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The war of words continues

It's not uncommon for companies to downplay features that its products don't have in comparison to its competitors. Companies will usually talk about how customers won't likely use the feature or how it's not cost-effective to implement such features at a certain price point. Microsoft has been on the defensive with its XBOX 360 for quite some time. The company has defended its lack of a built-in next generation DVD drive, it has downplayed the importance of HDMI with next generation games and now it is saying that 1080p doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Andre Vrignaud, Microsoft's Director of Technical Strategy for XBOX Live says that 1080p is mostly hype with the PlayStation 3. He goes on to say that 99% of the PS3 games released will be rendered at 720p while the only ones with 1080x native support will be arcade ports or games that sacrifice in-game effects. Here's a snippet from Vrignaud's Ozymandias Blog:

The PS3 has roughly the same pixel-pushing capabilities as the Xbox 360. Don't need to take my word for it, it'll be obvious soon enough over the next year. Even if this wasn't the case, consider we now live in a multi-platform development world, and that the current sweet spot developers are targeting is 720p due to the extremely similar system specifications. Simply put, a developer who is planning to release their game for both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 will aim for a common attainable ground. In fact, I'll stick my neck out and predict that that you won't see any 1080"x" games for the PS3 this year.

Vrignaud goes on to cite Home Theater Magazine's Geoffrey Morrison as validation for his criticisms of 1080p on today's consoles. Since Vrgnaud notes that 99% of PS3 games will render at 720p, that leaves the argument for 1080p with movies. "In this case, the only difference between 1080i and 1080p is where the de-interlacing is done. If you send 1080i, the TV de-interlaces it to 1080p. If you send your TV the 1080p signal, the player is de-interlacing the signal. As long as your TV is de-interlacing the 1080i correctly, then there is no difference," said Morrison.

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De-interlacing
By ND40oz on 8/16/2006 10:53:48 AM , Rating: 2
While the de-interlacing comment is correct for upconverted video, there will be a difference between an actual full resolution 1080p feed and a de-interlaced 1080i feed. Just look at the apple hd trailers and you can tell the difference if you're on a monitor that supports it's resolution without scaling.




RE: De-interlacing
By DallasTexas on 8/16/06, Rating: 0
RE: De-interlacing
By s12033722 on 8/16/2006 11:37:18 AM , Rating: 3
If the source was recorded in 1080p, there is no upconversion. MS's statement is only true for 1080i recordings. 1080p has twice the actual content. That being said, I think they are likely correct about both consoles being better suited to targetting 720p. I will probably not buy either, but rather get a wii, and I do have a 1080p television. I just like the idea of new and interesting gameplay more than the same stuff over with better graphics. If I want 1080p game graphics, I just hook my PC up to the tv.


RE: De-interlacing
By Trisped on 8/16/2006 11:58:20 AM , Rating: 2
PC monitors don't do up conversion, but the computers do. Just take a small movie file and open it in Windows Media Player and set it to scale with the size of the window, then adjust the window so it is really small and really big. You will see an amount of distortion, but not squares that are now made up of 4-16 pixels.

The problem with up converting is that the video processor must guess what the missing pixels are supposed to be. If you read some of the Anand Tech reviews of video cards they talk about it, and the older review have comparisons that clearly show the differences.

So what does this all mean for PS3? If movies are recorded in 1080p, then PS3 will have a better picture. It may not be a huge improvement over an unconverted 1080i, but it will be clearer and cleaner. But, with the HD movies compressed so much already, and designed to output 720p and 1080p it is possible that some corners were cut, so a 1080p signal may not be a true 1080p recorded signal. In this case it would probably fall somewhere between a true 1080p picture and an up scaled 1080i image quality.

What does this mean? If you have a display device capable of receiving and displaying a 1080p signal, and you are buying movies formatted in 1080p, then you will receive a benefit. If you are missing any of those, the you will find no advantage.


RE: De-interlacing
By DallasTexas on 8/16/06, Rating: -1
RE: De-interlacing
By masher2 (blog) on 8/16/2006 12:37:35 PM , Rating: 3
> "The problem with up converting is that the video processor must guess...if movies are recorded in 1080p, then PS3 will have a better picture. It may not be a huge improvement over an unconverted 1080i"

You're confusing upconversion with deinterlacing. A signal digitized properly can be deinterlaced with zero loss of image quality. Upconversion is a different matter entirely, and involves interpolation of missing pixels.

You can run into cases where a video stream has been improperly encoded (particularly when performing 3-2 pulldown to an NTSC signal) that will cause the video processor to improperly deinterlace and cause some loss of image quality, but this isn't an issue in the general case.




RE: De-interlacing
By glennpratt on 8/16/2006 12:47:45 PM , Rating: 2
Deinterlacing is never perfect as far as I know. Matching odd and even fields from adjacent frames is extremely likely to produce artifacts, even if it is just ocasionally or not noticeable.


RE: De-interlacing
By masher2 (blog) on 8/16/2006 1:21:52 PM , Rating: 3
Deinterlacing is perfect when you're reinterweaving material interlaced through 3-2 pulldown. You're just reversing the process, so you wind up with data identical to the original.

When you're dealing with material interlaced for broadcast via NTSC or otherwise (or material improperly marked as such) its a whole different ballgame. In that case, you're going to get interlaced artifacts galore, as the video processor has to guess which fields go with which frames.


RE: De-interlacing
By leonowski on 8/16/2006 1:53:27 PM , Rating: 2
One thing to keep in mind about the 1080p NTSC standards:

Unlike 720p, 1080p does not have a 60 FPS mode. 1080p runs in 24 and 30. After de-interlacing, a 1080i signal should equal a 1080p signal. You shouldn't see any difference.

While I am all for improvements in technology (as we all are), I don't think Sony has anything better to offer than Microsofts HDTV support. The buzzword "1080p" is used way too often by people who haven't seen all the formats.


RE: De-interlacing
By Trisped on 8/17/2006 2:54:14 PM , Rating: 2
A deinterlaced 1080i video is not the same as a native 1080p video. When the video is interlaced half the data is thrown out. It is gone, never to be found there again. Yes, you could go back to the original, but that is not what you have now. For example. Consider a video where half the scan lines are blue and the other half are yellow and where the color alternates each frame (so first frame will be green, yellow, green, yellow and the second frame is yellow, green, yellow, green and the third is the same as the first). An interlaced video will only pull one of the colors. As a result the deinterlacer will examine the picture, see that everything is the same color, and guess that that is what the picture is suppose to be. Then your flashy green screen turns into a yellow or blue one. While this is an extreme example, it does happen to a lesser extent with normal TV images.

Oh, and we are not talking about the over air transmission of HDTV, we are talking about HD movie play back, so the 1080p30 format does not apply. Also, NTSC does not have a 1080 format. That is ASCL or something like that. Same people, different name.


RE: De-interlacing
By FITCamaro on 8/16/2006 2:20:47 PM , Rating: 3
If I put two halves of a circle together, is there a difference between that circle and a full circle that wasn't split?

As long as the deinterlacing is done correctly, the picture is the same.


RE: De-interlacing
By fidodido on 8/17/2006 4:56:07 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
If I put two halves of a circle together, is there a difference between that circle and a full circle that wasn't split?

As long as the deinterlacing is done correctly, the picture is the same.


This is true...if your circle is motionless. If, however, your circle is moving at speed of say...300 pixels every second. Then with a 1080p30 freeze frame halfway through the movement, what you will see is a circle that's shifted 150 pixels. But with a de-interlaced 1080i freeze frame, what you see is a "capsule" shape which is your circle elongated by 10 pixels in the middle and a bit faded on each end. Of course, the method of de-interlacing will affect the quality of that "distortion", but no matter what, you will NEVER achieve that circle from the 1080i signal.

Not the same picture by any definition.



Reality
By OrSin on 8/16/2006 2:38:28 PM , Rating: 2
1080P is almost worthless. This is why.
90% of all TV sets are not even HD.
So at this piont you might as well get a Wii. Moving on to the HD sets.

So the 10 % that are HD less then 15% can do 1080P.
So even if you HD most likely you can do 1080P most do 720p or 1080i. So we are down 1.5% of then population already.

Now of those that can do 1080p 75% are 37' or less.
From 10ft viewing distance you can tell the diffence in 720p or 1080p from a set under 50'. So now we are down to
.3% of the population at most.

I have 3 HD sets and none can do 1080p. In fact if you go 12 months back very few sets even could even do 1080P at all. Thier is no HD braoscast at 1080p. 1080P is new standard and orginal HD specs didn't even call for it. TV are made to watch show so unless you just got a HD-dvd player in the last few months or you are talented eonught to setup you computer to work on your tv, you have not ever seen a 1080p signal.





RE: Reality
By OrSin on 8/16/2006 2:40:21 PM , Rating: 2
sorry no edit buttom some of my can's should be can't :)


RE: Reality
By therealnickdanger on 8/16/2006 2:58:00 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Thier is no HD braoscast at 1080p. 1080P is new standard and orginal HD specs didn't even call for it.

I don't know why people are saying this. 1080p is not new, 1080p24, 1080p25, and 1080p30 have been part of the ATSC spec from the get-go. We'll see the 1080p standards broadcast once the shift to MPEG4 from MPEG2 is made and once there is a high enough concentration of 1080p sets on the market. 1080p50 and 1080p60 are the only two that are NOT part of the ATSC spec.


RE: Reality
By masher2 (blog) on 8/16/2006 3:33:15 PM , Rating: 2
> "1080p24, 1080p25, and 1080p30 have been part of the ATSC spec from the get-go"

ATSC adopted the 3 1080p formats fairly recently. I don't recall the exact date, but it was well after 720p and 1080i was added.


RE: Reality
By Xavian on 8/16/2006 5:11:41 PM , Rating: 2
MPEG4 will not make 1080p magically viable for broadcasting. Since even in MPEG4 1080p consumes a massive amount of bandwidth and TBH if i had a choice of 100 720p channels or 10 1080p channels, i'd take the 100 720p channels thanks.

You also have to remember that the amount of channels you can shove down any wire/signal (for digital satellite) is finite and providing 1080p would cut the amount of channels that could be transmitted drastically.


RE: Reality
By Trisped on 8/17/2006 3:17:36 PM , Rating: 2
It is twice as much data means 1/2 the number of channels, not 1/10. So your choice is between 30 720p/1080i channels (of which you might want to watch 0-8) and 15 1080p channels. Of course even that isn't acurate, as many will upgrade to 720p/1080i and not worry about that last step to 1080p.


RE: Reality
By snooze2 on 8/21/2006 11:13:38 AM , Rating: 2
right now there is very few 1080p sets out there but think about it in a couple of years more and more people will get them. PS3 is supposed to last awhile.


Maybe 1080p is not just for games
By hstewarth on 8/16/2006 11:37:10 AM , Rating: 3
Maybe PS3 is not just for games but instead Blu-Ray movies..

I personally have a 360, one thing that is a major problem is the external power supply - now if we also have external HD DVD, than means yet another device to lug arro