I was hoping some of you AV tech-heads could answer/confirm a few things for me. I have a 1080p Sceptre LCD. My PS3 handles the 1080p content great, no handshake problems but what is up with no upscaling? I had heard that the PS3 lacks an internal/hardware based upscaler, is this true? If it is true is there any way that Sony can ever fix this? I can see a BIG difference between 720p and 1080i/p on my set. I dont want to start a flame war or anything but if the PS3 cannot upscale video content then why are they talking crap about Xbox360 not having "true 1080p"? Are there going to be games in the future that will output native 1080p (like GranTurismo HD does)? I know that sony pretty much screwed people who have sets that dont support 720p but I feel like they also screwed early adopters who have native 1080p sets! :( Any information/speculation you guys could provide would be much appreciated.

From what I've read they need to update the GPU to a version that allows the scaler to be used..

Its there in this revision.. its just physically disabled

My TV looks good at 1080i but doesn't do 720p and I was going to by a PS3 for christmas but Im waiting for the Upscale fix.
My 360 upscales and looks Great on my set.

And how about downscaling? BD movies from 1080p to 720p. Hopefully they will get something right soon.

Same story. I am also in the waiting camp. Until Sony adds 720p upscaling to 1080i, I'm holding off buying a PS3. Someone at Sony did not do their homework on the number of 1080i/480p only HDTV's in the US.

I tested a PS3 BD on my 65" Mits Diamond CRT in 1080i and it looks fantastic. RFOM in 480p looked better than what I expected, but still far short of a 720p/1080i upconversion. As soon as the upconversion issue is fixed (hopefully), I'm off to BB to buy a PS3.

Gig'Em
Jarret

The only way the PS3 will upscale will be through a software implementation. This might happen in the future, but any hardware scaling will not happen until there is a revision of the PS3 hardware. Perhaps the touted 2500.00 PS3 media center edition.

So not going to ever happen. They intend for you to ditch your dvd collection and go with all new 40.00 a pop blu-ray disks!

So not going to ever happen. They intend for you to ditch your dvd collection and go with all new 40.00 a pop blu-ray disks!

$40 a pop?
You need to learn to shop.

In a Target today and saw plenty of BD and HD-DVD movies at $19.
At most $29, but I never buy a movie for MSRP.

Originally posted by variablesunknown
Are there going to be games in the future that will output native 1080p (like GranTurismo HD does)?
There are already a bunch of 1080P games rendered natively, not upscaled like the 360. Do a search, but some are MUA, RR7, Full Auto 2 etc. Sony's plan was to have all games rendered in 1080P, which would mean 1080i would also be supported without using a hardware scaler. Ironically the people who would of got screwed if all games were 1080P would be older 720P displays that didn't handle 1080i to 720P(bob and weave) conversion properly. But instead some games like RFOM were not able to hit the 1080P target and therefore they settled for 720P, hence the problem. Yes it was a Sony oversight, but not in the way some people think. Sony made the mistake of thinking that ALL launch titles would be able to reach the native 1080P target. Maybe after a year of developer getting familiar with programming for the PS3, but not all launch titles. I don't think they blatantly set out to screw over 1080i only HD display owners, but thats just my opinion.

Originally posted by fivemillionways
So not going to ever happen. They intend for you to ditch your dvd collection and go with all new 40.00 a pop blu-ray disks!
I for one did not throw out my upscaling DVD player after buying the PS3, so I have the choice to either by BD or regular DVD depending on whether the movie is worth the extra $10 investment. As far as $40, I can walk into Target and buy both BD and HD-DVD movies for anywhere between $19.99 to $29.99 BEFORE any sales that they might have. Stop the BS...

Games that are rendered at 1280x720 will look just as good at native res (720p) as they will if they were converted on the fly (like the X360 does) to 1080i (or 1080p) on a 1080p native display. All you are is using the console as the scaler instead of the display.

Also there will be plenty of 1080p native games on the PS3 which completely removes scaling issues from being a factor unless your display is 720p only (which I'm pretty sure there is no such thing).

Games that are rendered at 1280x720 will look just as good at native res (720p) as they will if they were converted on the fly (like the X360 does) to 1080i (or 1080p) on a 1080p native display. All you are is using the console as the scaler instead of the display.

Also there will be plenty of 1080p native games on the PS3 which completely removes scaling issues from being a factor unless your display is 720p only (which I'm pretty sure there is no such thing).
there are plenty of displays that only do 720p

I should have clarified that I meant "TVs" when I said that.

I should have clarified that I meant "TVs" when I said that.
still plenty

I have an HD-DVD drive for the 360 but was wondering if they did Blu-Rays like they do HD-DVD's.. Have the Standard Definition on the other side and it costs 10 dollars more?


WHY DO THEY DO THIS!?!?!?!?!?!?! Are they just trying to sqeeze my empty wallet for another few bucks that I don't need?

From what I've read they need to update the GPU to a version that allows the scaler to be used.. Its there in this revision.. its just physically disabled

Interesting, first time I read about the base problem for not having a scaler. So its more GPU firmware lacking. Is the scaler really a separate 3rd chip, or just a clever combination of Cell+GPU+software?

Sure, DVD upscaling could be done easily with Cell+GPU+software, but a full speed game is an another story.

I have noticed that a few games do support 1080p natively, I appreciate you guys pointing those out. I also saw that Virtua Fighter 5 is another possibility http://www.joystiq.com/2007/01/09/rumor-virtua-fighter-5-is-1080p/ . I am still shocked that Sony didn't include 512ram for memory or an internal scaler to handle video. It might be true that 720p upscaled looks the same on a native 1080p set but to charge so much and not even be able to do something that the 360 can handle with ease for $200 less seems like a major mistake! I know that RFOM would look so much better on my set in 1080p than 720p, especially after playing Gran Turismo HD, which looks jaw droppingly photorealistic. I knew that Sony didn't deliver much of what they promised but the internal scaler seems like such a no-brainer for such an advanced piece of hardware. Do you guys think they ditched it because BluRay was so expensive to include and produce?

What is interesting about VF5 is that 720p and 1080p are both listed.

What is interesting about VF5 is that 720p and 1080p are both listed.

Same thing with Ridge Racer

so what does the PS3 display the BR movies on RPTV CRT's that support 480i,480p,720, and 1080i?

If a game is 720p will it upscale to 1080i like the XBOX360?

Interesting that the PS3 can downscale 1080p games to 720p but not BD movies.

so what does the PS3 display the BR movies on RPTV CRT's that support 480i,480p,720, and 1080i?

If a game is 720p will it upscale to 1080i like the XBOX360?

The PS3 will put BR movies at the next highest supported res. So 1080i. But there is no UPSCALE, only down.

if a game is 720p and your TV doesn't support it. Say hello to 480p. That is why its such an issue. 360 upscles and downscales because it has a computer chip called a hardware scaler built in. Takes no hit on CPU/GPU performance to upscale to any res.

And to the above comment about GTHD
"I know that RFOM would look so much better on my set in 1080p than 720p, especially after playing Gran Turismo HD, which looks jaw droppingly photorealistic. "

Go play PGR3 (over a yr old) and you will see why GTHD is a free demo with GT5 on the way some day.

It doesn't downscale games, the game renders in 720p (1280x720) instead of 1080p.

All they need is to get games all running in 1080p. There may not ever be an after-the-fact scaler that takes the output of the game, whatever it is, and scales it to whatever you want. The Xbox can do this because it uses an analog scaler, but it can get away with this because it only has analog output! The PS3 has digital (HDMI) output...

They have promised DVD upscaling in a future update. No doubt it will be HDMI-only, like every other upconverting DVD player, for copyright reasons...

Also, PS3 can already scale MPEG/etc video media content. Try it. Download one of the 720p trailers from the store and push the "Display" button on the (Triangle) popup menu. It can easily upscale MPEGs of any size on the fly. A trivial process for such a powerful CPU/GPU...

It doesn't downscale games, the game renders in 720p (1280x720) instead of 1080p.

For a 720p game (most of them)
if your TV doesn't support 720p (like my CRT HDTV) then you get 480p not 1080i.

For a 1080p game you get 1080i.

The fact is that most games wont run at 1080p. You have trade offs for 1080p. You lose some game details and effects.

Its going to be interesting to see games like GTA in Oct 2007 on 360 and PS3.

Wait . . . .im not an av nerd so I really don't understand. . .but are you guys saying that the PS3 won't upconvert my dvd movies to 1080i like my Sony dvpns975 did (with hdmi connection).

Wait . . . .im not an av nerd so I really don't understand. . .but are you guys saying that the PS3 won't upconvert my dvd movies to 1080i like my Sony dvpns975 did (with hdmi connection).

Not yet.

For a 720p game (most of them)
if your TV doesn't support 720p (like my CRT HDTV) then you get 480p not 1080i.In that case the game renders in 480p. It doesn't render in 720 and then downscale. It doesn't scale games....

llluneeklll - not at this time it will not upconvert DVDs. That feature should be added later, maybe in March.

Walk,
If the GPU is so powerful why cant it upscale games from 720 to 1080?

Walk,
If the GPU is so powerful why cant it upscale games from 720 to 1080?

That question is illogical. It depends on the source. The PS3 could easily render............Pong for example in 720p and upscale it to 1080p.

If the GPU is doing the scaling (and not a dedicated scaling chip) then resources have to be re-alocated and the end result being less than what could have been. Just let your TV do the scaling.

I don't know that it can't, or if they just didn't add that feature yet.

I know my home PC with practically the same GPU (7800GT) can do it just fine with less than a 5% performance hit, so maybe it will be possible in the future.

Or, as I said, developers can get all their games running in 1080.

It doesn't downscale games, the game renders in 720p (1280x720) instead of 1080p.

All they need is to get games all running in 1080p. There may not ever be an after-the-fact scaler that takes the output of the game, whatever it is, and scales it to whatever you want. The Xbox can do this because it uses an analog scaler, but it can get away with this because it only has analog output! The PS3 has digital (HDMI) output...

They have promised DVD upscaling in a future update. No doubt it will be HDMI-only, like every other upconverting DVD player, for copyright reasons...

Also, PS3 can already scale MPEG/etc video media content. Try it. Download one of the 720p trailers from the store and push the "Display" button on the (Triangle) popup menu. It can easily upscale MPEGs of any size on the fly. A trivial process for such a powerful CPU/GPU...

So if a PS3 game is 1080p and your display supports 1080i the game will be down scaled to 1080i?

The problem is that only certain games are going to be capable of 1080P. If you've noticed, all the 1080P games so far seem to be fairly simple in terms of graphics. GT looks amazing but the game also looked amazing on the PS2 at 1080I, but then again, it doesn't have many FX and the track is limited, the developers know where you are going to go, meaning not much memory is used.

That is the main problem with 1080P, aside from requiring more processing power, it requires a lot of memory. That is why Resistance wasn't able to achieve it, the developers said that the game's textures were bad at 1080P. I'm sure some games will be able to achieve it and do a good job, but with the extra power used, a 720P game with AA could probably look better.

Also, in order for the PS3's GPU to upscale a game to 1080P, the developers would most likely have to release some sort of patch for every game. I'm not sure if that is the best way possible. Aside from that, it also takes a toll on performance, far greater than the 5% stated earlier. If this is the case, then developers will have to reserve extra power for people that want to upscale, meaning the game will be less impressive due to less power available.

So if a PS3 game is 1080p and your display supports 1080i the game will be down scaled to 1080i?

They'll be interlaced to 1080i

They'll be interlaced to 1080i

right. I was just following along with the down scale term as that was the topic of interest.