Wow, I've only sampled a few visuals since FW 1.80 but so far I am VERY impressed! The Pixar movies look fantastic, as does SW Episode III.

As for the older games, Devil May Cry 3 and Soul Calibur 2 are looking great, and I'm about to try God of War I/II and Chrono Cross from the PSOne. Overall rating... big thumbs up!

Any screenshots?

It does look really good with a couple discs that I tried. I'll do some more A/B tests to compare it to the scaler in my XA2, which is supposed to be one of the best at 1080p. This is one of those times where I wish you had two copies of the same movie, so you can just switch video inputs on the fly. It does look good though.

westinghouse lcds hdmi issue also seems resolved

It does look really good with a couple discs that I tried. I'll do some more A/B tests to compare it to the scaler in my XA2, which is supposed to be one of the best at 1080p. This is one of those times where I wish you had two copies of the same movie, so you can just switch video inputs on the fly. It does look good though.


Off the top of your head, is there any noticable difference from the XA2?

I know a A/B comparison will show you exactly which one is better, but generally are they very similar?

OMG! I just put in Star Wars Episode IV and it looks Fracking incredible!! Only bad thing is you can no longer stretch movies that aren't 16:9. My tv is like that. If it's in HD you can't stretch it. I'm sure if your tv can you'll be ok. Overall very excellent update! Thanks Sony!

1 issue is ff12 widescreen doesn't stretch properly, however ff7 looks very good

Off the top of your head, is there any noticable difference from the XA2?

I know a A/B comparison will show you exactly which one is better, but generally are they very similar?

I'll have more free time tomorrow to do some serious testing. Right now I'm checking out some old school PS2 games that have just gotten new life in them.

God of War II how does it look?

westinghouse lcds hdmi issue also seems resolved

I can vouch for that also, haven't seen any blinking yet.

I can't say I see any real difference with the few games I tried. In fact I think PS2 games that support progessive scan look slightly better (sharper) at 480p than upscaled to 1080i. This is a CRT RPTV though, I get the feeling upscaling is more benefical to digital TVs. I never had a problem with how PS2 games looked anyway.

For the love of pete, how does GOWII look!!!!

Kingdom Hearts 2 looks better upscaled I am gonna test some more games, Crash Bandicoot I bought from the PSN store is also better looking upscaled. I will buy more PS1/2 games now, awesome update, upscaling ps1/2 games I thought was BS when the rumors of it first came out.

I also checked and now my Motorola 350 bluetooth headset that didn't work after 1.6 is now working fine. So this update for me is the best one by far.

Firmware is avail?

Socom Combined Assault looks better. I'm more impressed than I thought I would be.
pHaZ

Try out some 2d fighting games. While they look great idle with the scaling and smoothing on, they become comb-y messes in motion, but this was an issue even before these additions were made.

FFXII looks great to me!!! It stretched fine for me, there are very litttle black bars on the side, but I could care less, it looks great!

The new PS3 DVD upscaling is nothing special IMO and the Toshiba HD DVD player is superior in this regard , very obvious difference .

PS2 upscaling is decent , PS1 upscaling is also decent but cannot compete with some of the PC emulators out there .

All in all though this feature set is a very nice addition to the PS3 :) .

-- Jason

For PS2 games with Progressive mode as an option, you have to turn it off or it will go to 480P. With PM off you can get 1080P. You can also switch off wides screen in the game to let the PS3 do it from the options in the XMB system menu.

One thing I like about the DVD upscaling options (and there are a few things to play with), is that most of the selections can be toyed with as the movie is playing. Cool stuff so far.

One thing I like about the DVD upscaling options (and there are a few things to play with), is that most of the selections can be toyed with as the movie is playing. Cool stuff so far.

Cool, doing this w/ spiderman 1 right now. Didnt know you could do this, great way to mess w/ the options.

I honestly can't tell any difference when playing a ps1 game. The difference when watching a DVD seems very small to me too. Did you all change any settings after the update? Can someone in the know explain what the difference between the "double scale", "normal", and "full screen" settings under settings/bd-dvd settings/DVD upscaler.

*edit*
I am connected through HDMI

I honestly can't tell any difference when playing a ps1 game. The difference when watching a DVD seems very small to me too. Did you all change any settings after the update? Can someone in the know explain what the difference between the "double scale", "normal", and "full screen" settings under settings/bd-dvd settings/DVD upscaler.

*edit*
I am connected through HDMI

For starters, what kind of TV do you have?

The new PS3 DVD upscaling is nothing special IMO and the Toshiba HD DVD player is superior in this regard , very obvious difference .

PS2 upscaling is decent , PS1 upscaling is also decent but cannot compete with some of the PC emulators out there .

All in all though this feature set is a very nice addition to the PS3 :) .

-- Jason

Well it's gone from : Passed 0 test in HVQ for DVD, to Passed all test in HVQ for DVD, quite a big update, it doesn't lock in Video Mode now..

Well it's gone from : Passed 0 test in HVQ for DVD, to Passed all test in HVQ for DVD, quite a big update, it doesn't lock in Video Mode now..

How can you test this? Good news!

Well it's gone from : Passed 0 test in HVQ for DVD, to Passed all test in HVQ for DVD, quite a big update, it doesn't lock in Video Mode now..

Don't you mean the HQV ;) , my PS3 was passing many of the HQV tests before the 1.8 update ( 3 of us sat here and watched while it passed many of the tests , one of which is an ISF certified tech that is also an AVS member , so it did not go from 0 to all passed ) . Unless that 0 passed claim was from an early firmware .

--- Jason

Since this upscaling seems to be a hot topic, I took it upon myself to start a comparison thread. I started with a GOW comparison. Huge difference!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=851778

IMO... the PS3 upscales DVDs better than my A2000. I am quite happy with the update.

1 issue is ff12 widescreen doesn't stretch properly, however ff7 looks very good

Turns out there is a setting in the PS3 menu to "full screen" PS/PS2 games.

However, does this mean that one has to switch between "full screen" and normal every time they change the game between a widescreen game and a non-widescreen game?

Turns out there is a setting in the PS3 menu to "full screen" PS/PS2 games.

However, does this mean that one has to switch between "full screen" and normal every time they change the game between a widescreen game and a non-widescreen game?

No, you should leave it on Full all the time. If you have a game that does not support 16:9 and you want to play it at 4:3, use your TV's settings to adjust it accordingly. The PS/PS2 scaler should always be set to Full.