Sony, right? Because no PS3 launch title will have a 1080p native resolution (I'm assuming the PS3 will scale everything to a single chosen resolution like the 360, and the "native" resolution is just what the game renders at internally), and many PS3 developers have insinuated that the console really isn't powerful enough to render games at native 1080p (scaling, sure).

The only benefit to the PS3's 1080p support is HDMI (on the $600 model ...), which means when the MPAA flips the ICT bit in 2011 you'll still be able to play high definition movies at 1080p. Then again, if you really cared about playing HD movies you wouldn't use a combo console/DVD player anyway.

Stop making stuff up by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:42 · Score: 0

Look, don't worry. A few of us will still buy PS3's, but don't make up stuff and tear down the xb360 just to make a point.

Real gamers will buy both. And if you think you're going to convince someone on slashdot to buy a PS3, well, you're dumber than the people you're trying to convince.

3rd question by cgenman · 2006-09-20 01:46 · Score: 0, Troll

Who developed their game to run at a reasonable framerate at 1080p?

Oh right. Good luck with that then.

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The ______ Agenda

Re:1080p - NO ONE has that _ YOUR FULL OF SCHIET! by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 01:47 · Score: 0

GOOD GOD MAN

I HAVE A 1080P TELEVISION.

Westinghouse LVM-W42.. has a 42" 1080P panel, along with the ability to accept 1080P via HDMI and DVI.. i got it from best buy.. for like $1900 CDN..

I also know of many people who have CRT projection systems that are 1080P.. and infact will do 2500x1600 RESOLVED on the faces of the tubes..

The sony RUBY front projector and the new pearl projector are all 1080P they market around the $5000 USD mark.

For a "video technician in the trade" i'd surely hate to have you working on my gear.. now get back to your soldering station and such up some more lead fumes.

I would by RembrandtX · 2006-09-20 01:48 · Score: 1

I literally JUST bought a TV that supports 1080P. I bought a HD tv specifically with the 360 in mind. [It helps that my old 25 inch sony from 1995 just died over the weekend, and that best buy had a 10% sale, and that circut city matched prices 110%]

Glad I spent the extra $500 for a 1080p over a 720p set.

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--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!

not a fanboy by maniac/dev/null · 2006-09-20 01:50 · Score: 1

I don't want to sound like a fanboy here but...

OMFG XBOX SUX DIX!!!!!! M$ IS ROBBING YOU!!!!!111one BUY A WII NINTY FTW!!!!!!! OMGWTFBBQROFLCOPTER!!!!!!!!111

Anyone else sick of HD? by MojoBox · 2006-09-20 01:51 · Score: 1

I'm sure it's very pretty, but between 780p, 1080i/p, upconversion, downconversion, scaling lag, contrast ratios and plasma fatigue, rear projection burn in, "magnifying" of graphical flaws, digital rights management, HD-DVD and BluRay, confusing and misleading specifications on TVs (is it true 1080p or is it just faking it, and how do I tell?), and not to mention price, I'm just sick to death of HDTV. These TVs are just too damn pricey to suddenly have half my games look bad because they're in the wrong resolution.

I think, maybe, I'll consider buying one in another ten years when things are more sorted out (and cheaper to boot).

Re:Anyone else sick of HD? by bitbucketeer · 2006-09-20 02:15 · Score: 1

DLP doesn't burn in. Or so the marketers say. And the lamp is consumer replacable... when they're not back ordered for months.

HP L2335 23" lcd, 1920x1200 by pyite69 · 2006-09-20 01:53 · Score: 1

It has TV-compatible inputs too.

But I would never buy a Microsoft product, so I'll have to consider the PS3.

Re:HP L2335 23" lcd, 1920x1200 by delinear · 2006-09-20 02:37 · Score: 1

But I would never buy a Microsoft product, so I'll have to consider the PS3.

That seems a strangely arbitrary decision. Let's face it, neither MS or Sony are going to be winning the consumer's friend award.

1080P me too by hador_nyc · 2006-09-20 01:55 · Score: 1

I've a Westinghouse LCD at 1080p. I use it in NYC with the local cable company's HD (mostly 1080i, a few channels 720p) and a progressive scan DVD player. It all looks great to me.

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- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me

Re:1080P me too by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 02:59 · Score: 0

Also have the Westinghouse 42" 1080p monitor. I say monitor, since it does not have a built-in tuner. Who cares. I get my signal from Comcast HD and it's amazing. Better yet, I got mine for $1700 new. Friends don't even believe me when I try to explain to them that it really is 1080p, with 1080p inputs in HDMI and DVI. Everything - games, TV, DVD - it all looks fantastic. Except for "old" 4:3 content of course.

So yes, I eagerly await the 1080p era!!

360 - 1080p TV = Me by Quarters · 2006-09-20 02:10 · Score: 1

Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p?

Me. I have an *87 series Samsung 50" DLP and enjoy it very much.

Simple by HatchedEggs · 2006-09-20 02:11 · Score: 1

If someone can afford to purchase a 1080p television, surely they can afford to spend a few bucks to purchase a XBox 360. I'm sure some people have moved past that, but for many console gaming is still a great way to spend a little time now and then.

So the question I have in response is:

Why wouldn't I have my XBox hooked up to my plasma or LCD?

--
Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.

Easy by Namarrgon · 2006-09-20 02:20 · Score: 1

Xbox Live Arcade games. Simple enough to render at 1080p, with full frame rate and AA. The existing ones won't, but they can be patched, and new ones certainly could.

No reason why full games couldn't run at 1080p either, just as with the PS3. There are always going to be a handful of games that are simply not that demanding. Ports of previous-gen driving games with identical textures but 1080p rendering, anyone?

--
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?

Despite negativism I belive PS3 will get the lead by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 02:21 · Score: 0

Ok. PS3 has an above average price tag.
But at the same time from the information available its more than just a console.
Its a media center with top of the line game console capabilities.

Disregarding where people connect their consoles fact is, having a system that provides, out of the box, media center capabilities not found on any other console including xbox 360, is what most people have been asking for.
Turning xbox360 to a media center will put the price tag at about the same as the ps3.
Youll need the media center extender, plus the hard-drive and HD-DVD for video playback upgrade.
The fact is out of the box sony has everything to deliver a full entertainment system. PVR cababilities using the hard-drive is a easier. Having you media files stored on the system.
Its only about having the software to use those capabilites. and that will come

BD-DVD is indeed a risk, but if they want bd-dvd to gain a bit more support it may be the right decision. as prices drop, so will both formats be supported on mainstream devices, as happens with the several dvd formats (dvd-rom, dvd-video, dvd+-rw). Today most people have combo drives.

But on top of all this we get the best graphics available.

When PS3 production really kicks and both Xbox 360 and PS3 are stable, thats when next gen battle will kick.
Xbox 360 is doing fine. But a year from now with a PS3 showing its full power with media capabilities and all that, and prices dropping, Sony may indeed get the lead, and reach theyre long term goal

Re: This is a Software update... by trdrstv · 2006-09-20 02:22 · Score: 1

Not Hardware. All 360's that connect to 'live silver' (about 60% of them) can download the update for free.

Count me in by AeroMed45N · 2006-09-20 02:25 · Score: 1

My 1080p Front Projector (Sony VPL-VW100) with 9' diagonal screen will be quite happy with a 1080p game console. :) My looming issue will be switching multiple HDMI sources -- I would love to get a good Home Theater Processor that will switch HDMI video and decode digital audio from the HDMI stream. The PJ only has two digital inputs, and they are taken....

1080p over component even possible? by Hamster+Lover · 2006-09-20 02:29 · Score: 1

I have a Sony KDF-E50A10 TV with a native resolution of 1280 x 720, so I don't care about 1080i/p because my TV can't display anything 1080 natively. But for others with higher resolution HDTvs, is it even possible to accept a 1080p signal over a component connection? It was my understanding that 1080p is only offically supported on TVs with an HDMI connection, and even then only on TVs that support HDMI 1.2. Before everyone jizzes in their pants over 1080p, is it even possible for their TV to accept a 1080p signal?

Re:I feel really sorry for you. by eln · 2006-09-20 02:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

People that spend tens of thousands of dollars on these things are generally not spending a year's pay on it, because they make a whole lot more than that per year. Larry Ellison's yacht may seem like a worthless extravagance to me, but if I had as much money as he does, I might be tempted to buy one.

Now, if you literally are spending an entire year's pay on a TV, then your debt structure must be astounding, because that's probably not the only large purchase you've gone into debt for. However, going into massive debt still doesn't mean someone has no life, it just means they suck at money management.

WTF is up with this flamebait? Let Zonk do games! by Blakey+Rat · 2006-09-20 02:32 · Score: 1

Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p? Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?

Criminy, CmdrTaco, please let Zonk do the game-related posts. Even if he doesn't know the difference between Xbox Live and Xbox Live Arcade.

But what's the deal with this flamebait? Is the point to this hypothetical (I assume) question to point out that both Sony and Microsoft's support of 1080p is pointless because not a lot of people have televisions that can display it? You make it sound as if it's a zero-sum game... like by adding 1080p support Xbox 360 will... I dunno, stop playing older games or something.

Maybe I don't have a 1080p TV now. That doesn't mean I won't in 2 years, well within the lifetime of the console. In addition, it's not like adding 1080p support took away something else. So it's a win-win situation.

Hell, 3 years ago, when original Xbox started supporting 480p on the dashboard, I was very grateful for it. (My TV, a Zenith, won't show 480i plugged into the HD port. So to use the Xbox dashboard originally, I had to actually plug the Xbox into a different input, then switch inputs again to play games) But I suppose if that news had been posted here, it would have had some snide comment like, "what kind of dumbass has a 480p TV that doesn't already show 480i? God what a rube!"

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Comment of the year

Re:I feel really sorry for you. by zuzzabuzz · 2006-09-20 02:32 · Score: 1

I feel more sorry for me. I imagine if you have a television like this it didn't cost "a year's pay" but actually only a fraction of it. Of course, I think it would probably cost me a couple of years pay.

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-buzz

Where is the benefit for the customer ? by jchuillier · 2006-09-20 02:37 · Score: 1

With the price of a "full power" XBOX and the price of a "full power" 1080 TV why wouldn't people upgrade their existing PC and buy a videoprojector, I play on my PC in 1280*1024, and if I had 1500 Euros to spend I'd buy a videoprojector with HDMI, connect it to my video board (they ALL have HDMI since 2 years) and beat the crap out of XBOX/PS3 and so on, on top of this my gaming platform would also be available to do other stuff than gaming

The console craze started with the PSX had it's justifications in the fact that it was MUCH cheaper than a PC, if now a console is more expensive than a PC which you can upgrade every 2 years or so (try changing the GPU in a console) I fail to see the point FOR THE CUSTOMER

Bottom line is that if you buy a console you're stuck for 3-4 years with the same system, when the system is superior in performance to a PC you pay a fortune for it, and the price only goes down when the "next generation" is about to come out, NOW would be the perfect time to buy a PS2 for example....

Re:Where is the benefit for the customer ? by HoboMaster · 2006-09-20 04:47 · Score: 1

I totally read that as "why wouldn't people upgrade their existing PC and buy a velociraptor." I agree completely.

--
Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.

Microsoft will not create 1080p games ... for now by aledwards20 · 2006-09-20 02:37 · Score: 1

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-360/shane-kim-ta lks-360-1080p-game-output-201816.php

While Kim expects that some third-party game developers will create 1080p games, he said that 720p will likely remain the norm. "We believe 720p is the sweet-spot for high definition," he said, adding that Microsoft Game Studio titles will, for now, continue to be created at 720p.

Microsoft knows most people don't care for 1080p at this time that's why they will continue to make games in 720p for now. Any HD set is capable of 720p so this is by far the best resolution to make games for. Maybe in a few years 1080p will be more common but until then this feature is a novelty. Sony can't say that the Xbox 360 can't do 1080p which leads to one less advantage to getting a PS3.
I personally use the VGA cables to do 1280x720 and it looks great. If I can hook up a DVI cable to the PS3 then I'll do the same for it.

Consoles on 1080p screens by Justin+Ames · 2006-09-20 02:40 · Score: 1

I currently have a PS2 and a PC hooked up to my Dell 24" LCD. It is my gaming/graphic design monito, but it gets more gaming. If I get a 360 and when I get a Wii, they too will be hooked up.

I am, for one... by HardwareLust · 2006-09-20 02:57 · Score: 1

" Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p? Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p? "

Well, I do not...yet. I have been planning on buying a new HDTV for my 360. Now that I know that my xbox will do 1080p, (which we probably should have expected all along) I will certainly begin shopping for a new TV/display that does 1080p.

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...not that I'm a pirate.. Hell I've never even fired a cannon. - oldwolf13

1080P sets are around, just do some research. by MufasaZX · 2006-09-20 03:07 · Score: 1

I have a 37" Westinghouse 1080P LCD as my PC display, and a recently purchased 47" Westinghouse 1080P LCD as my TV. Both are readily available, the former for about $1.5K and the latter for about $2.5K. Here's the endless thread on AVSForum if you want to read more, but I assure you these sets offer simply incredible viewing/playing experiences.

Games won't be 1080p... but don't miss the point! by glitch7 · 2006-09-20 03:11 · Score: 1

It seems like a lot of people out there are missing the point. Yes, just from reading all of these informative *mostly* correct posts, it is obvious that we will not see 1080p games this generation. ok, fine. This does not mean that 1080p TV's are useless. Both the xbox360 and ps3 are the cheapest HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players, so if you are a gamer, enjoy your 720p games and the free (ok, maybe a built in cost, but you get the point) blu-ray player to display your 1080p movies! (even if they do display in 1080i) My 50" Sony SXRD 1080p is f'ing beautiful, and I can't wait to queue up all the Blu-Ray discs on Netflix once I get my PS3..... And kill all this talk about no 1080p TV's under 2K, cuz it's just not true anymore...

Well, lets keep in mind by WndrBr3d · 2006-09-20 03:11 · Score: 1

That the Xbox360 has a video scaling chip in it. This means that most games are sill rendered at 720p, but are then scaled up to 1080i or whatever output resolution you have specified in your console settings. This is the same scaling technology that newer cable boxes use.

What does this REALLY mean?

Well, first off it means that Microsoft will finally be releasing an HDMI cable for the Xbox360, which many, many people have requested. People who do not use the HDMI hookup will not be able to take advantage of 1080p.

Also this does not mean that gamers who have televisions that support 1080p will not see an immediate quality boost from their Xbox360. Games that say they're 720p will still be rendered at 720p, so game image quality will not go up. BUT, what this does allow for is content that is mastered in 1080p (HD-DVD or perhaps a future game, but that is doubtful) can now be displayed at full resolution.

Current Cable support by Darkfred · 2006-09-20 03:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

HD AV cables support 1080p, the standard is analog your TV just has to know how to sync the signal. Its the digital interfaces which are bandwidth limited.

As for the show of hands:
I have a 54" HD DLP Television and I am enjoying the 360s HD output quite a lot. These TVs are no longer in the 5000 dollar range. I got the most vivid one in it's class for way under $2000. I mean you can get a 40" one with only 2 inputs at walmart for under $800. At this price it costs less than my 35" CRT low def television did. The 1080p thing has just made the previous generation models dirt cheap. You guys have no excuse to keep moaning about HD adoption. It costs less than a pc upgrade.

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----- 70% of all statistics are completely made up.

Re:Current Cable support by mennucc1 · 2006-09-20 04:35 · Score: 3, Funny

it depends on your "PC upgrade". My last "PC upgrade" was worth 200$ ... I guess that would by a 108p television.
Re:Current Cable support by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 05:43 · Score: 0

"Its the digital interfaces which are bandwidth limited."

Tell that to my 1920x1200x75Hz panel and it's fully functional DVI and D-Sub inputs.

What I really want to see come out of this update from Microsoft are some 16:10 options so all us VGA-cable-using PC-widescreen-owning 360 owners can play games and watch movies without them being vertically stretched by 10%. :)

Cheapest HD-DVD player? by andyatkinson · 2006-09-20 03:21 · Score: 1

Wouldn't this make the XBOX 360 core console the cheapest standalone (not computer) HD-DVD player? If they do a Christmas special for $300 or less, I think that would be a good value (if one has a 1080p display) even if someone only has a few 1080p HD-DVDs they own (or rent through Netflix). For certain moving pictures, like the ones that win Academy Awards for scenery, visual effects, set design, etc., it would be nice to watch them in 1080p resolution IMO. I would have to believe that there won't be many titles worth watching that are available exclusively on Blu-Ray, in other words, HD-DVD outta do it.

missing some info by Frag-A-Muffin · 2006-09-20 03:22 · Score: 1

apparently the HD-DVD drive will launch in japan on Nov. 22 for about $180USD.

I find this odd for several reasons. a) There is no "Xmas shopping craze" in japan. b) they'll miss out on said craze in North America.

The only reason why I can see them doing this is because they're getting really desperate to get some units out in japan. Selling 1000 consoles a week just isn't going to cut it, and they know that. Well, you gotta give them some credit for being persistant. Not many companies can fail so badly in a region and STILL pump all that money into it.

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AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak

Well. by falsified · 2006-09-20 03:35 · Score: 0, Flamebait

"Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p? Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?"

Doesn't matter. A non-trivial number of people will buy the PS3/360 without owning any HDTV set at all, because the PS3/360 will "make it high-def".

Seriously, the Wii is faulted for not displaying in high-def. Meanwhile, HDTV systems have like. 5% market penetration, and there aren't many indications of large numbers of new adopters in the horizon. I just bought a $180 set two weeks ago that looks better than, or as good as, a few of the high-def screens on display at the same store. High-def is a gimmick unless you're already buying a plasma or LCD set (and don't get me STARTED on those).

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HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.

Mod Parent UP by Wizworm · 2006-09-20 03:45 · Score: 1

I concurr, and I'm fresh out of Mod points

--
I always thought of Creationism as the Raving Right's version of the Loony Left's Anthropogenic Global Warming-brightmal

Questions, questions, questions... by DragonWriter · 2006-09-20 03:47 · Score: 1

What could this mean for Sony now that MS has 1080p as well?

"Microsoft announced plans to release a 1080p upgrade" is not the same as "Microsoft has 1080p"; how many times has Microsoft announced plans in response to a feature a competitors actual or announced product has that Microsoft's competing product didn't? How many times has that announced plan not materialized, or materialized only very late or very incomplete or both?

Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p?

Since I don't currently have anything but my PC that puts out 1080p or equivalent resolution (well, I think my digital cable box theoretically could if there was any 1080p content coming into it), why would I pay the premium for a 1080p display device for anything but my PC? OTOH, if I had a 1080p-capable game console and/or player for packaged video content, I'd have a reason to buy a 1080p display device for my living room, too.

Re:I feel really sorry for you. by randyest · 2006-09-20 03:50 · Score: 1

Jealous much?

Seriously, someone says they have a 1080p plasma (which I, frankly, doubt since they're so rare -- most likely it's 1080i or 720p, and there's no 1080p broadcast content in AUS, but I digress) and you go off prosteletizing your anti-TV opinions based on some completely groundless assumptions. Specifically, none of the following are known to be true by you, and probably aren't:

His plasma TV costs "tens of thousands of dollars."
Owning a $20k+ TV means one's life is otherwise empty.
Owning a $20k+ TV means one does not have a family.
Owning a $20k+ TV means one has not accomplished anything of lasting value.
Owning a $20k+ TV prevents having real relationships.
The TV cost the GP poster a year's pay.
Your priorities and concepts of values are indisputable universal truths.

Now, re-reading those claims, it looks to me like you are exactly opposite of what a reasonable person might assume would be the case in several cases.

Hey, I'm no big fan of TV either, but I do have a 42" LCD, I only paid $1500 for it, and it's not used all that often. But it is really nice for watching a movie or playing a game. Your assumptions are so ridiculously out of touch with reality that you just come off as a grumpy, jealous, pathetic little person who thinks their value judgements should be shared by all.

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everything in moderation

Re:I feel really sorry for you. by jacksonj04 · 2006-09-20 03:59 · Score: 1

I often hear similar about games consoles, and whilst I'm not a fan of them it does give me a way to explain why I want a Wii. I don't want it to play on my own, I want it because it looks like it will have several games which are great for grabbing a friend/family member or two and playing. Sod 360/PS3's FPS madness, I want Wii sports!

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How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?

1080p Projectors $5k by GriffinDodd · 2006-09-20 04:01 · Score: 1

There were multiple 1080p projectors at CEDIA recently retailing for under $5k. It wsn't that long ago that people were happily paying nearly $4k for 50" DLP HDTV's at 720p and Plasmas. You'll see 1080p below $3k before the end of 2007 and when you consider how many PC gamers are already playing at 1600x1200 HD gaming is far from a new or expensive option. As usual the marketing bandwagon has people thinking what they want them to think so they can get them to part with their cash. PS3 or XBox + 1080p TV for hi def gaming - $4k - $5k Dell desktop bundle + Nvidia GT7950 for hi def gaming - $1200 Not listening to marketing and thiking for yourself - priceless

well, not now by hogfat · 2006-09-20 04:10 · Score: 1

My Gamecube isn't currently connected, but it previously was (the video connector is still plugged into the display, if not the console), even though it's far from being capable of outputting 1080p.

1080P gaming. by ekimminau · 2006-09-20 04:18 · Score: 1

I have a Sony KDSR60XBR2 which does full 1080P. I have a game cube connected to it now. My next gaming system purchase will be in part influenced by whether or not a system supports 1080P.

--
Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N

But no HDMI? by AeroMed45N · 2006-09-20 04:21 · Score: 2, Informative

According to High-Def Digest, the photos of the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 does not have an HDMI output. 1080p over component only is problematic - particularly if the movie studios turn on content protection. So, having 1080p output without the digital path to the display is not such bit thunder, IMHO.... See http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Microsoft/X box_360/High-Def_DVD_Gaming/No_HDMI_for_Xbox_360_H D_DVD_Add-On/248

Yay... by Extide · 2006-09-20 04:31 · Score: 1

I have been playing games at 1920x1200 on my laptop for almost 2 years now. Depending on the game anywhere from ~40 fps to 90.

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Technophile

Will your 1080p display accept 1080p input? by MrEkted · 2006-09-20 04:43 · Score: 1

Just make sure that if you buy a 1080p TV, you get one that has a 1080p input! I bought a sony KDS-R50XBR1 SXRD 50" about 6 months ago which was marketed as a 1080p display. The specs show that it can display 1080p, but none of the inputs support it! Of course, now they have a new model with a shiny new name (Grand Wega SXRD 50") that has a HDMI 1080p input...
And yes, my living room was root-kit'd.

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Tell the moon dogs, tell the March hare

Until 1080p is cheap, tail chasing dog by WillAffleckUW · 2006-09-20 04:55 · Score: 1

I wouldn't hold my breath. Most people not only don't have 1080p, they won't even have HDTV until 2010. Until the price drops quite a lot, to where the average joe can spend less than a Nintendo Wii for an HDTV, it's a case of the tail chasing the dog. The dog is still sitting lazily in front of the fire, and will stay there until prices drop.

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-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --

Is this even possible? by dank+zappingly · 2006-09-20 04:57 · Score: 1

I try to keep up on this stuff as much as I can, but it is starting to get impossible. It was my understanding that component cables top out at 1080i. I am not sure that DVI can do 1080p, does anyone know about this? I am sure that HDMI can. I thought that HD-DVD barely had enough storage to put out a 1080i signal, and that they still haven't implemented 1080p. Is the HD-DVD peripheral going to include support for this? There is a cable to convert HDMI to DVI, like the one Sony includes in their Blu Ray laptops, but i did not know of any device that can do the opposite. I thought that eventually the movie studios were going to insist that everything be done through HDMI and anyone who was trying to play High Def discs through DVI were going to be SOL and would have to resort to a lower resolution. Are new Xbox360 games going to support this, or are they just going to have the hardware upscale or de-interlace everything? I also heard that Microsoft will be selling the HD-DVD attachment for 200 bucks, and that it most certainly will not be able to be used for games. Paying $600 for a PS3 doesn't seem like so much money if you take into account how much you are going to have to pay 2 years down the line for a frankenbox with all sorts of dongles hanging off of it to get the same functionality. Blu Ray will have won the High def battle the instant the PS3 launches. I'd be loath to buy one of these attachments only to have to buy a Blu Ray attachment next year. People may argue that this thing will catch on, but I think it's still all too confusing. People know if they buy the PS3, they are well positioned to take advantage of our glorious HD future. The 360 still has so many questionmarks involved. If someone would please let me know if I got any facts wrong I'd appreciate it. I'm doing my best to understand the differences between these two formats and I'm still confused as hell.

Nothing supports the PS3's dual HDMI for 1080p by inca34 · 2006-09-20 05:09 · Score: 1

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that there is not even a TV on the market that can support the Sony PS3's dual HDMI connection for 1080p at 60 fps? Last I read that 1080p30 has the same bandwidth as 1080i60, which is the max of each HDMI connection as per the standard. Hence, dual HDMI connectors like we have dual DVIs for large LCDs.

I just bought a 50" DLP, a Sony Grand Wega, from Circuit City. It was advertized at the store as a 1080p TV, but in actually is only a 1080i TV according to the manual. I will be returning it due to analog to digital conversion lag (e.g. even with Game Mode on, Halo 2 is sufficiently lagged up to tell the difference between my 32" CRT and the 50" DLP), and the bitter taste in my mouth about not being able to do 1080p60 with a $2000 TV. Not to mention the lack of DVI connectors... don't even get me started, but the sooner HDMI is hacked and I can connect my computer digitally to the screen the happier I will be to lay down $2000 for a High-Def TV.

No HDMI & No more price wars by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 05:09 · Score: 0

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060920-7790 .html states:

"However, the Xbox 360 does not have an HDMI output, meaning that it will not be possible to view HD DVDs in 1080p. The highest resolution of both Blu-ray and HD DVD requires HDMI by design."

"Microsoft did not announce availability or pricing in the United States, but we expect a similar launch date in the US and a price of $199. This would make Microsoft's premium Xbox 360 package a $598 affair if you roll the HD DVD drive in, coming in at the same price as the top-of-the-line PS3 ($599)."

I'd say the HDMI output is easily worth $1 so I'm waiting for the PS3 to enjoy on my new Tru 1080p Mitsubishi 52" DLP HDTV :: http://www.mitsubishi-tv.com/j/i/18326/TelevisionD etails.html?cid=380

Peace!

i plan to buy a 1080p display in the next 3 months by Surt · 2006-09-20 05:09 · Score: 1

They can be had for under $1200 now, and that's only about 4x the price of the xbox (and you can keep and use it longer).

Anyone who buys a non-1080p or better display at this point is being foolish.

--
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking

Re:Dude, what about HD DVD by gEvil+(beta) · 2006-09-20 05:10 · Score: 3, Informative

I'm well aware that media that can take advantage of 1080p is slowly coming out. However, my comment was written in response to pjr.cc's claim that he is using a 1080p plasma (very few exist) to receive 1080p signals in Australia (where there are no 1080p signals). Claiming that you are actively using something to receive signals that don't exist is very different from claiming that you intend to use something down the road.

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This guy's the limit!

I do by Shadowlore · 2006-09-20 05:13 · Score: 1

Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p?

I do.

Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?

A second one? Yup.

--
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.

Will anyone notice? by poot_rootbeer · 2006-09-20 05:30 · Score: 1

Most people with good eyesight would probably notice a marked difference in detail between a 480i and 1080i signal, or even a 480p and 720p signal. The transition from standard-def to hi-def, while somewhat sluggish, is underway because people can appreciate its benefits.

But is anyone actually going to notice a difference between 1080i and 1080p? Or will it be a simply psychological effect found in those that pay $100/ft for special speaker cable where the "electrons are properly aligned" or what have you? "I paid a premium for this hardware, therefore it MUST be better!"

Well I plan to buy one... by PortHaven · 2006-09-20 05:50 · Score: 1

In fact, I almost did.

I've seen 1080p rear projection TVs for under $2,000 at Circuit City.

Yes! LVM-42w2 Happiness but DVD question by rapett0 · 2006-09-20 06:03 · Score: 1

About a month ago, after wanting a flat panel television for 10+ years, I bought the Westinghouse LVM-42w2. Far as I know it does support 1080p over all its inputs that it would apply to. Here is a link about the monitor (yes, no tuner built in):

http://www.westinghousedigital.com/pc-44-7-42-1080 p-monitor.aspx

I currently have my XBOX 360 setup for 1080i, and my computer hooked up over DVI. I have a dual montior setup, so the LVM-42w2 gets my secondary desktop at 1920*1080 and my 20'' widescreen (Dell) gets 1680*1200 or something similar. .

However, maybe I am wrong, but I thought the 360 did not upsample DVD's, only games. I can not remember where I read that. Anyway, I am very happy about this coming upgrade as I am sure while maybe minor to my eyes, it will still be appreicate.

By the way, for those wanting to know. I got it at Best Buy (yeah yeah I know I know), for 1700 dollars. Delivered next day. Also, I had to look online for what other users had done for the settings, and followed them and that helped greatly. As for the supposed power issue, I have version 1.0 (I think they are up to 1.16 or something), and never had it happen to me. But if it does, Westinghouse will come and flash your monitor for you to fix it.

You are right --1080p isn't that expensive.... by daniel422 · 2006-09-20 06:04 · Score: 1

Current 1080p capable widescreens can be had for less than $2k. As an example, Mitsubishi has several. Here's a 50-inch: http://www.fotoconnection.com/viewitem.php?IndexID =52698&RefTag=froogle Many computer monitors also support this resolution (or greater). WUXGA resolution is becoming more common, and monitors can be had for $700: http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.a spx?sku=320-4335&cs=19&c=us&l=en And that's a 24-inch monitor. Yes, I own a 1080p capable monitor now, and I plan on buying a larger 1080p capable monitor in the next year (perhaps a projector -- about $3k for 1080p capable) I'm already enjoying the benefits of HD as well as the xbox 360 outputs. Sports (in particular) have now become almost unwatchable in SD for me. Sort of like once you've tried Tivo -- you can't go back. And yes, you can see image artifacts at 1080i. The damn interlacing always makes bricks (in particular, but any small horizontal detail line) flicker with movement. Upscaling to 1080p (even if the original source is 1080i or lower) fixes that. So yes: HDTV is great. 1080p is great. That it makes 1080i stuff cheaper is great, too.

Not so fast! by Vr6dub · 2006-09-20 06:22 · Score: 1

This guy seems to disagree and to me, states his case rather convincingly...

http://www.bluesky-web.com/numbers-mean-little.htm /

Some excerpts:

Another parameter 1080i advocates use to advance their cause is resolution. Resolution is the ability to preserve the separate components of fine detail in a picture, so that they may be discerned by the viewer. But picture quality is not dependent on resolution alone. Numerous studies of perceived picture quality reveal that it is dependent on brightness, color reproduction, contrast, and resolution. Color reproduction is identical in all HDTV scanning formats, and may thus be disregarded as a factor. A typical study assigns the following weights to brightness, contrast, and resolution:

Contrast 64% Resolution 21% Brightness 15%

Resolution, then, is only a factor, and not the largest factor, in the determination of the subjective quality of a television picture. This was well illustrated in an industry meeting of professional video engineers that took place a few years ago. At that meeting, two direct-view (cathode ray tube) monitors of the same size, shape, and brand were fed the same HDTV signal. One of these monitors was priced in the $40,000 range, while the other was priced in the $4000 range. The $40,000 monitor unsurprisingly had a picture tube of far higher resolution capability than the lesser priced monitor, but the lesser monitor, because of its larger pixel "dots", had the higher contrast ratio, the relationship between the lightest and darkest parts of the picture. With a single exception, the engineers preferred the pictures displayed on the lower-definition monitor. While they seem at first glance to contradict intuition, the results of this demonstration are consistent with all the published literature on the subject.

and...

"Television pictures move, so when we consider resolution, dynamic resolution is typically a more important factor than static resolution."

and...

Finally, let's take a closer look at the display. The resolution of any type of display is dependent on its dot pitch, which effectively defines the physical size of the dots, or screen pixels: the higher the resolution, the smaller each dot must be. We see this when considering computer monitors or printers: a 600 dot-per-inch printer makes a sharper image than a 300 dot-per-inch printer, and a 0.28 dot-pitch monitor makes a higher resolution image than a 0.50 dot-pitch monitor, and of course the higher resolution printer and monitor cost more than their lower-resolution counterparts.

In order to fully resolve a 1080i picture, a display screen must have about 6 million dots, and for 720P, the figure is about 2.75 million dots. The larger the number of dots required, the smaller each dot must be, and the smaller the dot, the less light it generates. The full resolution of 720P may be displayed using dots three times larger than 1080i for a given screen size, and this gives the HDTV viewer a brighter picture with a higher contrast ratio. As an added bonus, the lower resolution display is less expensive to make.

We saw previously that the real vertical resolution of 720P pictures is better than that of 1080i pictures. It is also true that the additional horizontal resolution that 1080i boasts cannot be displayed on any currently available consumer HDTV display of any technology. Fortunately for the viewer, it is not necessary to the enjoyment of HDTV. An instructive illustration is the much-admired digital cinema, where micromirror projectors are used to project theatrical features onto screens that may be 50 feet or more wide. The horizontal resolution capability of these projectors is 1280 pixels, the same as that of 720P, and we have not heard anyone complain that digital cinema has inadequate horizontal resolution.

Micromirror projection is one of several advanced display

Re:Not so fast! by conigs · 2006-09-20 06:48 · Score: 1

First off, I admit I was ignoring the way the human eye perceives images. And for that I will gladly be corrected.

However, the article you reference has some inaccuracies that make me question it. (I've never heard of Bluesky Media. They may be very reputable, but I just don't know the history.) First of all, the write-up appears to be from October of 2004. At least that's the modified date I get on the page when viewing it in Firefox. This may account from some of the inaccuracies.

To things caught my attention, first was the discussion of no consumer display being able to display the added horizontal resolution of 1080i. That is clearly (especially now) flase. Second was the digital cinema remark. Digital cinema is NOT 1280 lines. Perhaps on the consumer end, yes, but not in any actual theater. The digital cinema that you might experience (if your theater has a digital cinema) is more than likely a 2k projector. that would be 2048 lines across, not 1280. Some are even 4k resolution (4096).

Also concerning the contrast preference and the size of the element between a 720p display and a 1080i display. If we follow this line of logic, then a 480p display must be even better, right? At a certain point, there's a threshold where increased resolution will make a difference over contrast.

I'm not trying to discredit people's preference of 720p over 1080i. I'm just saying that there are legitimate reasons to prefer 1080i signal. See my post above concerning reconstructing a progressive image from a 24fps source in a 1080i signal. Though that might have more to do with the actual signal than the display itself.

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Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"

1080p is worthless by Frobozz0 · 2006-09-20 06:30 · Score: 1

Don't get me wrong, 1080p is nice all things equal (such as cost and availability of content) but it really doesn't make a big difference over 720p. Furthermore, as the poster points out, it's only for MOVIES. Not for games. So the PS3 still has a technical advantage even though I really don't think it matters. On top of that, almost no one has a 1080p display in their living room. I have one in my computer room (23" LCD 1920 x 1200), but in my living room I have a 720p resolution HDTV.

And, yes, I'm a Sony fan. But I just don't think 1080p matters right now, even in the living room. You have to have a large display to see the pixel difference between 1080p and 720p anyway. It's mostly a bragging right.

--
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."

Read It Again Please by Einstein_101 · 2006-09-20 06:37 · Score: 1

You obviously missed the most important statement in his post:

"Most People"

His argument wasn't how some people can get by. He specifically said that PC's were becoming obsolete, and I counted with why I felt it would never happen. It wasn't a personal attack against him; it was just another way to look at things.

When someone tries to speak for the masses, you can't defend them by saying "well he said he didn't do it". If that's the point, then maybe he should just speak for himself.

My Question is when... by Josiah_Bradley · 2006-09-20 06:40 · Score: 1

Will consoles have native support for VGA or DVI outputs so we can all use our nice computer monitors that support well pass 1080p/60? Is there a reason that TVs and consoles go together better? Isn't a TV just a specialized monitor? with possibly different inputs? and maybe a tuner?

XBox360 @ 1080p by MarkAD88 · 2006-09-20 07:03 · Score: 1

I spent nearly 5 months looking for a TV which had a NATIVE 1080p resolution (1920x1080) and that would accept a 1080p signal on component, DVI and HDMI inputs. I was never able to find one that supported 1080p over component inputs but I finally found an affordable unit in the Westinghouse LVM-42w2 that did provide all the other functionality that I wanted.

I didn't find any sets during my research that could accept 1080p over component cables even in the $6K to $10K range.

My guess is that Microsoft will release a new cable in either VGA, DVI, or HDMI format in order to allow people to actually enjoy the benefits of a true 1080p signal.

Re:XBox360 @ 1080p by blargh-dot-com · 2006-09-20 12:47 · Score: 1

Samsung's line of DLPs that came out this year do 1080p, take 1080p on component and HDMI, and are under $3k.
Re:XBox360 @ 1080p by MarkAD88 · 2006-09-20 13:19 · Score: 1

Unfortunatley, DLP was not an option for me. I was stuck with either Plasma or LCD flat panels due to the brain-dead floor plan in my family room.

I did look at the Mitsubishi DLP series of TVs which were all 1080p on all inputs and were around $3500 at the time. The picture quality was simply amazing but unfortunatley the form-factor wasn't something I could be flexible on.

Not me by Daetrin · 2006-09-20 07:49 · Score: 1

Now honestly, show of hands: who has their console (not PC!) connected to a display device capable of 1080p? Who plans on buying a device capable of 1080p?

My PS3 and my Rev will both be attached to the same five year old 27" (i think) standard def CRT tv that my PS2 and GameCube are currently connected to. I upgrade my PC on a somewhat regular basis, i upgrade my consoles, i don't really see any compelling reason to upgrade my tv.

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This Space Intentionally Left Blank

Re:I feel really sorry for you. by ClamIAm · 2006-09-20 08:20 · Score: 1

Or, perhaps they're really good and managing their money.

If you're in the market for a new TV at all by Anonymous Coward · 2006-09-20 09:05 · Score: 0

You'd be foolish not to look at a 1080p panel. The Westinghouse 1080p panels are cheap and have a good picture, and do 1080p. Maybe you don't want to buy one - but you have to at least give them a chance.

Don't get too excited about this (yet) by iamghetto · 2006-09-20 12:58 · Score: 1

1080p upscaling is not the same as a true 1080p output. The image you'll be getting will be blown up 720p image. It's not worth purchasing a 1080p television for this.
The attenuation in component cables make transferring a 1080p/30, 1080i/60 extrememly difficult. You require high quality cabling of no more than a 2 feet in length.
Much in the same way, it is virtually impossible to transmit 1080p/60fps over component cables.
Because of this two well known facts, 1080p television sets only support a 1080p input through either their HDMI or VGA inputs.
Currently the Xbox 360 only supports output via component cables. Since no TV's don't support 1080p via component (nor do the cables really themselves) the whole idea out outputting a 1080p signal from the 360 is meaningless.

As an aside, the PS3 supports the HDMI 1.3 spec while allows for a full 1080p/60fps signal to be transferred. The PS3 also has a digital VGA port on it that will output 1080p/60fps. While one can agrue points against the PS3, you can't say that the machine isn't 'future' proof for gaming in terms output and storage capacity.

But back to the point at hand... Considering the Xbox 360 is currently incompetent from a technical standpoint when it comes to displaying 1080p, I think this can only lead to one of two conclusions:

A) Microsoft will be releasing a full blown HDMI compatible output cable in the near future.
B) Microsoft is just playing a 1080p public relations game, preying on the ignorant and gullible masses.

Cheap 1080p displays by rwa2 · 2006-09-20 14:15 · Score: 1

I just snagged the Dell 2407WFP for about $800

Dell 2407WFP
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/06/23/Dell_U ltrasharp_2407WFP_monito/1.html

According to that review, it's generally the same as the Samsung 244T, though the Samsung has better color

Samsung 244T
http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=266 2

How? by Taulin · 2006-09-20 17:17 · Score: 1

How do you recieve news from a convention that hasn't even started yet?

Re:I feel really sorry for you. by PopeRatzo · 2006-09-22 00:47 · Score: 1

You're right, I'm sorry. I should have said "I feel sad for anyone for whom watching TV is worth a year's pay for five hundred third-world workers who spend their lives making the consumer goods that you have decided you must have."
Pardon me all to hell.

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You are welcome on my lawn.

VGA question by theclaw1 · 2006-09-27 19:07 · Score: 1

Does this mean all backwards compatible original Xbox games and every DVD movie will output at 1080p over regular VGA? If so, I'm sold on it. This awesome monitor of mine could use a good workout.

349 comments