Slashdot Mirror
PS3 Firmware Update, Heavenly Sword Demo This Week
PlayStation 3 owners are getting a couple of new toys this week. The official Sony blog has announced that the US will see firmware update 1.90 within the next few days. Gamasutra has further details on the patch, which includes a number of functionality improvements: "Ability to rearrange games on the XMB, Option menu now includes 'eject disk', Press triangle to eject games/CDs/movies in the XMB, XMB backgrounds, Change the folder classification, Emoticons, Change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz, Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI, Change PS3 video settings in-game, 'Bit Mapping' in the 'Music Setting', Save AVCHD type animations from a Memory Stick, Change settings like upscaling while playing PS and PS2 games, Add bookmarks, Web browser security function in the browser's tool section." Indications are also that a demo for Heavenly Sword will be coming soon. Europe is getting it this Thursday, with no firm word on a US date yet.
You do know movies are 24fps, right?
Do they fool your eye?
support would be nice, wonder if any of this does that, with rocks the 80s coming out tommorow and all...
24 is what Movies and TV are shot in = Useless to go above this for Blu-Ray Movies. Video games on the other hand, can probably benefit from more than 24hz.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
...why the upscaling has been limited to HDMI only?
I was excited about the last update but use component so it did nothing for me. Unless I missed something.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
I can't believe how fast and how many features Sony is adding to the PS3 system software. Sounds like 2.0 is up next with the in game XBM access, and then Home hits. Rock solid and very quiet well built machine. Can't wait to get my hands finally on Heavenly Sword, looks incredible. It feels like the PS3 is the only next gen machine on the market right now.
I'm just here to point out that there's a big difference between fps in a movie/tv show and a video game. Video games create still images that are perfectly sharp based on where every object is at the instant in time that the image represents. For a video game, 30fps is a bare minimum for what we would call "playable" today, though the human eye can easily distinguish frame rates above 100 (probably higher than your monitor refresh rate). Movies and TV, by virtue of being filmed, are blurred due to the motion of whatever is being filmed over the period in which that frame is exposed. This inherent blur means that you can get away with a much lower frame rate and still fool the human brain, and is why a normal movie filmed at 24 fps provides a much more convincing impression of continuous motion than a video game at 70fps.
The enemies of Democracy are
1080p24 content from Blu-Ray is best viewed on a display compatible with 24fps output to reduce motion artifacts like judder. 24hz playback is already available, but some display devices do not negotiate display modes properly over HDMI. This option is necessary for optimum playback in some instances and GREATLY appreciated by those who need it.
Yes, I am presuming that Macrovision protection doesn't exist on component video output, or at least not at HD resolutions. I am extrapolating from what I learned on an episode of DL.TV.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Theater movies:
24 pysical frames per second, but each frame is shown twice for an 48 frames seen per second. This reduces flicker and helps trick the eye.
TV:
29.9997 dude... go read ntsc
I kinda thought that projectors were a kind of special case somehow because of the fact that the shutter doesn't stay open for the whole length of the frame; I don't really know where I got that impression from. Like I said, far from an expert on this stuff. Actually, I don't really like watching movies in a theater, in part because of the flicker. It's not something I see straight on, but it bothers my peripheral vision to no end. The color's never right either.
"I do a grep for shit, bollocks, and tits before checking in code. I'm professional..." -RECURSIVE_META_JOKE, reddit.com
Only thing I'm waiting for from the PS3 is the ability to replace XBMC on my old Xbox (which is wonderful, but doesn't quite have the grunt for x264).
Media Centre extender is clever, but way too fussy with it's formats (and transcoding is a pain in the arse) - PS3 supports x264, but is a bit fussy with the wrappers (from my understanding).
Maybe that much touted Linux thing will help, but I want something more than games to justify an expensive place under my TV.
Movies are shot at 24fps, PAL/European HDTV at 25fps (50i or 25p), NTSC/American HDTV ~30fps (60i or 30p). For PAL, movies are speeded up by 4%, for NTSC at 30fps a 3:2 pulldown process has to be used.
People complain that 3:2 causes judder, yes to some extent, but the original content suffers from judder also. Judder is a problem with 24fps, the cinematographer has to follow pan tables (it states how fast to pan when using a lens at x focal length and shutter speed) to avoid judder. Judder is also problem with progressive HDTV. Most TV camera operators do not have experience with film, and are used to the 50i/60i video style. They film, pan the image and judder is seen. Also, judder is more noticeable with higher resolution images and small depth of field produced by HD cameras having a small sensor (compared to 35mm of a movie camera).
As a recent owner of a PS3, there are two changes that I'd love to see implemented. First, when running Folding@Home as a screensaver on the PS3, autoplay of CD's is disabled. One has to manually quit Folding@Home, by navigating the visual menus, just to allow a CD to play. It's really dumb that I should have to turn on my TV just to play a CD. (And I'd like to still keep Folding@Home running as a screensaver, when the console isn't busy.)
Second, and considerably more problematic, is that video switching requires the video menus, which leads to a catch-22. In my case, I have my PS3 hooked up to an LCD TV as well as a front projector; through HDMI and component video, respectively. The PS3 only outputs one of these formats at a time, and paradoxically, requires the video menus to switch between them. So if I watch a movie at night on the projector, then need to switch back to HDMI the next day, I'm screwed; the projector is not bright enough to navigate the menu options in daylight, not to mention that repeatedly switching it on and off kills bulb life. A video-switching toggle that doesn't require visual menus would make my PS3 experience MUCH more pleasant. </gripe>
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
Fucking finally! I've been watching Talladega Nights for eight months!
Actually, the rotary shutter on the projector has two cutouts, so the image flickers at 48 Hz, even though the image only changes every other flicker.
And that is still 24fps.
Just like NTSC is 30fps, despite half-scanning at 60hz.
Repeating each frame 10 times won't make a movie into 240fps. It is still 24.
And it's been that way for far too long. I find pans and tilts difficult to track in theatres as they come across horribly jittery unless they're done extremely slowly.
The only way I can really enjoy sweeping pans in movies is with an interpolating TV like 100Hz ones with the Philips Natural Motion chip.
This is where both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD really missed the boat. They should be pushing film studios to change to a much more natural-looking 48fps (or 50 or 60 for TV compatibility if necessary). Or failing that interpolate the motion themselves. Hell, they already have the motion vectors from all that MPEG compression.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
720p is superior to 1080i.
For live action content (which another poster has pointed out is usually different from video game content) my eye perceives motion at around 10 fps, but isn't fooled into seeing fully smooth motion until about 45 fps. For non-blurred video games it's closer to 90 fps.
Of course any game with a decent shader should be using motion blur anyway these days.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I don't normally reply to AC's but you are either trolling or have no idea what you are talking about. If you want a bit of education re HDTV look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_telev ision. As for the PS3 well I have to assume you don't have one. Hey I'm being a nice guy I would not want you to be called an uneducated troll.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Flame bait! and... No
30hz is the minimum needed to fool the human mind - that's why America has NTSC and 100 channels broadcasting nothing but "infommercials"
Most of the time. But interestingly, you don't often see fast horizontal pans in Cinema movies because they look like crap due to the slow framerate. Check out the scene in Matrix 2 where the camera pans over all the Smiths. The scene looks really, really weird.
So yeah, you're right, of course, movies are 24 fps. That doesn't mean that they always manage to fool the eye :-)
it's 24 fps, but presented at 48 Hz. The extra flicker makes a difference to your perception of the persistence of the image. Similar to how a 60 Hz monitor and a 120 Hz monitor could display the same 30 fps animation with differing levels of eyestrain.
Yes, movies are 24 fps. However, the way that a movie projector plays the movie, the projector actually projects each frame twice (i.e. 48 flashes of the light per second, not unlike how interlacing gives us the impression of 60fps for 30fps TV). However, on a tube based (CRT) TV, 24 Hz is ugly, very ugly. Your eye can't miss the flicker and if you are looking at the TV out of the corner of your eye, the flicker is so distracting that your eye will be drawn to the TV. Of course, on an LCD or Plasma, this wouldn't be an issue.
Rock solid and very quiet well built machine.
You must not have tried to put it in an entertainment center.
I got one on Sunday and it sounded like a damn vacuum.
Agreed. Though some will flag you as "misinformed", as the PS3 added software scaling with Firmware 1.80
24fps is the look our minds associate as 'professional' and in my experience things shot on film look more legit because of the lenses that are used on the film cameras. Digital cameras are able to capture light almost as well as film does, but the area that is still way off is in the area of lenses. There is just no way a $3k digital camera compares to a $25k film camera and $50k+ of lenses. But the main difference is the lens.
I can't remember who is doing it, but they're making a TV that can do 120hz (which is a multiple of 24).
720p is better for fast-action video like Sports, most television and most games. 1080i is better for video with a much less dynamic scene, a good example of which are nature shows. If you receive HD broadcasts, flip through some channels with the video mode display active, you'll see that Sports are always 720p and nature shows are nearly-always 1080i.
Of course, 1080p is the best (for now) providing you have a set that can display it and bandwidth enough to drive it.
Sounds like its time to buy a new TV or an external scaler if the only progressive signal you can accept is 480.
I wouldn't want Sony to put a scaler in their PS3's. It would mean that I'd be paying for your crappy research / tv shopping skills.
Umm, except for all of the stuff shot on video??? The only stuff shot on video is the cheezy local car dealership commercials and local crap. Anything national is shot on film still.