Question about PS3 and TV resolutions, PLZ help.

[sonyc]

Ok Im a little confused here about what the PS3 can upscale to and what formats use what resolutions. Heres my questions.

1. Can Blu-ray Movies play in PS3 in 1080i AND 720p? If so If I have 1080i and 720p checked to use it will upscale it to 1080i Right? And which looks better for movies/games?

2. Regular DVDs, do they all use 420i/420p? or can they go any higher?

3. Games, resistance uses 720p, if i have 1080i checked will it downscale it to 720p? or will it downscale to 420p?

I hear that there might be some firmware updates to fix some of the resolution issues, what are the resolution issues? and will there be updates?

Sorry for bombarding with questions, I just want to understand it all once and for all.

By the way if it helps anyone in explaining which resolutions to use, my TV is a 32" Samsung LCD flat panel HDTV, resolutions are 420p,720p,1080i. Please answer my questions so I know what Im doing :P thanks in advance!

[Pai Pai Master]

Hey there, welcome to the forums. I'm a new poster here myself. :P

1. The PS3 currently does not play Blu-ray films in 720p. 480p, 1080i, and 1080p only at the moment.

2. Standard DVDs play in 480p. Sony Computer Entertainment president Phil Harrison mentioned that they're planning on adding DVD upscaling in the spring firmware update, rumoured to come right before the European launch in early March.

3. Currently, the PS3's most notorious issue is game scaling. As of this time, it's confirmed that the PS3 will not upscale games to higher resolutions other than that of what's supported by the developer. Resistance, for example, supports 720p natively. Unfortunately, the PS3 will not upscale to 1080i if your TV only supports 480p and 1080i. It will downscale the game to 480p. Sony's confirmed that they recognize the issue and are currently "looking into" how they can fix it. It's rumoured that the PS3 does not feature a hardware solution for scaling content to different resolutions like the 360's recently uncovered "ANA" scaling chip, but Sony hasn't yet said that it's an unsolvable issue.

As for updates, Sony's updated the PS3 quite a few times since its launch, just to add some basic features and fixes post-launch. There are currently two major firmware updates (likely version 2.0 and 3.0) for 2007. In the first half of 2007 (as I said, it's rumoured it'll come before the March launch of the PS3 in Europe) Sony will be adding XMB Multitasking (supposedly for playing MP3s off the hard drive while playing your games, as well as messaging friends during gameplay or perhaps even pausing the game to use the internet browser) and they've said they're adding "more display options," which many have taken to seem as the awaited resolution fix, as well as 720p and 1080p/24fps support for Blu-ray (the latter of which Ken Kutaragi has confirmed the PS3 will support some time soon). In the second half of 2007 Phil Harrison stated that they're planning on more multimedia features such as a DVR function and more. I'd imagine they'd attempt to counteract Microsoft's announcement of IPTV for 360 with a similar feature. There will likely be other, slightly more minor adjustments and additions throughout the year.

Hope it helped, enjoy your PS3! Add me if you'd like to play some Resistance some time, my PSN ID is Pai Pai.

Edit: To add, I'd recommend 720p for your games. Try 'em both out to see which you'd prefer, but generally I'd recommend 720p for anything since you can't make use of the 1080p support featured in some games.

[sonyc]

Well thanks alot for the info, it helped alot, one of the things that im not understanding is your 1st response.

"The PS3 currently does not play Blu-ray films in 720p. 480p, 1080i, and 1080p only at the moment."

What does it play them in? or did u mean, does play.

Last follow up question, once ur playing a movie/game, is there a way to see what resolution ur watching it in? or are u supposed to take the systems word for it that it upscaled correctly?

And why is 720p better for movies than 1080i? Thanks again!

PS: Resistance ID = DarkSonic.

[simpspin]

This relates to sonyc's question so I didn't want to start a new thread...

So, if 1080i playback is possible with Blu-Ray movies, any HDTV that accepts a 1080i signal can display a BD at 1080i with HDMi, or component video cables?

Sorry to sound like a newbie, but I'm stuck with a space that can only accomodate at 32" TV, or smaller... )

[Deciazulado]

i'm no PS3 expert ,but i think...

Originally Posted by sonyc

"The PS3 currently does not play Blu-ray films in 720p. 480p, 1080i, and 1080p only at the moment."

What does it play them in? or did u mean, does play.

he meant Blu-ray movies can be outputted in 1080p, 1080i, and 480

(1080p for a display that has HDMI/HDCP and accepts it)

Originally Posted by sonyc

And why is 720p better for movies than 1080i?

mmm.. it's not, it's just that if you have a 720 HDTV display the PS3 doesn't downrez the 1080 signal to 720, so your HDTV 720 display must accept the 1080i output (most are suposed to. as it's an HDTV standard but some don't) or you'll have to use the 480 output instead.

Originally Posted by simpspin

So, if 1080i playback is possible with Blu-Ray movies, any HDTV that accepts a 1080i signal can display a BD at 1080i with HDMi, or component video cables?

yes as far as I know.

(also, HDMI tvs are supposed to have HDCP too)

Originally Posted by simpspin

Sorry to sound like a newbie, but I'm stuck with a space that can only accomodate at 32" TV, or smaller... )

We all are newbies at some point of out life unless your name is Alia Atreides and you were born in Arrakis
As for your 32", you can always try sit a little closer to the TV too

[takezo]

There is always a debate on which is better 1080i and 720p. The i means interlaced, which means only half of the virtical resolution is shown at one time. Basicaly 1080i is
equivalent to 1920x540 which is a lower resolution than 1280x720. For this reason all HDTVs that are not 1080p are marketed as 720p. Best Buy, Circuit City, and Comp USA, all advertise 720p and not 1080i.

Why you ask? Because 720p is the defacto standard right now, and it's the best resolution to get the best picture quality from your HDTV.

However, The diffrence between 720p and 1080i, are not noticeable to the average Joe.
Only die hard enthusiasts can tell.

1080p is the full HD experience. But only high end TVs are capable of 1080p.

The best way to hook up a PS3 is via HDMI. Then set your games to 720p (1080i is not availible for games right now). Then with movies 1080i is the only option availible for those with out a 1080p set. But still, 1080i is 2 times higher resolution than DVD.

[blitz6speed]

Originally Posted by takezo

The best way to hook up a PS3 is via HDMI. Then set your games to 720p (1080i is not availible for games right now). Then with movies 1080i is the only option availible for those with out a 1080p set. But still, 1080i is 2 times higher resolution than DVD.

If the game is 1080p (such as Ridge Racer 7, Gran Turismo HD, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc) then they will also play in 1080i.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by takezo

There is always a debate on which is better 1080i and 720p. The i means interlaced, which means only half of the virtical resolution is shown at one time. Basicaly 1080i is equivalent to 1920x540 which is a lower resolution than 1280x720.

<.. snip...>

But still, 1080i is 2 times higher resolution than DVD.

mmmm...

540 x 1920 = 1,036,800
720 x 1280 = 921,600

So even it it was true that 1080i was 540 x 1920 (which it isn't) it would still be better than 720 x 1280.

Now for my statement about 1080i not being 540 x 1920.

1080i is 1080 x 1920 pixels interlaced
and at 30fps it could have every frame be full 1080 x 1920

that means that theoretically you could record a full 1080 x 1920 signal on it.
The problem with that is if that signal is displayed on a 1080i display at 60i (60 interlaced fields per second), the image on static objects, will vibrate, strobe, or twitter violently on edges and fine detail (like stars, sand grains, clothes/weaved patterns, hair, etc.) at 30Hz and these details stay on only 1/60th of a second, which makes them less bright than the full 1/30th of a second that bigger objects stay on (remember we're talking 30fps progressive frames) making this details appear less sharp, FURTHERMORE when anything moves, it's edges will break up very visibly into serrated edges (horizontal movements) or venetian blinds (vertical movement) making the effective sharpness or resolution of moving objects look like half. Remember we're talking 30 progressive frames, or less, displayed on interlaced displays in this example. the frames still have the full 1080 x 1920 resolution at this point.

On transferring something optimized for interlaced displays then, the image is usually softened vertically (vertical resolution is filtered or "limited") to prevent the violent twittering on those interlaced CRTs.

This seems to be routinely done on DVDs (PAL and NTSC is an interlaced format). Is this done on HDTV? I would think so for 1080i HDTV broadcast as the 1080p 'format' is a new thing brought on by Blu-ray Discs, etc.
Is the pre-softening done for the 1080 masters for the disc? One would hope not and some insiders have said they don't but mmm I've seen plenty of images that look much better when you apply sharpening to them and makes them pop into full 1080p near quality. Probably or hopefully the softer images are just the result of current equipment while 1080p matures as a video format and gets perfected.

Another question is, when a High Definition player outputs 1080i from a progressive disc, does it soften the image for proper interlaced display, or does it leave that up to the display? In other words, does it pass the signal untouched, just split into interlaced fields or not?

Anyway taking onto account the pre softening, or the post softening, or the any softening that an interlaced display raster image does, 1080i according to the Kell factor (factor that tries to measure the difference in resolution between progressive display of images and interlaced display of images) should be about equivalent to 768 x 1920 which would be equivalent to a 1.78 wide 900p quality image (900 x 1600 on square pixels) on a 1080i x 1920 display. If a 768 x 1920 image is down-converted properly to 720p (or 768p) monitors, theoretically it should be basically the equivalent of those displays' full resolutions. (Any difference would be derived from errors in the down-conversion algorithms.)

What about TRUE shot 1080i images like live concerts on 1080i cameras running at 60i? Well the situation is similar to 1080p 30fps for static images, while for moving images you do get in a sense 540 x 1920 quality for them but at 60 frames per second not 30.

So if the player or display uses the simplest (worst) method of de-interlacing 60i images onto 60p -the bob method- you get 540 x 1920 60fps for everything which is equivalent to about a 1.78 wide 768p image (768 x 1366 square pixels) on a 1080 x 1020 display.

on a 768 x 1366 display it be 540 x 1366 = about 645p (645 x 1145 square pixels) and on a 720 x 1280 display it be 540 x 1280 = 624p (624 x 1110 square pixels) but ALL this at 60fps.

If your player or the display happen to have the best method of de-interlacing 60i to 60p -motion adaptive- you'll get the full 1080 x 1920 for static images and the best approximation possible of near 1080 x 1920 quality for moving ones, again at 60fps, and the resolution would be equal to the 30fps (or less) progressive resolutions example above for static images, an approach it very close for the moving ones.

On all this also remember that the eye's resolving power is less for moving objects than for static objects to a point.


And for last: As DVDs are interlaced media (480i x 720) (except for the few that push the envelope and are optimized for progressive displays. Example, the video essentials DVD test disc),
480i x 720 = 345,600 i
1080i x 1920 = 2,073,600 i


1080i is 6 times the resolution of DVD

1080p can be 1.4x better

[sonyc]

I called the sony customer support before i typed this out and the gentlemen told me that ps3 displays blu ray movies at 720p, is this just an issue with the ps3 that will be resolved with a firmware update? or does bluray movies not support 720p at all in general? im a little confused because my tv is 720p/1080i and i wanted to see the difference between 720p and 1080i for myself, but you guys are telling me ps3 wont play blu ray movies at 720p.

[gowacj]

I just got my Ps3 and have played 3 blu ray discs and I don't notice anything amazing about the picture at all. In fact, it is comparable to a regular dvd, if that! I have a brand new 42" inch HDTV LCD Sharp Aquos.
Am I doing something wrong. I am reading all these websites and posts about how incredible the blu ray on ps3 looks. I have tried all the video picture settings. I have a HDMI hooked up. I have watched Monster House, John Legend Concert, and Crash and I don't notice a thing picture quality wise. Please help if you can give me any suggestions.
Thanks
Joe