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Sony working to resolve upscaler issue with older HDTVs

DailyTech reported last week that Sony's PlayStation 3 has issues with upscaling to 1080i resolution. The problem stems from the fact that some older HDTV's can only display in high definition resolutions of 480p or 1080i -- 720p is not an option for these TVs. For a PS3 title running in native 720p resolution, a PS3 will not upscale to 1080i, but will instead downgrade to 480p.

According to GameDaily BIZ, Sony has acknowledged that this is a problem for the PS3. The following statement was provided by Sony Computer Entertainment America:

A small number of older High Definition television sets found in the United States only have 1080i inputs for HD signals. Those televisions will currently only play some PS3 titles at 480p resolution. PS3 games render images at either 720p or 1080p for High Definition and you need 720p input on the TV to play select games that do not support 1080p. This is an issue on the side of the individual television sets, which do not accept 720p input, so when a game outputs an HD signal only at 720p, these select TVs have to display the game at 480p instead.

A fix is in the works, but there was no timetable given on availability.

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Hmm...
By encryptkeeper on 11/21/2006 4:39:57 PM , Rating: 3
So they blame the TV instead of the software or PS3? I don't buy that. Try again Sony, you're going after the crowd of people with 1080p televisions and didn't test what would happen if a person has 1080i on their set.




RE: Hmm...
By HomeChicken on 11/21/2006 4:47:33 PM , Rating: 5
The ironic thing is that almost all Sony CRT HDTV's fall into this 1080i/480p/480i only category. I would think they would support their own products.


RE: Hmm...
By walk2k on 11/21/2006 5:56:24 PM , Rating: 2
I'm sure there's some really old sets there, but I have a Sony CRT and it handles 720p just fine. It doesn't look near as good as 1080i but it's never going to.


RE: Hmm...
By Lakku on 11/21/2006 7:23:08 PM , Rating: 3
Not that this is on topic, but I think I have heard you or someone else talk about 720p never looking as good as 1080i. While this may be true on paper or in theory, it's not true, in my experience, in practice. I have yet to compare an uncompressed signal, in which case 1080i would probably be better (say from an HD-DVD or BluRay which is less compressed then a broadcast signal), but broadcast HDTV is HEAVILY compressed, at least with companies like Time Warner and Cox. This means they both don't look as good as they should, and when you get down to it, any kind of moving image, say hockey or soccer (sports in general), looks better/is smoother on a 720p image. Hence the reason ESPN and some others broadcast a native 720p signal. Maybe Sunrise Earth on Discovery HD would look a lot better, but in reality, with broadcast HD, 720p is as good or better in most situations. With all that said, and someone can correct me if wrong, as I understand it, 1080i is achieved by interlacing two 540 line fields (meaning the parts of 1080 are less resolution then the whole of a 720p image) to get 1080. This is fine on a still image, but not so great on moving images.


RE: Hmm...
By Snoop on 11/21/2006 7:44:54 PM , Rating: 3
Fox and ESPN broadcast their HD football in 720p it looks decent. CBS uses 1080i and it is clearly better and does not pixelate to a noticable degree. INHD uses 1080i and the pq on that channel is second to none. Most shows on HDNET are 1080i and like INHD it has superb quality.

1080i > 720p


RE: Hmm...
By MrSmurf on 11/22/2006 12:22:22 PM , Rating: 1
It's not really a fair comparison to use cable/sat. channels as they are compressed by your provider -- some moreso than others. Some 1080i channels could look worse than 720p channels and vice versa.

If you compare HD-DVD/Blu-Ray to your HD stations through your cable box, the HD stations will never look the same.


RE: Hmm...
By Shadowself on 11/21/2006 7:49:16 PM , Rating: 2
If you are looking at something other than the very highly compressed HD signals you get from cable or satellite, e.g., from either a game designed to do 1080 or HD DVD or Blu-ray you will definitely notice that the imagery is better for 1080 than for 720. The current debate is whether 1080i is noticeably worse than 1080p. Many claim that high motion, high contrast, high color imagery is distinctly better at 1080p than 1080i.

It is NOT true that 1080i is based upon 540 imagery. The 1080i is based upon images that are 1080 high, but it is broken into to fields to make up the full frame. The fields are transmitted at twice the frame rate. Thus you get lines 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. up through 1079 in frame one and then one half the frame time later you get lines 2,4,6,8 etc. up through 1080 in frame two. Thus 1080i gives you much better spatial resolution than 720p.


RE: Hmm...
By rtrski on 11/22/2006 8:51:59 AM , Rating: 3
I love hair-splitting like this.

Each frame has only 540 lines of 'data'. With gaps for the other 540 lines. Since each frameset only updates 30 times vs 60 times a second you lose some motion capture resolution.

Sure, the *spatial* resolution is higher with 1080i than 720p, but the total data flow in pixels per second is about the same. What matters isn't really the absolute number of pixels on a given 'screen' so much as the perceived image to the human eyes. Given persistence of vision, interlacing need not be a problem...but it depends on your particular wetware processor. Most people actually do perceive the interlacing as a slight blur effect that counteracts the higher absolute pixel count. Don't believe me? Compare a 480i to a 480p picture and tell me which looks visually "crisper". Compare both static and moving images (sports, action scenes, etc.)

Most Home Theater PC users prefer 720p because text remains much clearer, especially when scrolling, than on 1080i.

Bottom line, neither one is really 'superior' - they're just different ways of using about the same pixel over time datarate to fill the broadcast channel. 1080p is definitely superior to both...but I agree with you, whether the human eye can really pick up that improvement in all cases is probably debatable.


RE: Hmm...
By walk2k on 11/21/2006 9:19:10 PM , Rating: 2
It depends on the screen's size.

Once you get to 45" or larger, (at optimal viewing range, which is 6-8 feet) you can start to see a difference between 720p and 1080i, assuming you have well-produced content (clearly not all HD is well-produced, and some like on satellite, is badly compressed...).

When you are talking 60" or larger, you will definitely see a difference.


RE: Hmm...
By Souka on 11/21/06, Rating: 0
RE: Hmm...
By Spivonious on 11/22/2006 10:09:02 AM , Rating: 1
Correct me if I'm wrong, but....

1080i = 1080 interlaced

720p = 720 progressive

so isn't 1080i = 540p? Therefore making 720p higher quality?


RE: Hmm...
By rcc on 11/22/2006 12:44:26 PM , Rating: 2
I don't believe so. Because the 1080i has twice as much vertical resolution, but it's updated half as often. It really depends on what you are looking at.


RE: Hmm...
By Hawkido on 11/27/2006 3:30:59 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
so isn't 1080i = 540p? Therefore making 720p higher quality?


The answer is no, and more so no.
I'll do my best to explain, because I am no expert, and other can correct me if I am wrong, please.

1080i > 540p because the interlacing allows your mind to interpolate the differences between the frames, and also allows the increased frame rate from 30 frames a second, to 60 frames a second over the same bandwidth as 1080p at 30 fps. Example: Would you consider 240p to be a superior picture to 480i? While it might be just as much information, the interpolation that your mind does allows you to synthesize the difference between the two frames. Also some of the higher end HD sets will run a 1080i frame as a 1080p frame and interpolate the interleaving into a solid frame. The IQ will not be as good as a 1080p frame. But it will be far superior to 720p. The progressive scan results in a far more solid looking picture, while the interleaving can give a somewhat watery image, but the fact is there is still more image data in the horizontal line on 1080i than there is on 720p.
1080i 1920 horizontal pixels & 540 vertical pixels = 1,036,800 pixels
720p 1280 horizontal pixels & 720 vertical pixels = 921,600 pixels
Plus the interpolation adds the illusion of more image to be seen.


RE: Hmm...
By abhaxus on 11/23/2006 12:36:32 AM , Rating: 2
On another thread someone posted that sony CRTs downgrade a 720p signal to 480/540p. Having seen 720p on a sony CRT (KD34XBR970) I can attest to 720p looking very bad in comparison to 1080i.

I still don't understand how Sony could drop the ball on this one. This is a fumble on the 2 yard line of the super bowl.


RE: Hmm...
By acrophile on 11/21/2006 9:04:58 PM , Rating: 2
I have a 36" sony hd crt... it supports 720p and at least on my xbox 360, it looks much better than 1080i... the picture just appears more solid, if that makes any sense, and it creates a more "pleasing" picture than 1080i does, regardless of any resolution advantages.

Also, from what I've experienced with various HDTV's, older Mitsubishi HD sets were notorious for not supporting 720p... I learned this the hard way when I first hooked up my xbox1 to such a set.

As a side note, my 36" HD CRT has much better actual picture quality than any other technology I've seen. Sure it has whacky geometry but you never notice it unless you're looking for it... then of course it's got short-man syndrome being only 36" (4:3 to boot, so more like 34" in wide screen) and games in HD can be hard to read any subtitles or text on the screen so I'm definitely going to buy a larger set soon... too bad a 70" crt would weigh almost a ton and be 20 feet deep. :D


RE: Hmm...
By MooseMuffin on 11/21/2006 4:48:10 PM , Rating: 2
Its funny because I'm sure Sony made some HDTVs that only support 1080i.


RE: Hmm...
By underline21 on 11/22/2006 5:47:09 AM , Rating: 4
The problem isnt TV's that only support 1080i, Its the 1080i TV's that dont scale 720p to 1080i which every HDTV made in the last year does.

IMO its a huge oversight but it is not critical by any means...


RE: Hmm...
By johnsonx on 11/21/2006 7:03:19 PM , Rating: 3
I think what Sony is saying is that *most* 1080i TV's will accept a 720p signal and upscale/interlace it. I'm reasonably sure the Toshiba 26" HDTV I have in the bedroom will do this. But apparently there are some older HDTV's that don't handle a 720P signal at all. I'm not saying this is not a problem, simply that Sony under-estimated the scope of the problem. They probably can fix it in software.


RE: Hmm...
By Wolfpup on 11/21/06, Rating: -1
RE: Hmm...
By OrSin on 11/22/2006 9:31:16 AM , Rating: 2
One again you have have no clue. Most HDTV older then 5 years old only supported 720p or 1080i. It was way to exspensive to do both. And at that time 1080i was much cheaper to implement and actually had a better picture then 720p TV. SO most was 1080i only. Back then my 65 TV cost $3500 and it was one of the best on the market. I now have a 61 DLP and only paid $2500 for it and it does 1080i and 720p. 720p images are better on this set.

For the record 720P images downscaled to 480 look like crap.



RE: Hmm...
By Le Québécois on 11/21/2006 8:11:09 PM