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Black borders around PS2 games. Can you get rid of them?

post #1 of 18
3/28/07 at 10:17pm
Thread Starter 
Could someone please explain why PS2 games (played on the PS2 or on the PS3) have that black border around them? I'm really worried about it causing burn-in on my 42" Panasonic plasma HDTV. I've tried everything and nothing gets rid of them. They're there in widescreen mode, 4:3 mode, no matter what they're there. Any way to get rid of them?

If you can't get rid of it is there a way to decrease the chances of it wrecking the image on the TV over time? I'm guessing they're there due to overscan on many SDTV's, but this is WAY overcompensating. On the sides of the screen I get about an inch black border, on the top and bottom about a quarter of an inch. Every. Single. Game.

I've tried changing the aspect ratio on my Panny, but it doesn't help. Even Zoom doesn't get rid of the black borders on the side. And you can only use H-Fill on the antenna setting for some reason. Could this lead to a burn-in effect where the screen is duller within those borders than outside those borders when not playing the PS2? Has anyone else found a solution to this?
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post #2 of 18
3/29/07 at 2:56am
Uncheck all HD modes in the PS3, and only run PS2 games using basic standard resolution. That worked for me. Even with horrible overscan, my HD modes on the tv gave black borders.
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post #3 of 18
3/29/07 at 4:04am
unfortunately, you can't get rid of them. doing the above does nothing really. all ps2 games are either 480i or 480p, so they will run in those resolutions regardless if you uncheck the HD resolutions in the settings. in other words, it makes no difference if you uncheck the HD resolutions for PS2 games, but it will affect HD content obviously.
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post #4 of 18
3/29/07 at 6:26am
What you're referring to is underscan. I answered your question in more detail in the GoWII thread.
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post #5 of 18
3/29/07 at 6:50am
As others have said, this happens with all PS2 games. It's a bummer and a shocker when I first got my TV thinking PS2 games would fill the entire screen!

It's possible that when the PS3 gets the "up-resing" capability for PS2 games, it might get rid of the black borders.
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post #6 of 18
3/29/07 at 7:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Union0015 View Post

As others have said, this happens with all PS2 games. It's a bummer and a shocker when I first got my TV thinking PS2 games would fill the entire screen!

It's possible that when the PS3 gets the "up-resing" capability for PS2 games, it might get rid of the black borders.

Hopefully it will get rid of them because its annoying as heck on my PS2 and I'm looking into getting a PS3 if I can find it cheap enough.
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post #7 of 18
3/29/07 at 10:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Union0015 View Post

It's possible that when the PS3 gets the "up-resing" capability for PS2 games, it might get rid of the black borders.

It more than likely won't since the game itself was coded in that aspect ratio.
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post #8 of 18
3/29/07 at 10:14am
Your tv will be fine.
Plasma has come a long way. ;-)
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post #9 of 18
3/29/07 at 8:38pm
My television has a very good picture on normal standard definition modes. The 480p and 1080i display modes suffer from sever overscan. Now, when I play PS2 games through component using standard definition, I have no problem. Except for a few games that have a slight black border on the left side, they are fine. I think Okami has a black border on the bottom, as well. Logically, then, when I set my PS3 to HD modes and it displays the PS2 games that way , since my HD modes have severe overscan (and I mean severe), then I should see a bigger image, right? But I don't. On standard def settings, I have a slight bar (not even a quarter of an inch) on the left side. On High def settings, i have a inch bar on the bottom and none on the left. Does anyone see my problem? If my tv has overscan in high def mode, and It gives me a black border on the bottom, then in standard def mode I should have an even bigger bar on the bottom. Eh?
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post #10 of 18
3/29/07 at 8:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Union0015 View Post

As others have said, this happens with all PS2 games. It's a bummer and a shocker when I first got my TV thinking PS2 games would fill the entire screen!

It's possible that when the PS3 gets the "up-resing" capability for PS2 games, it might get rid of the black borders.

i wouldn't exactly say they're worry free, but they have improved from older models. you still can't abuse your set with 4:3 viewing/static images/2.35:1+ movies, and your contrast should be set below 50%.
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post #11 of 18
3/29/07 at 8:49pm
I have a 42inch panny as well and yes its very annoying but I haven't had any burn in problems. After I'm done playing PS2 games I usually leave the TV playing Discovery HD channel while I'm doing other stuff to prevent uneven aging of the screen.
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post #12 of 18
3/30/07 at 7:27am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by alex2792 View Post

I have a 42inch panny as well and yes its very annoying but I haven't had any burn in problems. After I'm done playing PS2 games I usually leave the TV playing Discovery HD channel while I'm doing other stuff to prevent uneven aging of the screen.


How long have you been playing the PS2 on your Panny? My boyfriend will kill me if I wreck his TV with this PS2 and he's been hounding me about it since I moved the PS2 over to his HD (technically our HD, since I paid half). He's convinced it will cause uneven aging. Right now the only console I like is the PS2. I play my bf's 360 every so often but nothing really appeals to me on that console yet. I like the PS2 games with all the puzzles rather than "kill, kill, kill!" Even God of War II has a plethora of puzzles that it mixes up with the graphic violence.

How long of gaming sessions do you have? I started playing Shadow of the Colossus and it's taking me about 2 hours to find a colossus and destroy him. So I'm giving it a good 2 hours of gaming.

Thanks for all your help! I hope you (or anyone) can answer the rest of these questions. This has me stressed out and that's something gaming should never do. Gaming should be all about having fun.

I wonder if there's a booster type thing you could buy to stretch the image? Has anyone heard of anything like that?
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post #13 of 18
3/30/07 at 6:20pm
WEll, sorta. I know some vga adaptors work with screen size-adjustment. Of course, you'd have to convert the PS2's image to vga, just to unconvert it back to component, lol. A good video scaler might be an option as well. Not sure if they offer size-adjustment. Some person in the video scaler department might know that.
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post #14 of 18
10/11/08 at 11:50pm
Is there any update on this? I just hooked up my PS2 to my plasma (LG 42pg20) tv, and I too was surprised to see the black border. I switch between 4:3 and 16:9 modes regularly so that the same area isn't always having the black border, but it's still kind of annoying.
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post #15 of 18
10/12/08 at 1:56pm
I turned off the PS2 upscaling all together.

All the PS2 games I have work fine. I have to use the wide mode "full" after I set the game to be widescreen, though, but the geometry is right.
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post #16 of 18
10/16/08 at 9:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by steven975 View Post

I turned off the PS2 upscaling all together.

All the PS2 games I have work fine. I have to use the wide mode "full" after I set the game to be widescreen, though, but the geometry is right.

Are you using a PS3 to play your PS2 games, or is this something that I can do on my PS2?

I don't have a PS3 yet, and all of the new PS3s aren't backwards compatible.
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post #17 of 18
12/21/12 at 7:02pm
Ugh. PS2 classic Bully has these borders and I can't get rid of them. So annoying! I would have thought they'd do something about them when converting them to PS2 classics. Surely there's a workaround for this. But I can't think of what it could be. I tried switching to zoom or cinema on my tv, but it won't let me for some reason.
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post #18 of 18
12/21/12 at 7:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by rahzel View Post

all ps2 games are either 480i or 480p

There are PS2 games in different resolutions. Ico for instance runs at 240p. That's why some people had difficulty getting a picture to display on their television when hooked up via component cables.
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