XBR8: Can't get sharp picture without DRC on Xbox. Is this normal?

I see a little difference in the photos, but I would not say this is enough for me to jude what you see fairly.

I play a lot of games and I use local dimming, motion flow set to clear and all other options turned off. There is no lag I can detect and I get a sharp picture. Now I am running via HDMI. Set you Xbox to output at 1080i if you have not already. Also are you running the latest version of dashboard?

I think you should change you display monitor. It's like night & day between both picture.

With DRC off he lose every texture detail since it become incredible blurred.

There's nothing you can do here except changing HDTV. You got to live with it.

You want Motion Flow off for gaming since it will increase the lag time.

-Do not use component cables. Use a VGA cable or HDMI and set the resolution to 1080p.

-Do not set the sharpness setting below the default value of 50.

-Your second picture looks overly sharp... Remember that the majority of Xbox 360 games are rendered at resolutions around 1280x720, and vary from game to game.

For example, I have Street Fighter 4 on both PC, 360, and PS3. When comparing the PC version at 1920x1080 via HDMI to either console version (PS3 or 360), PC version is much sharper, since the rendering resolution (frame buffer) is higher - 1280x720 vs 1920x1080.... do you get the drift here?

-If you want a sharper picture on your XBR8, try turnning on some level of the "Detail Enhancer", which is found in the Advanced Picture settings menu, instead of using DRC modes. The settings you were using for DRC show ringing edges, which is an artifact of edge enhancement.

-It appears the main thing you're missing is that what you're seeing is that most games don't actually render at 1080p, so they won't be as sharp as ones that do! DUH!!

Yeah, the first picture actually looks better than the second picture. Second picture reeks of "Edge Enhancement".

The first isnt perfect but the 2nd looks overly sharp.

try setting your picture mode to photo-standard , photo modes on other sony TV's disable all video blurring that the TV normally does by default witch is what it sounds like is happening on your set

I think the o.p. is correct. During upscaling from 720p to 1080p the XBR8 is also performing some sort of anti-aliasing (AA) in the process. It isn't showing the image as close to pixel perfect as it can. I tested this with a 1280x720 checkered halftone image displayed on PS3 through HDMI, forcing the PS3 to 720p, and setting my XBR8 to +1 Display Area to remove overscan.

This can be good or bad depending on how you look at it.

Sony apparently thinks that reducing "jaggies" by performing anti-aliasing is a good thing. Myself and others think that it should be up to the content provider (game developers, movie producers, etc...) to provide their own anti-aliasing techniques to make the game look the way they want. If the game has its own AA and the TV also adds its own, then you get double blurring which makes it worse. I think that's what you're seeing here.

However, if a game doesn't have AA and looks particularly pixelated because the developer couldn't sacrifice the extra rendering time, then the TV's AA will actually make it look smoother and more pleasant.

You're lucky since you are on X360. You can set it to upscale all games to 1080 and the XBR8 will show it pixel perfect, as long as you're on "Full Pixel" Display Area and don't have Sharpness turned down. We PS3 owners aren't so lucky. We get blurred 720p games that can't be upscaled without extra hardware.

With the test pattern I didn't see any difference with Sharpness Max, Game Mode ON, Detail Enhancer ON, or DRC turned ON. On actual game content, DRC and those others settings may make a big difference, but it is performed *after* the TV's upscale blurring has occurred, so it's not the best it can be. sigh.

I haven't investigated this in depth but I like the "free anti-aliasing" the Sony throws in:









Screens courtesy of Assassin's Creed 2, which already uses Quincunx anti-aliasing, according to EuroGamer.

Ignore the slight moiree patterns & minuscule color problems (because of the camera) but examine the edges, the various (HUD) icons and the floor tiles in the last screen.

Benny, thanks for the pics. Very nice.

So do you believe that the undefeatable "free" anti-alias on the Bravias is a good thing even if a game is already performing AA? To me that double-blur is making the PQ suffer at 480p and 720p. I'm glad our XBR8s don't do that in 1080p like the XBR6 and XBR9, but Sony could have added an "Antialias" setting to enable if the game needed it. After all, it would have been less processing which would have less input lag.

-----

Oh and I take that back about other settings not affecting 720p crispness. Sharpness on MAX and Detail Enhancer on High bring back some of the crispness of the original 720p image, but the anti-alias is still there. Dunno why it has to be forced with no way to disable it.

Here are some pictures of the test pattern I took with my camera close up.
- 1080p is perfect pixel On, pixel Off.
- 720p with DetailEnhancer High and DRC Off, is just a blur.
- 720p with DetailEnhancer High and DRC On, kind of shows the pixel pattern but doesn't quite make it.

1080p DetailEnhancer=Off DRC=Off


720p DetailEnhancer=High DRC=Off


720p DetailEnhancer=High DRC=On

It seems like just like basic BE2 engine was blurring the picture even for 1080p on the lower end models (XBR6 and down) is what BE2 PRO is doing only for 720p sources. Turning on DRC and detail enhancer still leaves the pixel structure looking very screwed up and adds a ton of input lag making any game unplayable.

Nice to see what we get for such an expensive set. Thanks Sony, keep up the ****ing good work. No wonder they cant keep up with Samsung's sales lately.

I think your best option is to just set the X360 to 1080p. Chances are the X360 has a better scaler than the TV anyway, so i dont know why you had it set to 720p to begin with.

Unfortunately for PS3 owners, the upscaling is piss poor on it, and it doesnt support it for most games whereas X360 does.

For 1080i/p the XBR8 has no blurring/overscanning. The halftone image looks pixel perfect on 1080 for the XBR8. The improved picture/scaling from the X360 set to 1080p should make whatever game that is in your screenshots look far better.

Chopin, all i can think of is to try testing the pattern in 720p with game mode ON. Since game mode turns off most of the processing, maybe it removes the anti-alias processing we are seeing. I doubt it will make a difference but its worth a try.

Well sorry but the halftone image test pattern doesnt lie. 1080p on the XBR8 is pixel perfect, so if your seeing DRC adding better detail on 1080p sources thats only because its adding artifical sharpness which I guess is making you think its blurred. DRC is just processing that oversharpens the picture as sony is known to do.

This is only a problem for 720p (especially a problem for most PS3 games) as it doesnt show it pixel perfect.

Lots of people claim that component is capable of the same quality as HDMI, but perhaps this proves otherwise, at least with the XBR8. It would be interesting to know if that is your problem Vipeout. The 720p anti-alias would then prove to be something different.

I did some more eye-ball tests in 1080p HDMI, 24p vs. 60p, Photo vs. Video. I don't think any shenaniganz is going on. Still pixel perfect. DRC does add quite a bit of hopefully artificial sharpening, and not just undoing the anti-alias to reveal the original image.

I want to do a couple more tests using my PC tomorrow.

Don't forget to examine the source in the equation, too. Does the X360 have a "stellar" component signal quality? (I'd assume it but I have only a PS3)

As for your former question regarding non-defeatable anti-aliasing:
Well, yes, of course I'd like to be able to defeat that!

While I understand Sony to include this for "normal people" the XBR8 and it's European variant X4500 offer a multitude of setup options (probably the most of any current Sony model) which try to fit a lot of situations and an additional option wouldn't have made this mode complicated.

Sadly, all these options have a side-effect: They create the illusion that the XBR8 is the best in all categories, including gaming.

I hate to destroy illusions but this simply is not true. As I have written in March in this forum (please excuse the sucky stand - I have a better one now) this set is in my opinion a set optimal for movies and you can also game on it - but it's not the other way round.

In other words: It's a capable set for gaming (especially with HDMI connection) but not the best for several reasons:
- input lag too high for certain games unless you lose picture quality
- there are cheaper sets with roughly the same performance
- the behaviour in 720p and/or with analog sources (as we have seen now)

Many reviews also claimed that the XBR8/X4500 should optimally used in conjunction with HDMI sources, preferably in 1080p mode.

According to games forums lots of gamers have bought (or returned to) a plasma TV because of their handling of lower resolutions and less input lag (which gamer cares if he has to darken the room?).

Buying this set as a perfect games display makes little sense in my book - and there are obviously compromises to be made. If you can live with the compromises, fine, if not you'll have to look elsewhere.

Personally, I'd like to be future proof and I'm able to display a great 1080p picture - which will be the common resolution of all devices sooner or later (until 4K-resolutions kick in 2015+) and I'm able to live with a slightly-worse picture in 720p or even lower resolutions.


As a side note:

It's also interesting how complicated game consoles have become. The oldest only had an UHF antenna connector, then came composite, S-Video, RGB (in some countries), component and now digital video connectors - and you have to setup the consoles to make use of it.
Now the consoles use internal scalers (partly) and you have to configure that, too.
Then the display device has to be configured to make the most out of it and we stumble over things like anti-aliasing which the average console player shouldn't be concerned with.

IMHO this all defeats the plug & play scheme to some extent, doesn't it?

Wonder, how funny it will get when we will be hyped up by "real 3D games" and being told that we have to move on to a better set...

you cannot use motion flow for games it is what introduces the most input lag period

this is a simple fact and will not change with a new tv from a different manufacture live with it

your simply trying to do something you should not be doing right there, there is no point what so ever in using motion flow with games its not made for it and does nothing to enhance it, it will only introduce horrendous lag from the TV because its taking the input signal and duplicating, predicting movement in the frames and then finally displaying the image, hence lag. any model TV with a motion enhancer will add too much lag to games when turned on peroid end of story. stop wasting everyone's time and live with it

component only equals HDMI when the source is not high enough quality (broadcast/cable/sat HDTV)

Blu Ray, PC use and game consoles will most definitely show a better picture via HDMI vs component by far, VGA is the only thing that can come close to HDMI's picture and even then its not quite as good but close

component video is blurry and the colors are a bit washed out, both tend to make compressed HDTV signals looks slightly better than viewed via HDMI or at worst the same because its a crappy picture compared to other HQ sources

whatever dude, i play games on a 60hz sony 32xbr6, it looks no different motion wise than using a normal TN PC LCD (have used those for years and still have 2 on my desk

to each his own i suppose but imho all this talk here is rather pointless because the way i see it your doing it wrong, motionflow shouldn't be used with games and the pictures chopin posted show that DRC is not making the image sharper its blurring the image, the first image he posted with D.E. and DRC off is the only one showing per pixel the others are blurry and blending pixels just like my 32xbr6 will do when in video mode rather than photo mode

heres the thread where BE2 blurring is discussed http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1099702

I agree that for single player games, if you like what motionflow does there is no reason to say its "wrong" to use it. Who the hell is this guy anyway to start dictating to people how their OWN tv should be used? If hes saying there is no problem with input lag, then to each his own.

I would just strongly suggest never leaving that on for online gaming, and to never use DRC as it creates a ridiculous amount of lag that makes any game unplayable.

You should test the halftone image via your X360 if thats possible and see if component is showing it pixel perfect or not. I know that via HDMI there is no problems showing the pattern pixel perfect so if component does the same thing im not sure there is a real problem for you. Of course DRC will make the picture sharper because thats what its meant to do, and its only an artificial difference in sharpness your seeing. However if analog signals arent being shown pixel perfect even at 1080p then you have another problem.


And Benny42, this TV can be said to be a very good gaming TV for anyone who owns an HDMI X360 as it can upscale ANY game to 1080p which looks fantastic on the XBR8. The internal scaler on the X360 is far better than any TV's scaler anyway, and this set shows the picture looking perfect at 1080p. Even in game mode, it still has a slight advantage over many other sets because the colors are being produced from the LED's which tend to make them much more vibrant than other sets. Not to mention that every other sony LCD has the blurring issue even with 1080p whereas the XBR8 doesnt. Another reason that makes this set a good gaming TV.

Its only for the few games on PS3 that cannot upscale to 1080p that this set is a real disappointment. Seeing that i do play alot of games on my PS3 on 720p this for me is something hard to accept. But as benny42 says, I guess eventually everything will be 1080p so we can forget about this, but unfortunately I dont think the market/world is ready for PS4 anytime soon...

Here they are. I made these in MSPaint. They have horizontal lines, vertical lines, and one pixel white one pixel black checkerboard.

- 1920x1080 (1080p)
- 1280x720 (720p)
- 720x480 (480p)
- 640x480

You can save them to a USB stick or share them via DLNA to view through your X360. Or you can connect your PC to the XBR8 with HDMI. Force the X360 or PS3 to each resolution to see what how XBR8 is scaling it.

If it's that bad why don't you just return the TV and get the Sammy LED?