What? PlayStation 3 Lacks Upscaler to 1080i?

[Blackraven]

So that means people that have native 1080i HDTV sets are doomed (at the moment)???

PlayStation 3 Lacks Upscaler to 1080i

Suddenly, the bundle at CompUSA all makes sense now


Reports are flooding in that PlayStation 3 is unable to upscale its video output, leaving many with older HDTV's, including those from Sony, out in the cold of standard definition.

Early word came in from the NeoGAF forums, where users with 1080i TV sets tried to run Resistance: Fall of Man, only to find that the game would force a switch down to 480p. The reason behind this is that Resistance runs at a native 720p resolution. If the game is played on a television that does not support 720p, which applies to many older HDTV models, then instead of upscaling to 1080i to retain its HD status, it downscales to 480p, losing much graphical fidelity.

"Sony and Insomniac, I am very, very dissapointed. Resistance will not output in 1080i. It's either 720p, or a 480p blur fest. What a pain in the ass it's going to be to change the screen resolution in the XMB everytime I want to play. Not to mention having to deal with the bad quality resulting from my CRT HDTV's crappy upscaling algorithms," wrote forum member Vincey37.

When attempting to run Resistance on a TV set not running in 720p, the following message is displayed:

"The maximum display resolution is currently set to 1080i. For highest image quality 720p is recommended. To change this setting, you must exit the application and change your Video Output Settings from the Display Settings option in the Settings menu. Press the START button to continue"

A response from a supposed Insomniac developer read, "This isn't our fault guys - we were set to support it," without going into further details.

So the situation right now is that anyone with an HDTV that's capable of only 480i, 480p, and 1080i will be unable to play games such as Resistance, NHL 2K7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 and Need for Speed Carbon at anything higher than 480p.

Upscaling is currently found in many HDMI DVD players that convert 480p images to 720p or 1080i, producing slightly improved picture quality. the Xbox 360 also upscales its games (albeit with analog component output instead of HDMI), which nearly all are developed to run at 720p, to 1080i for those who are unable to run at the native resolution.

Sony has yet to comment on reports of this discovery, and it is unknown whether or not this apparent oversight can be addressed via system updates.


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Also here's an IGN article:

PS3 Downscales 720p on Incapable TVs
If your TV doesn't support a specific resolution, expect to go low-res.

US, November 15, 2006 - As final PlayStation 3 units continue to trickle into more and more hands, additional details about how the system works and what it can and can't do are hitting the web. The latest (rather major) tidbit is how the console treats the upscaling and downscaling of 720p titles on televisions that don't support that resolution -- specifically those that are only 1080i capable.

As it turns out, gamers who own older HD sets that feature only 480i, 480p, and 1080i resolution input capabilities will have to settle for the display quality being downsized as the game boots in its 480p mode rather than upscaling the image from its more desirable 720p mode to the TV's 1080i. We tested this development on older HDTV sets with games designed for 720p but not 1080i -- Resistance: Fall of Man, NHL 2K7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, and Need for Speed Carbon. Sure enough, the system downshifted all four titles to 480p rather than moving up to 1080i. This issue came up with either a digital HD video connection (using an HDMI cord) and an analog HD video connection (using component cables.)

The PlayStation 3's competitor, Microsoft's Xbox 360, does upscale 720p games to 1080i if the HD set supports the latter resolution but not the in-between and commonly-employed 720p resolution.

IGN contacted Sony representatives for comment regarding this feature, but SCEA spokespeople have yet to return our phone calls as we went to press (we'll update this story when they do). It is not known yet if this is purely a software issue or a deeper technical problem and whether or not this lack of upscaling might be resolved on launch PS3 systems in future updates of the hardware via downloadable firmware patches.

For the laymen, 720p is a high-definition format that offers a complete 720-pixel line frame on the screen at 24 to 60 frames per second (progressive), while the 1080i signal is presented as two 540-pixel fields that when displayed back to back look like a complete image (interlaced). The difference being that a 720p picture offers quicker refresh rates while 1080i offers more detail with stationary imagery. The maximum resolution of the PlayStation 3 (and currently the maximum for available HDTV sets) is 1080p. It is thus capable of displaying all major standard-definition and high-definition video outputs wherever HD standards are employed (in PS3 games and Blu-Ray Movies, most commonly), but as has already been reported about PS1/PS2 games and DVD playback, it does not currently upscale any lower resolution images to higher image standards.

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So that means for now, that anyone with a 1080i HDTV set has no chance of getting 720p resolution on 720p PS3 games.

Goodness, I do hope that a software patch can fix this. Otherwise, any adjustments that would require a hardware fix will turn out nasty and hit Sony badly.

It looks like this won't plague the upcoming 1080p games (like the NBA games, Gran Turismo and Sonic) but without an update patch, the 1080i set owners are doomed with the initial release of PS3 games outputting at 720p.

But I raise a question: Why is Resistance only in 720p?

Hope that we get more answers (and solutions to this) ASAP.

P.S.

Sure it won't hit those with newer WXGA 720p and Full HD 1080p sets like myself and a selected few. This new hits badly on early-adopters that are using older-gen HDTVs which use the 1080i as its native resolution.

A bit of good news is that it doesn't put a strain on Blu-ray movies and probably on DVDs. This problem is for the 720p games.