Will PS3 also be a upconverting DVD player - Page 2

47" for 1080p? at the viewing distance of ?

I love my 1080p @ 37" Would not trade it in for anything less. PS3 looks flawless... The one and only reason I bought the the TV.

yup

Dude the difference between 1080p and 720p on a 47" TV is minuscule and you'd have to be sitting about 4 feet from it to see that difference. I wish people would figure out that 1080p isn't leaps and bounds beyond 720p like Sony would have you believe. If you had a 720p projector that could display a 20ft. image it would look amazing. For the difference between 720p and 1080p to start becoming noticeable you'd have to be at at least 65", maybe 70", and even then difference isn't like the difference between SD and HD it's more like the difference between SD and ED. I've heard people say 720p looks incredible on their 120" screens. The benefit of Blu-Ray does not come from the fact that Blu-Ray is 1080p, the benefit of Blu-Ray is that it's actually HD content and not SD content scaled up to fit the pixels on your TV. That means Blu-Ray isn't just filling in those extra pixels, it's using them and the result is a much more detailed picture. Another thing people seem to forget about HD content is the color is generally brighter and more vibrant and really brings things to life, and despite what you may hear this has nothing to with the increase is resolution.

I love my 37" 1080P LCD. I wouldn't trade it for anything lower. I personally think 1080P looks better over 720P on my LCD. You don't need a massive LCD/Projection to see the difference. A kin eye would probably help. However to each their own. Look at both and you make the choice. Don't let other people tell you otherwise. They are your eyes.

That's the issue right there. You aren't actually evaluating 1080p vs. 720p content. You are taking 720p content, pushing it through your internal scaler, and then displaying it across a 1080p screen. What you are in fact evaluating is your display and scaler's ability to produce a decent conversion.

Why might 1080p look a whole lot better? Because it is the native resolution of your display left untouched and you are bypassing the notoriously bad built-in scalers in consumer televisions.

Although I can't find the damn thread with the link there were several much more pure resolution tests done in the projector forum. For instance 2 higher end front projectors from the same manufacturer with similar optics and internals were set up and calibrated on site by an ISF tech. The only significant difference was 720p vs. 1080p in the builds. The images were setup and merged onto a single screen in the 120" range where one half was from each projector. Now keep in mind the 720p projector was being fed 1080 content and was forced to scale it putting it at a distinct disadvantage (although the internal scaler in the projector is far better than found in most consumer displays, still any scaling will not help matters in the situation). What did the dedicated hobbiests and videophiles/techs find? Even on a screen that large with high quality projectors it was very very hard for the human eye to discern any difference and it didn't get visibly apparent until they were within around 6' and the pixel matrix on the 720p was more clearly visible (i.e. same size screen but higher resolution = smaller pixels). This is a far better way to evaluate resolution than taking a 1080p display and feeding it native 1080 and 720 content pushed through a cheap scaler and making a judgement that what you see is all resolution.

Similar results have been found when such a test has been performed by other groups here at AVS. That's why resolution alone is not the deciding factor in a great display and lifelike picture. Yes it matters but once you get a decent amount (i.e. HD realm) you move into diminishing returns and other factors become far more important. These are the same factors that were important when everything was all 480 and people had to decide between displays all having the same resolution. Contrast, black level, etc... matters to creating a lifelike picture. In addition, scaling is not some trivial matter. This is the whole reason for the video processors forum.

360 upconverts all the way to 1080p over VGA and over HDMI with an elite. It does quite well actually, easily better than most HDTV's and I find it even a bit better than my upconverting dvd player.

Some interviews have indicated that Sony does intend to update PS3 with standard dvd upscaling, just no date given. You can expect that to be only over HDMI of course.

within 6'......but how come my laptop is showing differences like this? is it because it's not component, not HDMI but just VGA?


left one is 1080p, right one is 720p.

I'm just going to venture a standard guess and say your laptop is a fixed resolution so in order to display something the same size, windows is scaling it. In order to really compare resolution by itself you need to remove scaling. At the very least it certainly isn't going to be done on the same display since they can't change their native resolution so scaling will always be involved.

The best way around this is the detailed test I described above where the projectors differed very little and the scaler that was used was high end. Actually, that test was more unfair to the 720p projector since they were both fed 1080i (1080p native proj had only to deinterlace whereas the 720p had to deinterlace and scale). That's what makes it so compelling in that people had a very hard time differentiating on a giant screen and if anything the 720p was shortchanged in the process.

I'll also add that there is a lot of variance in methods of scaling. Not all scalers are created equal by a long shot. The ones in most displays are very poor (i.e. this is why many $100-200 upscaling DVD units outperform most displays) as is the way windows handles it although many people will used 3rd party apps to arrive at better results.

Say what?!?!? You are misinformed buddy. Both the 20GB and 60GB model have HDMI.

That is one thing about the 1080p vs 720p "war"... If you have really good eyes, then you can see more of the definition. If you wear glasses, I don't know if you would see the difference.

he is evaluating 1080p vs 720p if he is watching a blu-ray or hd-dvd movie, where the content is in fact 1080p being displayed on a 1080p tv.

i've ran some blu-ray discs on my 50" 720p dlp and on my 24" benq 1080p lcd monitor, and i could see more detail on the lcd while watching Casino Royale blu-ray. if you're watching hd broadcasts via satellite or cable, where the content is either in 1080i or 720p, it wouldnt make much if at all of a difference when displayed on a 1080p or 720p tv.

I definitely see a difference between externally upscaled 720p and native 1080i on my 50" Toshiba CRT from an 8 foot viewing distance. It's not immense, but it's there -- the 720 picture is softer and less defined.

You could argue that it's all due to the scaling, and that probably can't be refuted without putting a same-size 720p-native TV with 720p content right next to the 1080i TV showing 1080i content -- but in my specific case, a 1080 source always produces a noticeably better image.

- Jer

I have no doubt that Sony will release DVD upscaling for the PS3, however, I believe that they will do this only when Blu-ray has enough traction (and HD-DVD is "closer" to death), this is due to the fact that Blu-ray will continue to demonstrate a "stark" difference in quality when the HDTV consumer loads a Blu-ray movie versus an regular DVD and that wow factor and exclusivity will help drive sales of HDTVs and Blu-ray.

I just do not see this happening until end of 3 quarter 07' or early 4th quarter.

The question I have is, where are all the cool upgrades promised for March and what of the 2.0 Upgrade !!!

Kurt,

I second all of your thoughts. The war over HD formats needs to be settled before DVD upscaling will occur on the PS3. Sony is riding on the success of the PS3 to drive the success of Blu-Ray.

Still, I really want my PS3 to upscale. If it can do that, it will be the ultimate system.

And you have no eye for detail. Did you see the date on my original post? The 20GB PS3 did not have HDMI at the time.

Once again, we have to be patient. The next firmware update will probably have DVD upscalling to 1080i. This is no way as good and 1080p bluray but it will make our DVDs look better.

So are you a 720p owner? You might want to read up on visual acuity calculations as your estimations are a bit off. The 47" display will start to look better at less than 9'. One will be able to fully resolve 1080p (assuming perfect eyesight) at about 6'.

Here's the formulas:

When 1080p starts to look better than 720p
/720/3400/12 = viewing distance in feet

When 1080p is fully resolvable
/1080/3400/12 = viewing distance in feet

The "slight" benefit you are referring to is only around the first crossover point. As the distance approaches the second point, it will be progressively more noticeable. A person with perfect eyesight could tell the difference with between 1080p and 720p (for a 47" TV) at maybe 8' (i.e. just under 9'). Of course this distance increases with screen size. If you are within 10' (crossover = 11.5') of a 60" TV a person should be able to tell that it is superior to a 720p TV. I'm assuming 1080p feeds in all cases. I'm not sure where you got your numbers from.

I think you missed his scenario.

He is comparing 1080p and 720p on his a single 1080p native display which means he is really comparing 1080p native content and scaled 720p content. Meaning you aren't really evaluating resolution as scaling can and does have huge impact depending upon the quality of the components and methodology utilized (back when everything was all 480 - video processors still commanded huge prices even though source resolution was always constant).

The 720p he is testing is either totally different 720p native content being scaled by his television to 1080p (which leads to source issues in comparison along with scaling) or if it is from the same 1080p content on a BR disc it is the BR player scaling down to 720p and then his television rescaling up to 1080p (horrendous although the PS3 doesn't scale so that would assume an external player).

Hence my entire explanation on why that's not a valid way to compare resolution and my illustration of the much better (near perfect) methods used and subsequent results. Basic science - isolate the variable by holding constant all others and pushing content through a scaler (particularly a lower end one) is not being held constant. For what it's worth neither is using materially different displays especially size.

This is all valid. Just to add on, one thing to factor in is that the ability of the human eye to resolve additional detail does not always make for a whopping night and day difference. As resolution rises, there is diminishing returns. For instance, anyone 6' from a 50" screen can tell an immediate and large quality difference between SD and HD. It's like getting hit over the head and it's blatantly clear to all but the blind. The magnitude in difference between 720p and 1080p even at distances where 1080p can be fully resolved by the human eye is clearly not as large although it is perceivable and can be significant. If it were, there would be no argument as it would be night and day (no one argues whether HD is significantly better than SD).

For me, the biggest difference at these ranges is the pixel grid. I can see the pixels in 720p all day long at close range whereas holding the screen size constant, 1080p offers a much finer array. I notice the grid long before I notice major changes in picture quality from resolution. I hate the grid.

I definitely notice pixel density differences as well. I see a lot of them when looking at all the different portable gadgets I have. It's actually an issue I had when they went from the GBA to the DS, because instead of making a bigger screen with smaller pixels, they just expanded the screen size a couple extra lines of resolution from the GBA. And now most cell phones even have a higher resolution and density than a DS.

Um...the 20GB PS3 has an HDMI port. Am I missing something here?

My bad. I (as do many others) assume most of these posts are recent. Not too many people read the date when they reply and I guess I am one of them.

Sorry next time I will try and pay attention to the date posted.

That post was from August last year when there wasn't going to be an HDMI port on the now non existent 20GB version.

I thought the Sony guy already said upconversion was coming?

I wouldn't hold your breath for anything until you start seeing tangible evidence that something is actually being worked on (a la Home). Saying and doing are entirely different things especially when it comes to consoles. It's almost like everyone in a VP or above position in the console business is required to have a PhD in ********, deception, and evasion.

Why would you see "tangible evidence"? There isnt anything they could release that would show upconversion is *halfway* done, etc. It either works or it doesnt.

Sony has promised it, and the public will hold them to it. What they havent released is a timeframe, although there are RUMORS that it will be in one of the next two updates.

Just blind rumors, no proof or substantiation at all. I actually believe microsoft may be (indirectly) behind some of those rumors as well... but I'm a cynic.

Just a FYI to those who are getting use to all the terminology like I am...

Upconversion typically means switching from one input type to another output type, e.g. component audio/video to HDMI. Confusion is abound on the AVR forums about this term specifically in the Onkyo anticipation thread...

Upscaling means scaling the image to a different size like 480i to 720p/1080p resolutions.

De-Interlacing is for taking an image for interlaced to progressive scans like 480i -> 480p or 1080i -> 1080p. (done by various DVD players and TVs)

Hope that helps!

-Splints

I was generalizing but timeframe, specific mention, someone saying they are actually working on it rather than a "someday we intend", someone who's working on it or associated leaking something etc...

Lots of this stuff isn't that hard and could get knocked out pretty quickly if they really wanted to get it done (just like the media player being able to access network shares since it's all already there). Right now it's Home over function it seems. The issue is that there is no monetary incentive and in Sony's specific case, they are pushing BR so there may be some disincentive to really pursue the upscaling functionality. Hence, until it's on the radar other than briefly mentioned in a "Ken has a dream" speach - don't hold your breath and expect it anytime in the near future. You may be pleasantly surprised but a long period of continuous unabated disappointment from no upscaling is far more likely.

Both versions come with HDMI.