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PS3 Scales 1080i To 480p On HDTVs
Dr. Eggman writes "According to an article from IGN, PS3 owners are finding that 1080i-only HDTV sets are scaling down launch games to 480p. The scale-down occurs because the launch games do not support 1080i, however they should be scaling down to an HD resolution of 720 instead of 480p. It is unknown if this is a technical or software issue and if it can be patched soon." ABC news is reporting that a patch which should be available to PS3 owners soon will correct the backward compatibility issues we discussed the other day.
I thought 1080i (576 lines) was less than 720p (720 lines). Wouldn't that mean that your set couldn't handle 720p anyway? Still not an excuse to dump you down to 480p without a choice
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
...the problems that plauge all consoles at launch. I really hope the PS3 makes it...While I preferred Xbox over the PS2, there were some PS2 games that were AMAZING (Ico, Katamari Damacy, God of War, FF series, etc.) I hope all three consoles do fantastic, and I plan on eventually owning all three.
Living With a Nerd
Hint: the reason it's called '1080i' is because there are 1080 lines, not 576, and they're interlaced.
480p should be enough for anybody.
The summary completley mixes up the resolutions involved. The problem occurs when a game supports 720p but not 1080i and the TV supports 480i/480p/1080i (but not 720p) as many older HDTVs do. In this situation, the PS3 doesn't scale the game's 720p to 1080i, but rather forces the game to output 480p. The Xbox 360, on the other hand, uses a chip in the hardware to scale the 720p from the game to 1080i for the TV. Any TV that supports 720p won't have this problem. Neither will games that can output 1080i.
To state it clearly:
Some PS3 launch games outputs at 720p
Lot of 2-3 years old HDTV cannot display 720p, but can do 1080i just fine.
But the PS3 is incapable of upscaling the game's graphics to 1080i. (unlike the xbox 360 for example)
Hence, the only display available for them is 480p.
To sum up : buy PS3, hook up to HDTV, play in 480p. (some games, some TV)
But it only shows 540 (got my #s mixed up).
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
1080i is 1080 lines of resolution, they're just not all refreshed in the same frame. The resolution of the stream is still 1920x1080. I don't know where you got 576 from, but even if you're talking about one field of a 1080i stream then it's 540 lines, but there's two of those every 30th of a second. So no, if you have a TV that isn't 1920x1080, then you'd want 1280x720 - not 640x480...
"I want to get more into theory, because everything works in theory." -John Cash
No, the problem is that they don't support 1080i. The PS3 should be scaling from 720p to 1080i (which the 360 does), not 1080i to 720p.
The issue here is that older HDTV's only support 480p, 480i, and 1080i - not 720p. This is all stated very clearly in the article.
I know that commentors don't seem to read the articles on Slashdot, but shouldn't the submitters?
I'm curious about the reason that PS3 can't scale 720p to 1080i. Almost every HD component these days, all the way down to $50 DVD players, include a passable scaler. There's been some speculation that the limitation is that the 360 has analog outputs (which may be easier to scale in hardware) while the PS3 has digital outputs (which might be harder to do?)
No 1080i shows 1080 lines.
What do consumers do about patches if they have no internet? At least with PC gaming, you can download a patch somewhere else, burn it to a disc, and run the patch later. Will consoles allow updates via some sort of hard copy install?
Could someone arrange a survey of what percentage of people can describe the difference between 1080i, 480p and television? I can't.
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
576i is PAL (720x576) as used in most of Europe. Still have to clue as to why GP would think that 1080i was 576 lines though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlacing
Enjoy.
On a CRT set, this may be the case. AFAIK, all fixed-pixel displays must internally convert a signal progressively before displaying it. Thus, a 1080i signal (1 frame of 540 lines sent 60 times per second) is internally interlaced to generate 30 frames of 1080 lines. Native progressive signals (480p, 720p, 1080p) provide the full number of lines 60 times per second, thus providing more natural-looking motion. This is why (IMHO) sports look better in 720p than in 1080i, despite the additional lines of resolution available in 1080i (which are essentially thrown out on any non-1080P capable TV, since they typically only have ~768 lines of resolution).
"To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
Ha! This is one problem that certainly won't happen to the Wii!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
All three consoles appear to allow patches, none of them have said they won't allow it (I assume Nintendo isn't going to go the extent the other two are). But this is a horrible thought. Forget QA, forget everything else, we're just screwing people over because if they get a game early they are screwed, we don't even need to finish the game because we can always patch in more later? Patches should add information, not fix bugs that shouldn't have gotten out of the shop. Patches are good but not if every game needs a patch out of the box.
We also have Microtransactions from all sides. EA is selling us cheat codes over the marketplace for money, People are selling tutorials? I thought Micropayments were going to save us? Not make us feel like tools.
Then assume patches and micropayments are OK (They arn't). What happens 10 years from now, you find a unused Console start it up and put in your game, xbox live is probably not going to be serving the data so you can't get the updates? What happens if you don't have an internet connection? You can't get the fixes. So we are bending people to our will even more now? (first HD and now almost necessary internet)
All this just makes me, a gamer, feel like Next Gen is just a pile of crap that is just out there to bring the computer to a console. I applaud Nintendo but even there they are doing parts of this stuff to an extent.
For so totally fucking up the ATSC standard.
No. 1080i is 1080 lines interlaced. That is, each frame of 1080 lines is divided into two fields, odd and even, each containing 576 lines. All the odd lines are presented to the display first, followed by the even lines. Displays that use this as a native format are usually CRT screens where there is an electron gun that scans across the screen lighting up the phosphors continuously. Interlaced signals work fine for these types of displays, but for a non-scanning display such as a flat-panel display or a digital projector, an interlaced signal must be deinterlaced first to produce a single frame with all the lines appearing sequentially. There can be complications with this, so what is better for these types of displays is to have a progressive image to start with.
Oh yeah, 1080i can be better than 720p, for example if you have a 1080i native CRT. On the other hand, if you have a 720p-native LCD or plasma TV, the 720p image can probably look better. On the other hand, I have a 852x480 progressive plasma display which does a better job at handling a 1080i signal than it does at handling a 720p signal, at least from my hd cable box. Go figure. I also have a 30" Sony CRT TV. It's got an awesome picture, but the screen isn't so big and the thing is very large and weighs about 200 pounds.
My other first post is car post.
Interlacing sucks - people should boycott all interlaced modes altogether. This is yet another example of how painful it is to deal with.
Any mode that ends in "i" sucks.
For non-time critical things, 1080i is better than 720p. I have my Xbox 360 hooked up to a small HDTV here, and I set the machine to 1080i because it just looks better because of the higher resolution. And the system will set to 1080i or 720p as appropriate - games tend to go to 720p.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Wow! It's like Apple... in reverse!
...or so I've been told.
Actually, it downscales to 480p on displays that do 480i/p and 1080i, but not 720p.
No, you're mistaken.
Sure, it only shows 540 lines "at a time", but the next 540 lines are not the same 540 lines, but the ones in between the previous 540 lines, making up the full 1080 line display. Your eyes don't work fast enough to see that one is off while the other is on, and the chemicals on the inside of the CRT keep their "glow" long enough to minimize or even eliminate flicker. Non-CRT sets, like dlp/plasma/lcd/d-ila/sxrd work a little differently and showing interlaced footage in a progressive manner can lead to visible "combing" unless the set de-interlaces, but I won't go into that here.
1080i has 1080 lines of resolution, but like your old standard definition television, it refreshes every other line alternately. So, the first half of the refresh mode (1/60th of a second) refreshes lines 1,3,5,7 etc (fields a) and the other half refreshes lines 2,4,6,8 etc (fields b). So that while it refreshes 60 times a second, it only shows you 30 full frames.
720p conversely, shows you 60 full frames of 720 lines in sequence, per second.
If it's shot at 1080/30p, it still gets broadcast as 1080i, and you still see 30 full 1080 line frames per second.
If it's shot at 1080/60i, it gets broadcast as 1080i, and you see 60 "half-frames" per second, because the movement of the subject changes between fields a and b.
If it's shot at 720/60p, it usually gets broadcast as 720p, but some stations only broadcast 1080i regardless of source, in which case each set of 720 lines would be interpolated to 60 full frames of 1080 lines, and then only half of each gets broadcast. Still looks great, but it's not as detailed.
If a station broadcasts at 720p regardless of source, it gets a little complicated. 1080i sources are basically converted to 540p and bobbed (fields b are moved up one line so the image doesn't shake up and down), and then gets stretched to 720p. It retains all the information of the 540 lines, but doesn't have as much detail as 720 lines, obviously. Now, if the 1080i source was shot 1080/30p and gets broadcast at 720p, each frame needs to be downsized, and then repeated, to make up the missing 30 frames from the 60p signal.
Additionally, if a movie comes in a 1080/24p source, it gets broadcast either as 1080i with 3:2 pulldown, or it gets broadcast as 720p with 2:3 frames (3:2 pulldown repeats fields, 2:3 frames repeats frames) in order to bring it up to 60 fields (for 1080i) or 60 frames (for 720p).
Confused yet?
It's not that hard when you understand why it is the way it is.
In the case of the PS3, it's pretty lame that 720p gets converted down to 480p, but since it's a slightly simpler process (1 full frame = 1 full frame vs. 1 full frame = 2 half frames), I can't really blame them for using it on the launch games.
I have an older CRT HDTV that only does 1080i/480p/480i and can't do 720p, so of course I'm disappointed, but all good things to those who wait.
-- This sig for rent.
Patches and microtransactions aren't going to go away, but we consumers can help cut down on some of the bullshit by not buying it. I can't imagine EA is getting many people to buy their cheat codes, and I imagine much of the other crappy marketplace stuff doesn't see too many purchases. The microtransaction idea will only work out for publishers if they offer up stuff worth buying.
The japan units only shipped with composite rc cables not component video.
Last I checked composite can only play 480p or 480i. I would assume that the US units shipped with the same thing. Has anyone tried this with a true HD cable?
Describe it? Who cares. LOOK at it. Put a DVD on (480p), then put a good HD TV broadcast on (1080i or 720p, depending on the network). There's a HUGE difference. Anyway, this is quite strange - that it can't scale. I can't believe that. That being said, please god somebody clean up the summary so it makes sense and is not completely misleading.
-Daniel
Well yes, but 540 of those lines are stale.
"Stale" meaning that they may have been drawn as long as 0.0333 seconds ago. This is where Persistence of Vision comes in handy.
Why do we bother with interlaced formats nowadays? Progressive's nicer/more sensible/easier for us to work with in the cutting room!
Interlaced video allows the perceived framerate to be doubled without requiring an increase the bandwidth of the signal. Given the choice between 1080i @ 60fps and 1080p @ 30fps, I suspect the average person would find the former to seem more fluid.
That not only must you pay $600+ for the console, but you must upgrade your HDTV!
If it gets any better you'll need a third job to buy one!
"I don't know of a single HDTV out there with digital inputs that doesn't handle 720p,"
:(
Panasonic Plasma 42PX20...
A whopping THREE years old...
(But I knew that it didn't have 720p going in... I just got a really good deal on it at the time)
Well, 1080i@60Hz is the same quality as 540p@60Hz That's why 720p is considered better than 1080i
No, 1080i has greater horizontal resolution than 540p (1920 vs 960)
Any decent deinterlacer generates 60 frames of 1920x1080 instead of halving the temporal resolution to 30fps. Dumb deinterlacers either dump the resolution down to 1920x540 while retaining the frame rate or keep the resolution but halve the framerate.
You guys are confusing encoding with transmission.
720p is only the same quality as 1080i if you were working from a 720p or less source. If your source material is encoded at 1080p than broadcasting it at 1080p or 1080i is the only way to get all 1080 lines. And if you're using a Plasma, DLP or LCD HDTV (read: 95+% of HDTV owners), than your TV *is progressive anyway* - your TV is de-interlacing that 1080i/60 into a XXXp/30 signal before it is displayed. That "XXX" is the native resolution of your display.
Conclusion is, if your source material is 1080p (as in film-based content or computer-generated content, AKA video games), then using 1080i for transmission has the potential for *much more* information than 720p to be displayed. Whether or not it actually *is* all displayed depends on the native resolution of the set.
This is where a 1080p capable set gives you bonus: a 1080p native set (that is, 1920x1200 resolution) will display a 1080i signal the *exact same* as a 1080p signal because it will de-interlace it perfectly.
Where this gets a bit more hairy is when you have non-progressive content, like sports and other television that is actually encoded interlaced. When showing *that* content, 720p is essentially the same as 1080i since you're losing half of the 1080i signal lines before it even gets to your TV set.
for somethings 1080i will be better. But for things with lots of motion like sports or say.... video games.... you'd prefer 720p. Or 1080p, which I gather can be done, just a question if its worth the rendering effort...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
How much money did EA make on you putting in a cheat code before the 360? None. How much do they make now? Some. They are just trying to make a buck everywhere they can and personally I think it's crap. Same with their ads in games. Not only are the games not any cheaper with this new "business model" but they are still released unfinished and take way to long to patch. It would be one thing if these micro payments and adds made the game cheaper or free but they don't.
I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
Thanks for the excellent explanation of the situation!
One thing: the scaling issue applies to any game that's rendering in 720p, so it may not only be limited to launch games.
I hate to say it, but the multitude of people actually paying for these microtransactions drowns out your complaint on /. quite easily.
I don't buy all the useless stuff like gamer pictures and themes, but new maps and cars? Absolutely. To some extent it's required to play certain gametypes, but on the whole there are plenty of people who are willing to pay for the stuff even though they wish they were getting it for free.
Supply creates its own demand.
I'm not anti micropayments. I'm anti shitty micropayments for stuff like cheat codes, trailers, pictures and themes, stuff that should be free, which show you support X. Even stuff like Lumines shows Micropayments are easily corruptable.
While I say that I'm looking forward to the wii with the Virtual console, but in the end it's always companies like EA who will give us micropayments for stuff that has always been in the game (cheat codes for instance) and it's just a shame.
The biggest problem with micropayments is actually EA or anyone would BENEFIT from making an incomplete game. What if you had to pay for every car other then a Ford Focus in Need for speed. What if they don't put a Z06 in the game and instead charge 2-3 for it after the game is released. Not that it's a bad thing, I bought all the PGR cars, but that's because they weren't just removed from the game, it was a good game and it made it far better by having certain cars (z06 for instance) that either wasn't ready for the game because of time or other reasons. However at least be reasonable about it. If you want to focus on micropayments don't charge us full price for you're "engine".
However when a company like Rare releases viva pinata and on day 1 you already see a micropayment no matter what the price for simple add ons that could have been put in the game at launch, you feel like you've been played, and in fact you have.
The fucktarded troll that keeps posting 'XBox 360 and ps3 gives you 1080 while pretendo gives you piss' is wrong. They all give you 480p, at least Nintendo is honest about it. It's Sony-Bony and Micro$haft that give you piss AND SCREW you as well.
Good post, but this is not entirely accurage:
> Your eyes don't work fast enough to see that one is off while the other is on, and the chemicals on the inside of the CRT keep their "glow" long enough to minimize or even eliminate flicker.
Your eyes won't typically notice flicker on moving images, but it can be quite noticable on static images, like you might see at times in a video game. For instance, if there is fine text in a small status indicator on the screen, you may see the flicker in the text.
-- OpenVerse Visual Chat: http://openverse.com
Your eyes notice flicker in fine text due to interlacing, as it often falls across only two lines in which case it will seem to "wobble" or it falls on only one line of resolution, in which case it is refreshed only 30 times per second and not 60, thereby having noticable flicker.
Fast motion in the frame, either of the subjects or the camera tends to hide flickering, this is correct.
A still frame is more likely to have visible flickering as your eyes are able to adjust to the static image, so any variation in brightness or movement will become far more visible.
As for the quote you pulled, it is completely accurate, and is not what your post was referring to. But I'm not about to enter a pissing contest or engage in hair-splitting.
-- This sig for rent.