PS3 and it's hardware scaler - Page 9

During the HD DVD/Blu-Ray format war, it was put firmly to rest by the Microsoft insiders that ANA/HANA chips are not scalers. The GPU does the scaling. They said that those reporting ANA/HANA chips were doing the scaling misunderstood the info Microsoft had given out.

Didn't MS even go as far as showing a video about ANA?

I design chips for a living. You can't just look at a chip, examine it, and know what it does.

So you do what I do and look at the chip, read the part number off of it, go to the internet and look up the datasheet.

Then you know what it does...

There are a few chips out there whose manufacturers dont publish datasheets publicly.

I guarantee you that this chip won't have a data sheet.

We'll considering it was Scott Henson who did the interview on the ANA piece that's considered straight from the source and not an "HD-DVD/BR Insider" on a forum. He is currently the Director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft.

I've read the HD/BR piece and someone linked it again the other day. My thought is that scaling in the console for the purposes of HD-DVD might be handled in software or differently from the chip but really, the guy from MSFT comes, throws down a chip on the table and tells you it's a hardware scaler. Then he proceeds to throw it in Sony's face. The idea that no one on the opposing side would even bother to check it out or the rumor of a bold face lie on the basic design was not leaked is ridiculous.

He made a point blank statement and this isn't some outrageous claim as every single HD video device around has one (PS3 excluded) and the original Xbox had to deal with this exact issue when it was in the same boat with fair number of 720p games and only a handful of 1080i ones (no scaler at a time when 720p compatibility was far more rare - they just never really thought out HD back then I guess). MSFT caught all kinds of grief over that and did the obvious thing in remedying it this gen. Tons of threads on this in this very forum back from 2001-2005.

I don't see why this is so unbelievable just because Sony screwed this up (which to me is the unbelievable part since everyone knew about the original Xbox's incompatibility). Every HD device out there has it. This is not an expensive technology. It's stupid not to do it. This chip is exactly where a scaling chip would be in such a device and it's an easy lie to disprove. This isn't rumor, it's a Senior MSFT official going on record in an interview and bringing a sample of the chip so no one had to crack a box open but everyone could verify.

Now obviously I don't make the chip and I didn't solder it into each 360 out there but at this stage it would have been thrown right in MSFT's face.

EDIT - I'll also add that when the HDMI 360s were coming out ANA changed and became HANA. Maybe something to do with Analog vs. Digital or maybe they changed the way its handled but given the timing of the redesign of both chip and video output, one might conclude that it isn't a massive stretch of the imagination that MSFT may actually have put a scaling chip in this device like every other HD device out there and payed a tad extra not to impact performance in any way (which is exactly the result we see). I mean really, if every dogshit upconverting DVD player, cable box, and tuner out there since the late 1990s has a chip in it - it's entirely possible some genius at MSFT decided to not recreate the wheel and go the same route.

It was an insider on this forum.

Amir the Mighty to be exact

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...7#post10791437

I've talked to Amir before and like him and as I said, maybe he's right about HD-DVD or DVD scaling and referring to that but I find it really hard to credit that Henson goes on record, throws a chip down, makes a point blank claim as to its particular use and function and all the while it's a total ******** lie that no one has bothered to call him on.

We are talking a forum post against a senior guy who was sent out by MSFT specifically to have this discussion on this particular chip in relation to game scaling and trash Sony's hardware which no doubt Sony and many tech people are going to pay a whole lot of attention to. Not a crazy claim to have a chip for scaling here (they are cheap and everywhere) and why lie since he could have just said, "Our GPU was specifically designed and integrated to handle scaling without performance hit while the PS3's wasn't." It gains him nothing, involves substantial credibility risk to him and the company both internally and externally, would be easily tipped off by anyone working on the design team, and just doesn't make sense.

I suppose there are crazier things in this world but that would be pretty far out there. I like Amir but I'm more inclined to believe it was he who misunderstood something in relation to scaling in games or that others are misinterpreting his post. That makes a lot more sense.

Amir was very well connect at the time and had alot of contact with 360 team.

Go have a look on the Beyond3d forums where discussions by the "pixel counters" take place, they thing exactly the same thing, an can give you a far more technical and detailed explanation than I can(a matter fact so technical it goes over my head)

I've read the threads there. I'm not convinced. The overwhelming majority of the momentum behind the conjecture and all articles and quotes trace straight back to Amir here on this very site. This is essentially a single informal off the record source with people padding conjecture around how it could be right and can make sense. Now on the other side we have another single source although that one is speaking officially on record and distinctly about the specific chip in question. At this point we can't really say 100% except that I find it particularly hard to believe they'd go on record lying about a chip in this instance when telling the truth would serve the exact same purpose with zero liability. It doesn't really matter, obviously the 360 offers zero performance hit scaling to all resolutions (through some mechanism) whereas the PS3's design doesn't do that but at the end of the day it's only important to a rapidly decreasing number of us.

anyone know how good the scaling is for playing back H264, DIVX etc when non-native res ?

its a bit disappointingly soft in my eyes ? is it just a very simple upscale ? or pixel doubling?

I keep reverting when playing that media type to 576p, and let the TV do the rest. Anyone else find this ?

anyway they could implement it so that it would switch to the native res of the file ? CAn't be that difficult can it ? IE playback a 720P H264 file .. plays in 720P, playback a 576P file and it plays as 576P etc

Mark.

your quote is idiotic to say the least, and i would hope for the sake of your brain you are in fact joking.

You know what' even more idiotic? Commenting on a post that's over a year old and calling it "idiotic."

I don't think it scales media files. Thought it only scaled DVDs?

It's been a while and nothing new about 1080i support (at least on this thread).

[removed bit about SCC chip that has already been covered]

I've said it over and over. Our only hope, is that they add a true scaling chip to a future revision of the PS3. I'm guessing that if this ever happens, it will happen quietly with zero fan fare. It will be one of those things that somebody discovers, and then everybody with 1080i only HDTV's will end up hearing about it, and if they still own that 1080i only HDTV their best option would be to sell their current PS3, buy the one that can actually scale like a 360 (or virtually ever single HDTV device known to man), and suffer the loss of doing such a transaction, but finally being able to enjoy 720p only games on their 1080i only HDTV.

Seriously, this is our only hope.


I'm guessing by the time this finally happens, I will finally have upgraded my living room tv. (the only one in my house that is 480p/1080i only.)

I do not understand, why you blame Sony for the TV manufacturers fault creating such a useless piece of .&/%&%.

My assumption is:

Buy a new TV. The old one is ... lets face it .. to old. And even it was very expensive at the time you bought it, it cannot win against the new displays, neither in terms of price nor in quality.

Cheers
Protheus

This misses the point. Sony advertised that the PS3 would support all HD resolutions and after release many people noticed they weren't getting HD quality out of their 1080i TV's with the PS3. Support, of course, was rather loosely defined. Every other device out there that is designed to handle HD content (cable boxes, digital tuners, Xbox 360's) has no problems scaling content from one HD resolution to another. Every indication was present that the PS3 would as well. Sony wasn't even sure whether it could scale games and initially said a firmware update would be available.

For those early adopters who were mislead they have every right to be angry with Sony.

Curious about what Sony said exactly. Do you have a link?

My motorolla HD cable box doesn't scale to different resolutions, nor did my Xbox or PS2 when I had them. Granted I never had an issues with my xbox for 720p games as even when I bought my first HDTV a very long time ago I made sure to get one that could accept 720p.

It does, it's your TV that doesn't...

Skidooo!

My coworker and I both bought the PS3 at launch. He's got a mitsu 65" that he bought in the spring of 2001; no 720p. He's stuck. He doesn't want another TV(his TV is already setup, calibrated, all that), and his wife wouldn't let him even if he wanted to.

However, I have been following this issue closely since launch, and I never saw anything come from Sony that claimed to support it in a firmware update.

The funniest part of the whole thing, is that the TV in my living room that happens to be 1080i and 480p only, guess what name is on the front of it?


What you fail to realize, is that there are only two known HDTV devices that can't scale. The PS3 and the original Xbox. Although one must admit that the original Xbox wasn't a "true" HDTV device. It was close, but not a real deal HDTV device. So, if you throw out the original Xbox 1 system (which was released in 2001 by the way), then the only HDTV device known to man that can't scale is the PS3. There are $80 HDTV tuners that can scale, $80 upconverting DVD players that can scale. The cost of a real deal scaling chip, is less than $1 per unit, when you consider that they order them in the millions.

So enough with the "Buy a new TV" ********.

Why not, the Xbox has a select amount of HD games? Also like I said my Motorolla HDTV box doesn't scale either and it isn't nearly as old as the Xbox. Regardless they are what they are.

I don't agree with telling somebody to buy a new TV either. The reality is they have the choice to do what they want just as they did when buying the tv that doesn't support whatever resolution. In short live without that resolution or buy a display that supports it.

My friend has a 65" Mitsubishi HDTV that doesn't even have component. He can spend $150 on converters to get his 360 to work on it or play it at 480i.. His choice is to play at 480i. He doesn't blame MS for not having a BNC connection.

Actually, my TV does support 720p and 1080p - so I am not affected by this.

t-ray... Just go through the other two or three AVS threads on the subject. There is rather lengthy one where where darknight hinted this would be a problem. There were a couple others afterwards that discussed this issue. These should have the links you are looking for.

t-ray and brianmonkey: Here is an old engadget link. I think this is "good-enough-for-government-work", but I m sure there was more out there.

Initially all the prerelease coverage(e.g, IGN, Gamepro, EGM) discussed how the PS3 would support all HD resolutions (what exactly "support" there would be was ambiguous and and never specifically stated the word "scaler"). Then there was the post-release coverage which mentioned the failure to scale (IGN I believe). There were some comments by Sony saying they would address it in a firmware, then sony recanted and said they would look into it. This is when the whole "scaler/no scaler" debate occurred.

So you are right, they never "officially" said there would be a firmware update since it was originally mentioned and later recanted. But that does little for the people who purchased a PS3 thinking it would actually display games at HD resolutions.

I don't see any quotes with promises but I do see a link in it to:


Where is the quote when they initially mentioned it? Possibly blu-ray playback.. I'm pretty sure output updates have been made for that.

You are right, brianmonkey, about Blu-ray scaling being an issue, but comments were made about game scaling separately. This is the best I've been able to find with actual names attached to it. But here is another quote taken from Phil Harrison that is suggestive, but provides plenty of weaseling-out room. Here is another mention of it.

The issue you were referring to was that Blu-ray was initially being display at 480p on 720p televisions instead, whereas 1080i TV's could display them in HD. And you are correct, this has been corrected in a firmware update.

Which Motorola HDTV box do you have? Is it the 6400 series? If so those support both 720p and 1080i.

Personally, I am just disappointed that my 2003 HDTV and my 2006 PS3 don't talk to each other in 1080i. I don't blame either.

Based on what I knew back then when I purchased my HD Ready TV, it was common knowledge that all STB would support 720p and 1080i and would scale down/up to match your TV resolution whether it was 1080i or 720p. No 1080p back then. And all the HDTV STB for OTA, Cable and Satellite I tried did that. My LG3510 OTA tuner did it. My Dish Network HDDVR did it. And my Comcast (Motorola) HDDVR did it. It was until the PS3 when I first paired my HD ready TV with an HD source that did not scale.

If I knew all this in 2003 things would have been different and I could have enjoyed more PS3 games in HD.

The 2006 PS3 deserves the blame. Anybody trying to defend Sony is just being an ass.


Of all the possible companies that could claim ignorance on the lack of 1080i support, Sony isn't one of them. They have been making HDTV's since 1998, or even earlier. The Sony TV I have is a KP51HW40. It's 1080i and 480p only. It will take 720p and covert to 540p, but it looks absolutely god awful. About 8 or 9 months after I got my KP51HW40, Sony came out with a new model that did actually scale 720p to 1080i. So, they defintitely were aware of the shortcomings of the lack of being able to scale a 720p signal, cause if they weren't, they wouldn't have addressed that with a newer model 8 or 9 months later.

But the fact that they actually make a living off their TV division, they should have well known that they themselves had manufactured millions of 1080i/480p only HDTV's. And that's just them. Not to mention Mitsubishi and Toshiba and everybody else. How they could not have a $1 dedicated scaling chip in the PS3, is absolutely beyond comprehension. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when they first discovered that they forgot to put a true scaler in that box.

Sony didn't care, they were assuming the PS3 would be a runaway hit the way the PS2 was......and that it would spark people to dump their 1080i sets and move to some 720p or 1080p flatpanel, and then upgrade their receivers too for models with HDMI that could decode 7.1 TrueHD sounds.

So much for that idea