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Wii Confirmed at 480p
Eurogamer is reconfirming that the Wii only outputs at 480p, after the official Nintendo magazine mistakenly said otherwise. From the article: "Nintendo UK also recently said that it had every intention of releasing peripherals like the component cable — used to achieve the 480p resolution — at retail, despite suggestions that you'd have to buy the cables through online shops in the US. The interest in Wii's high-resolution options is of course spurred on by Microsoft and Sony's battling over the higher end. Both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 generally offer games in 720p, with 1080p now possible for developers who want to go the extra mile (well, the extra 1,152,000 pixels, anyway)."
Date of the article: "02/11/06" ...I think this article is a little bit late. It's been known for months that the Wii would output 480p.
...and I now realize that that is indeed today, I'm just a stupid American... ;-)
;-)
At first glance the 02/11/2006 made me think of Feb, not 11/2...
Apparently recently there was a report that the Wii would output in 720i/p... And this is just debunking that error.
Sorry, move along, nothing to see here
It would be interesting to know how much of the video game market consists of people with HDTVs that actually do 720p/1080whatever. This also leads me to ask: "Does resolution really matter?" For some games, I'm sure it makes a difference, but I'd be willing to bet that high resolution won't make any difference to a large majority of gamers in a large number of titles.
Keeping to 480p seems like a good move by Nintendo. Many (I'd even go so far as to say most) of their games will be just as fun, you don't need a fancy TV just to enjoy it, and (perhaps most importantly) it keeps part cost, size, and power requirements down.
I was watching my teenage brother-in-law play Zelda (I don't recall which) on his gamecube the other day. The graphical style of the game was very effective, and I think it would actually lose appeal going to higher resolution.
Now all you experts can respond and tell me why I'm totally wrong.
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If MY company had every invention, I certainly wouldn't be making video game consoles!
Aikon-
I was busting for one!!! ;)
I thought the Nintendo Wii was supposed to have similar capabilities as the original Xbox. There are many games that support 720p resolution on the old Xbox, with a few (simple) games supporting 1080i. So the new Nintendo isn't even up to the standard of the previous generation of game consoles?
Resolution wise, you are correct. In all other aspects, the Wii will tromp the original XBox.
Yeah man, I guess we just shouldn't buy it now. The Wii may be the most innovative system in a long time, but hell, if it can't do 720p, I guess we're just going to have to shell out more for one of the other consolso we can get better eye candy in our sequels.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I won't be paying for resolution I can't see.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
With an innovative motion controller and great gameplay, 480p is still really good.
Remember that 480p is more aong the lines of current DVD quality, and still better than the interlaced TV display we are all used to. It should still look better than last generation consoles from a detail persepctive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
According to the Wii FAQ from IGN the Wii can technically do 720p and 1080i. Its only that due to the lack of CPU/GPU power using that resoluton wouldn't make much sense for real games.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to buy a Wii. I'm just disapointed that it won't even support a higher resolution. It really is nice to be able to use the higher resolution when playing with friends on a split-screen. And since the Wii won't have any service like Microsoft's Live initially (and I don't think there will even be any local network games at first), this will be the only way to play with friends for a while on the Wii unless it is a turn-based or overlayed game of course.
Thats funny. I would have suspected it was the other way around (many supporting 1080i and fewer 720p).
The scale goes like this (from higest quality to lowest):
How this works... The number is the number of vertical lines in the picture, or the final resolution. However, that number alone can be very misleading. The i or p suffix stand for interlaced or progressive scan. Interlaced images quite literally only pass 1/2 of the total resolution each image. To avoid having a half empty (every other line style) image, they take the opposite lines from the previous image and interlace them.
What most people don't realize is that this gives very poor quality images when there is a large amount of motion (aka video games, sports tv, etc). Progressive scan images on the other hand represent ALL vertical lines of the image for each pass, resulting in MUCH crisper (quite easy to see with your own eyes) images.
Anyway, my point was, it would be much easier to supply a 1080i resolution (540 lines) verses a 720p (720 lines) from a graphics processing standpoint.
Another torrent of fanboys posting about how nintendo is somehow making a better console using the theory of addition by subtraction. I am buying a Wii and fuck Sony, but I have a nice HDTV. When I put my PS2 on it for the first time I was underwhelmed. So Hi Def would have been nice. Its alright to love nintendo for their games and sweet controller, but dont act like not having hidef is actually some kind of advantage. It makes you sound like an idiot.
Oh well, at least it has progressive scan. What I'm wondering is whether progressive scan will work for Gamecube games, and also whether there will be a VGA adapter... poor college students without TVs need this kind of information! Geez.
Lalala
I thought I would be forced to buy one of these ridiculous expensive HDTV's. Does the PS3 or the XBox360 work with a current TV?
Now I can get the Wii and wait for the much cheaper to produce Laser TV's when they arrive in 2 or 3 years.
I guess because of the lower resolution the Games will run faster than on PS3 and XBox360, right?
I'm sorry but that is wrong. You are forgetting that there are also more lines for the other axis; assuming 60 Hz, these are the pixel outputs for every 1/60th of a second:
1. 1080p = 1920x1080 = 2073600 pixels
2. 1080i = 1920x540 = 1036800 pixels
3. 720p = 1280x768 = 983040 pixels
4. 720i = 1280x360 = 491520 pixels
5. 480p = 640x480 = 307200 pixels
6. 480i = 640x240 = 153600 pixels
This of course assumes that all pixels are assumed equal, i e as difficult to output.
Hey is there anywhere I can still pre-order a Wii? As it stands, the kids I've worked my entire life to support resent me - if I don't get them a Wii, I doubt they'll ever speak to me again.
PS - Never have kids - you will regret it for the rest of your life.
Does this mean trying to play the Wii on a DLP will result in that quarter second delay that plagues games like Guitar Hero? I imagine the motion sensitive games would be similarly unplayable with such a delay :(
You've neglected the horizontal resolution aspect. 1080i is 1920x1080 (interlaced), whereas 720p is 1280x720 (progressive). Do the math. Even 1920*540 > 1280*720. But you're also forgetting that 1080i contains two 1920x540 fields for every 1920x1080 frame. So remember to double the amount of data generated by the last calculation.
1080i is more taxing than 720p.
You are forgetting the horizontal resolution. 1080i still requires a higher throughput of pixels since it has a much higher horizontal resolution than 780p. The throughput required for each resolution is:
- 1080p - 1080*1920=2073600 pixels/frame
- 1080i - (1080/2)*1920=1036800 pixels/frame
- 720p - 720*1280=921600 pixels/frame
- 720i - (720/2)*1280=460800 pixels/frame
- 480p - 480*720=345600 pixels/frame
- 480i - (480/2)*720=172800 pixels/frame
So the 1080i needs about 15% more pixels/s than 720p.If you read my comment then you would have noticed I was discussing vertical lines of output and overall quality. Its a non-disputed fact that 720p is a higher quality than 1080i despite 1080i have more total pixels. 1080i has fewer vertical lines, which comes from interlacing and has an awful motion blurring effect.
Why else would all the sport channels, and all other forms of high quality video use progressive scan instead of the interlaced resolutions?
Which looks just fine on my 720p capable TV, and the TV does all the scaling. Get some decent anti-aliasing in there and you're good to go.
I actually like Nintendo's tactic here, it is much like AMD's wait to support DDR2 sceme. Let your competitors spend the capital to build the market, then step in when its ready and start making cash without the initial investment.
...falling all over themselves to declare how great it is, and how they wouldn't want a higher resolution anyway.
Nintendo could release an actual brick as a console and people would still say how much better it is.
And yes, I may buy one myself at some point but c'mon people, blind love for a hunk of plastic and metal is kind of sad.
I always use ddMMMyyyy, where MMM are the first three letters of the month's name. So today would be 02NOV2006.
-
Real-time war simulations would benefit from more pixels. Each step from 320x200 to 640x480 to 1024x768 allowed PC RTS games to show much more information about the player's buildings and units on the screen at once. It also allows the camera to be pulled out farther to show more units at once or multiple views so that the player can see what's going on at each front.
Yes you would! You would have every invention, including all video game consoles.
Its not non-disputed at all. The 'horrible blurring' with 1080i is the same thing that has always existed with normal 480i tv. That is, very minor blurring. And 1080i superior for lower motion broadcasts which is why the premium movie networks use it.
And all the sports channels do not use 720p. 1080i channels that display sports: CBS (AFC football and college basketball/football) NBC (sunday night football), both INHD channels (various pro sports), NFL network and NBA TV (self explanitory).
I read your post as claiming that outputting 720p for a video console was more taxing than outputting 1080i since that is what the original poster was talking about, and that is simply not true.
For live action, it depends very much on what the actual cameras support whether 1080i is better / worse than 720p. For regular movies, filmed non-digital, 1080i is of course superior to 720p since 1080i is equivalent to 1080p for those (they only film 24 frames / second, so a good deinterlacer will produce the exact same result from 1080i as from a 1080p stream). For TV, such as sports, if the digital cameras support 720p & 1080i but not 1080p, there are advantages with 720p, definitely.
In short, it depends on what you really mean with p or i. The real question is, what is your original stream (console output, camera output, or whatever)? Is it 60 frames / second or 30? For 30 (including non-digital movies; they're really 24 but that doesn't matter), 1080i is equivalent to 1080p and hence far superior to 720p. For 60, a 720p might be more pleasant to the viewer even though 1080i contains slightly more date.
That doesn't even make sense to me. When you're talking movies, they are shot on film at 24fps progressive. So say 720p24 for film. Then on DVD it is encoded as either 720p24 or telecined to 720i60, where 60 refers to fields (1/2 frames). NTSC TV is usually recorded at 720i60, which displays as 60 fields per second, which equals 30 frames per second.
HD movies would be sourced to film still, at 1080p24, and there is no reason to encode or display them at any higher frame rate. The data is not there. Every HDTV broadcast I've seen has been 1080p30, which is equivalent to 1080i60. Same number of pixels once the 60 fields are deinterlaced to 30 frames.
Games could theoretically output 1080p60, which would be twice as many pixels as 1080i60, but from what I've read so far, you need the latest version of HDMI, 1.3, to even support that bandwidth. Does the PS3 use HDMI 1.3? I'm sure the Xbox didn't. The 360 probably doesn't.
If we're talking a full 60 frames of 1080p, it has more pixels. Still not for movies, which are still recorded at 24fps, but possibly for games. Short of that, this whole discussion about pixels is meaningless.
Most people don't have HDTVs. But I do. And the idea of buying a console that will never talk to it, never show me the full picture, is irritating. Particularly because I like the Wii.
If they had just managed to get it up to 720p, this whole discussion would be moot. 1080p is great and all, but as far as content is concerned (i.e. tv shows, films, games that can drive it) 1080p is basically science fiction right now. Won't be common for years.
But 720 would have been awesome. Its a design istake in my opinion. Hopefully they can add it after the fact like the Xbox360 did, but I'm not holding my breath.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
That's not true. You are correct in that 1080i sends less lines to the TV (or what have you), but graphics processors dont render interlaced images. Interlaced images are necessary for analog display devices so when your machine is connected to one, the controller only sends half the data because the display wants that. It still has the full resolution image in it's frame buffer.
This is why MS can 'add' 1080p support easily. The machine does the work regardless, the resolution is the same for 1080i and 1080p as far as its concerned.
So it's no skin off nintendos bum to incude 480p. That basically means the wii supports digital displays. Of course, unlike the higher resolution standards, 480p doesnt always mean widescreen. Widesreen 480p would take extra processing power over 480i because it has more pixels to render. Nintendo is leaving that decision up to developers.
FUNK!
I'm a big geek and I'd love to say "1080P ROXXORZ! ALL!! 4TW!!" but sadly, it isn't the case. Yes, a big-screen high-definition teleivision playing HDTV definately looks better than Channel 2 on your old 13". But that isn't an accurate comparison for most of the market.
I sold TVs for 8 years. I had big banks of them - Standard, ED, HD - even some exotic 1080p stuff that didn't run anything except a special demo disk in a special machine.
One particular corner was a perfect test area. We had a 480P, 720P, and 1080I television of the same make and line (it was an LG set of televisions). Of the hundreds (if not thousands) of customers I showed these sets to, running HD PBS 1080 feed via Satellite (beautiful show, btw) - 8 out of 10 people pointed at the 480P set and said it was superior quality. When pressed for why they made that choice, they usually said "it was a hunch" and that they couldn't really tell between the three.
All three TVs had v-high quality cables, and my "test subjects" were sitting approximately 8 feet away from these 42" sets, which were all hung in equal lighting at eye level.
Then I'd move the test subjects up close - 2 feet away or so - and we could easily count the physical pixels on the 480 screen, wheras you'd have to move your head much closer to count the pixels on the 1080 screen. We could all see that, yes, upon inspection we *know* that 1080 is better...
But then I pointed at the pricetags. $1000 for the 480, $1800 for the 720, and $2500 for the 1080. Guess which one I sold the most of. (most of my data culled from 1-2-3 years ago so pricing/details may vary).
I have a 50" LCD Projection TV, 720p, that is widescreen (as all new TV's appear to be). I really don't care too much about resolution, but rather about dimensions. The only thing that is really a negative in my mind about the Wii is whether or not games will be square, or rectangular. Will I get to use all of the screen real-estate on my new TV, or will I have a square box in the middle, wasting at least 1/2 of my TV's display space?
That's the big question in my mind.
Open Your Mind. Open Your Source.
The Gamecube was pretty close to the original Xbox in terms of graphical horsepower. Oh wait, you're not actually talking about graphical power, just about those TVs that nobody has yet.
progressive scan is used over interlacing because interlacing leaves artifacts and flickering particularly with fast moving pictures (like sports). Not to mention most HDTV are progressing meaning they'd have to deinterlace the incoming signal which can create breakup and more artifacting along the edges of fast moving objects on screen (again like sports).
In terms of the video game space there is no difference in programing 1080i and 1080p. While 1080i might only have 540 lines actually displayed they have to render the whole frame in 1080 frame to keep it in sync. If you were to specifically program your game to output in an interlaced format (meaning you only had to render 540 lines per frame) you'd be doing what's called "field rendering" which is almost universally avoided because it requires you to ensure a rock solid 60FPS and if you miss a frame you run the risk of loosing sync placing the odd lines where the evens should go and the even lines where the odds should go.
Collector's Edition
Replace all reference to 720p/720i with 480p/480i in my parent post, and it makes a lot more sense. ;-)
Basically what I'm saying is SDTV/DVD (in the US) is either:
480p24
480p30 or
480i60
p24 and i60 (telecined) for DVD or
p30 and i60 for SDTV
end up being the same amount of data (pixels x frames / sec)
HDTV/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD is the same:
720p24/1080p24
720p30/1080p30 or
720i60/1080i60
I just read the specs on Sony's Blu-Ray site, and Blu-Ray doesn't even support 1080p60. I'd be really surprised if games do.
I not sorry to say this but: 1) It is *NOT* and undisputed fact that 720p is higher quality than 1080i. In fact, that is one of the least understood and most disputed arguments in the HD world. Fact is, 1080i is a higher resolution than 720p but you inherit some of the artifacts that an interlaced scanning gives. 720p60 is 1280 × 720 pixels, progressive encoding with 60 frames per second (60 hertz known as Hz). 1080i50 is 1920 × 1080 pixels, interlaced encoding with 50 fields (25 frames) per second. 720p offers only 44% of 1080i's resolution. Rather 1080i offers 56% more detail than 720p. 720p is not only a lower resolution but requires both less bandwidth and storage space. Its only advantage image wise is the fact that it is 60 full frames each scan at 60fps. 1080i Displays half a frame each scan 50 scans a second or 25fps. For reference movies in the that are only display 24fps because this is the rate at which the human eye can no longer distinguish individual frames. SDTV is 480i and have been forever, not many people even cared or could visualize the difference between interlaced or progressive until they had the opportunity to argue between 720p and 1080i, in reality is that the only argument for 720p is the fact that it is progressive. The only downside with 1080i is that you may experience degradation of image quality with fast motion(I suppose this is why the NFL supports 720p). Here is a little reference to support my statements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDTV#Format_considera tions
Is that true? I've never heard this. Which games, if you don't mind me asking?
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Or you could get a Sony-Bony Pixelation station 3 with nothing but shooters and Final Fantasy Remakes. Plus you get a sony rootkit installed to all of the computers on your network at no additional cost. You will get the piece of mind that comes with your sony-bony pixelation station that you will have to purchase another overpiced heap of junk as the first one has broke down and new ones will continue to break down after 1 to 2 years after purchase.
Me, I prefer a Wii as it will give me years of excitement years after I purchase it.
The Wii debug units I've used are completely capable of reading sectors on DVDs and DVD-Rs. Don't be surprised if it's a downloadable feature in a year's time. Even though you can get full-featured standalone DVD players for under $30 these days..
Oh, and enjoy your 1990-quality controllers from Sony and Microsoft.
Since Sony has slower loading than any other system, it's more important that those load screens are in 1080p!
From the article you linked to:
And that was from over a year ago. More than 1 in 10 is more than zero. That's somewhat higher than the market penetration of the Gamecube. Most of my friends have HD sets now and my roommate just bought one so I effectively have one too.
As for the Gamecube having the same horsepower as the XBox, that's bull. I have seen a number of Gamecube games and have yet to see one that comes close to the graphics of Project Gotham on the XBox. Also, looking at the Gamecube's specifications vs. the XBox's specifications I don't believe the Gamecube was that close. Both the main and graphics processor is substantially slower on the Gamecube, has a lower pixel fill rate, doesn't seem to support full-screen AA, etc.
By "many" he means "almost zero". I have a healthy assortment of Xbox games and the only 720p title is Soul Calibur 2
The grandparent post was a troll but you, you are something special.
Now if I could just find the "-1: Bigot" mod...
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
Since he's correct in "every sense", please show me the game from 1990 that looks as good as Twilight Princess. Consider your point refuted.
If you want to be blatantly biased to one side, fine. Personally, the Wii seems like the most fun to me, though I'll likely get a 360 eventually. There's plenty of hype for the PS3 as well as the Wii; go to a demo kiosk and hear it for yourself. I had people trying to explain to me yesterday how much better Motorstorm looked than anything on the 360, when it really looks like just an average 360 game.
Despite what the replies say, I couldn't agree with you more.
For gaming a progressive 60fps 720p image is quite damn nice.
Sadly this means no wide screen.
I so wanted to play Zelda in widescreen. I'm not quite as excited about the WII anymore.
Can I have yours?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Widescreen DVDs have the actual frames at 720x480 pixels. If you have a DVD player hooked up to an HDTV you will see all of those 720 pixels, nothing is interpolated (unless you play on a 1080p display of course).
There is a big difference between that and the Wii which will only evrr be able to output 480 pixels.
Not true, I have a 360 and an uber HDTV as well as the monetary resources required for a PS3. I'll diss them all openly, and my experience has been good.
Quite simply, the 360 and HD are fun, but the Wii looks like it will be better while being cheaper.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
480p is not really an sd resolution, it's technically a low end of HD. 480i is SD. i refering to interlaced and the p refering to progressive scan. But not that this even matters as you can still have widescreen 480, thats what proper dvds are. its just an aspect ratio thing.
That depends if you consider the Gameboy Colour an update or a new system. It had a faster CPU and better display options, but was otherwise basically unchanged and compatible with original Gameboy software, just like a WiiHD would be.
1) 480p's actually MUCH better than most people have EVER seen (QCIF is what most people are typically used to- ever TRY using WebTV or any other internet set-top of that era on anything less than the highest end TV's?? If it were more like what everyone CLAIMS NTSC is capable of, I'd not have went through the last 6 years worth of pain that I have up to this point...)
2) HDTV's are not going to get mass adoption for at LEAST another year and a half to two.
3) Can you convince me that all that higher resolution makes for better games or is it just more glitz for nada?
The reality is that for 720p or 1040p you're going to field as much muscle as a mid-end PC in this day and age.
Retail on this without the TV interfaces is $300 or so. With the TV component interfaces it's $400-500 (Damn,
that's the 360's retail isn't it now?). Nintendo's trying for the best mix of playability, visual quality,
and PROFITABILITY.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The parent post was right. The "480p" on the Wii means 720x480 (or maybe 852x480). Not 480 by something else. That's typical of how TV resolutions are referred to - the vertical resolution, not the horizontal.
It's true the XBox had pretty good 480p + support. But the PS2 only had a handful of games that supported progressive scan, much less higher resolutions. I don't think the Gamecube had 480P support (but I may be wrong).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have to ask. How, after years upon years of playing games on a standard definition, can any of the console fans here explain to me why resolution is all of a sudden at the forefront of important factors in determining the success of fun level of a console? If I'm not mistaken (apart from a few exceptions), I would guess 75% of you resolution pushers are the exact same people us computer gamers have been laughing at and mentioning our resolution to for years... With excuses like "I can't see the difference," and "Yeah, well your games suck." These two excuses are now exactly what I can throw back in your face. Personally, I prefer higher resolution, but my affinity for a computer was more because it had/has the best FPS games and control scheme possible. However, how can you people now say that resolution is what makes the difference? And as you yourselves have pointed out in the past, there are PLENTY of high-res games with poor gameplay. Regarding resolution on a TV: While it does make a difference to some people (like myself), the fact that you generally sit far away from a TV counters the high resolution (this is why many people never had a problem with standard def. TVs). Regarding the resolution of games: Sure, graphics (and resolution) can make a great game more immersive and entertaining, but you underestimate the power of art. Cartoony and non "realistic" games are often better looking than graphics created by a bunch of monkeys (or inept graphics designers) simply because trying to make things look perfectly realistic will create a huge spotlight on anything that does not look realistic (some human characteristics and animations in beautiful sports games are just terrible and ruin the game for me... not that I enjoy typical sports games at all... tennis baby!) Regarding the Wii: I think Nintendo has done a stand-up job of balancing cost, technology, and all the other factors that go into the success of a system. It's my guess that the Wii will be a HUGE influence in creating more interest in gaming for women. My fiance, girl friends, sister, and other women I have heard about (through the internet) are for the most part very excited about this console. Hell. We just got out of college, and I'm heading back (into more debt :-P), yet my Fiance has been pushing me to wake up early for the preorder days they have had so far... As for myself, it is the first gaming console I have been excited for since the anticipation of Mario in 3d... I left consoles because I love FPS games... Now I can go back because the standard controller for the system looks to be at least comparable to the effectiveness of a mouse and keyboard combo.
Oh. And the fact that I don't have $600 (PS3) + $200 (Controllers, Games, Cable) + $2000+++ (Worthy HDTV)... Not to mention the exclusive games just don't do it for me.
Wii for the win. Plus the 360. Plus the PS3. I'm sure all will be succesful (although if you refer to "success" as profit... then I don't think it's even a race anymore. Nintendo can't lose).
The issue was that the Gamecube used a non-standard digital port for component cables and only sold them online (not at retail). So eventually they removed the 2nd port from the Gamecubes that were being manufactured (sometime in Late 2003) due to 'very few people buying the cables'. Despite this they still program their games to do 480p, so if you were fortunate enough to have an old enough Gamecube, and bout the cables online before they were discontinued (like me) you can still enjoy the new releases in progressive scan.
Even though the Wii isn't puishing HD, Nintendo is offering the Component cables (online only again! ARGH!) and their standard is both 480p and 16:9.
I have an HDTV and my Gamecube Games look fantastic on it. Also with the Wii 480p and 16:9 is (at least for Nintendo 1st party) the standard.
Thanks, I had never heard that about the Gamecube. I hope that more people take advantage of this wtih the Wii, and will also explore some of teh Gamecube back library (which has always looked pretty interesting).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Eternal Darkness, RE4, and F-Zero GX all pwn, and you could get all 3 now for $40 or less (used) total. I would start with those. :)
In terms of the video game space there is no difference in programing 1080i and 1080p. While 1080i might only have 540 lines actually displayed they have to render the whole frame in 1080 frame to keep it in sync.
In terms of programming, no, there is no difference. You're writing to the same size framebuffer in video memory regardless of how many lines of it are actually converted to a video signal during that frame.
In terms of console power? The throughput from the framebuffer to the video-out needs to be twice as high for progressive as for interlaced (assuming equal refresh rates).
I don't really care about 720p or 1080i/p ... but what about progressive scan on a PAL system? I really hope that they support 576p (the PAL progressive signal). That would be trés cool.
I have yet to see a single HDTV displayed in any store in the US that effectively demonstrates the quality of those televisions over current technology. Either those ignorant hacks don't know what they're doing when they set up this equipment or they don't care. I haven't seen any quality HD content on cable television that impressed me either. It's no wonder that the average person doesn't see much of a difference between standard and HD displays.
In Taiwan, however, I have seen huge HDTVs featuring high-definition content that was amazing. Those displays are truly on a whole other level. The quality is high enough that it is immediately obvious when different cameras are used. I can only imagine the kind of difference these televisions will have on games. Those displays were so far beyond anything I've seen here that I can't imagine anyone not immediately noting the difference.
Well, I think it's fairly easy to see now. Just look at a high-resolution computer screen compared to your standard television. Better yet, get a computer with video output to television and it becomes immediately obvious how crappy the image becomes on a standard television. By the same token, high-resolution displays do show defects and short-comings in graphics quality far more easily.
Honestly, I don't really care that much about HD and the latest, cutting edge graphics. I like to know what's out there, but as far as gaming is concerned I believe that gameplay should be the most important element of any game, by far. That said, outside a small circle of friends who feel as I do, most people I know do care more about HD and those high-end graphics.
Nintendo not supporting HD may prove to be a significant short-coming in the long run. It's much easier to develop "innovative" gameplay than it is for Nintendo to bring the Wii up to the technical standards of the Xbox360 or PS3. I'd like to see Nintendo do well, but I don't expect things to be so simple.
So do you have any numbers that are actually relevant to your claim that HD resolution is the "standard of the previous generation"? Never mind the fact that hardly no one can take advantage of it.
Also, way to go with the graphics comparison: you claim that the Gamecube can't even "come close" to some arbitrary game for the Xbox. Using no metrics whatsoever. So, that makes it, uh, opinion.
Oh wait, but you can just reply to this and pull out the bullshit "omg higher speccz0rz" argument. Really, though, you don't have to. It's only funny the first time.
Games could theoretically output 1080p60, which would be twice as many pixels as 1080i60, but from what I've read so far, you need the latest version of HDMI, 1.3, to even support that bandwidth.
I already do 1920x1080p60 over HDMI from my computer to my LCD TV, neither are HDMI 1.3 I think. HDMI before 1.3 use the DVI spec. (either single or dual link) and even DVI single link can do 1920x1080 at 60Hz. Whatever you've read is plain out wrong, check your facts.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
People are forgetting a stupendously important point - in the UK, all current gen consoles output at 720 x 576 interlaced. This is the resolution of our PAL TVs. I assume the PAL Wii will output at this res too.
I recently bought the component cables for my modded Xbox, so that i could run XBMC at 1080i. However, when i go to play a game, most run at 480p. This look AWFUL compared to using the regular 576i - if fact i go back to using the regular cables when gaming now, 480p is soo blurry. Even a composite connection looks better.
Another point is that our DVD players and consoles have an output using RGB SCART, which is far better than S-Video, but not quite as good as component. So using component cables isn't that big an upgrade.
Screw 480p and Nintendo's expensive cables, i'd rather have interlaced with 20% more pixels.
I'm seeing a lot of people saying they don't have a Super-Mega-DoublePlusGood-TV now, but what about two years from now? Or five?
Console Generations usually go on for a good four to six years. Do you suggest that no one will buy a new TV in all that time? Or that 1080p won't come down in price?
Yup, there are quite a few games that do 720p, and a handful that do 1080i.
Check out the "HD Game Database" at this site for a good list: http://www.hdtvarcade.com/
The list gives the resolutions supported, and whether widescreen (16:9) is supported. It includes 480p as an "HD" resolution, so the 720p games may seem a bit sparse, but there are quite a few.
Subjective call, I guess. It seems ludicrous to me. I'm really not trying to be a video snob, I don't pore thru Sound and Vision looking for goldplated cables or anything, but 480 is just so damn old. I admit the 'p' gives you a nice sharpness bump but its still blocky, crappy video.
Well, last go-round of consoles lasted about 6 years, much more than that for the PS2.
I submit to you that any game with a moderate amount of on-screen text would benefit tremendously. Are we really arguing against the benefits of resolution? I understand that perhaps you think Sony and MS went too far in relying on HD, at the cost of higher price/heat/complexity, but surely we can agree that higher resolution in general is a good thing? Right?
Not exactly sure what you mean by that. If its that extra processing is needed to handle complex scenes at higher rez then I agree with you. I think the vast majority of HD console games will be 720p. That is a good trade-off. This is also why I think that if the Wii had just gone up to that (so-called) middle step of HD, it would be much more attractive down the line. I think they undershot.
I don't give a damn about Nintendo's profitability.
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The fact that most people are missing is that this is Nintendo. The same company that released multiple versions of the the same GameBoy. The same company that released an upgrade to the DS about a year after it is launched.
I would not be surprised if we see a new version of the Wii in a couple of years outputting a higher res. I know we have never seen them do this in the console market, but I bet they feel they can get away with it, especially if the Wii takes off. And they would probably be right.
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I guess I'm stuck with the crappy 'ole 1920x1200 native resolution of my gaming rig.
Oh, wow. You managed to get every single analysis about the GameCube wrong (speed differences across architectures, degree of difference in Nintendo's stated real-world minimum fillrate from Microsoft's claimed theoretical max. fillrate, nothing on GCN that looks "close" to as good as PGR??? NO FSAA ON GAMECUBE???????)
That takes an extraordinary set of circumstances to set up. That, or deliberate misinformation somewhere in the process. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the former, but really, you shouldn't make definitive statements based on hand-me-down information from non-definitive sources. You just make yourself look less credible and biased.
So say 720p24 for film.
No.
35mm film has a resolution closer to 3000p24. Yes the frame rate sucks, but that's mostly for historical reasons now; there's no good reason that the next wave of digital movie cameras won't be able to do at least double that. They'd better anyway, or theatres are going to lose even more marketshare.
Anyway, the point is that even older movies, if they've been stored properly, can be transferred to a much higher-definition format than current DVDs. No higher framerate (although with MPEG motion estimation and interpolation even that could be faked), but a much higher resolution.
The more I think about faking higher frame rates in next gen DVDs the more plausible it seems - my Philips 32" 100Hz TV interpolates frames in realtime and the smoothness for pans and zooms is staggering, even with older source material.
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Yeah, I wasn't really precise with my words at all for that post. What I was trying to say is that the best you're going to get from film on one of these media types is 480p24, 720p24, or 1080p24, the important part being the 24. Interesting bit of info that it is capable of that much res. though, thanks.
If your TV can blend frames to generate pleasing transitions between real source frames, great, but it doesn't make much sense to waste space storing it when the TV can fake it and get the same result: fake frames.