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[mrklaw]

Just thought about this last night. In the US, Broadcast HD is split between 1080i and 720p. In Europe they are recommending 720p but also supporting 1080i.

In Japan, isn't everything 1080i (well, 1125i)? Because its all BS HiVision?

In that case, isn't it likely that Japanese developers will aim for 1080i output for next gen games, and possibly a reason that Sony are pushing 1080p not 720p? (1080p being the full frame size needed for a 1080i output)

Do you think western devs will have to code for 1080 because of this, or will they rely on the consoles necessary scalers to deliver - especially considering the proportionately lower sales of western software in Japan.

 

[Hurricane_Chris]

Just thought about this last night. In the US, Broadcast HD is split between 1080i and 720p. In Europe they are recommending 720p but also supporting 1080i.

In Japan, isn't everything 1080i (well, 1125i)? Because its all BS HiVision?

In that case, isn't it likely that Japanese developers will aim for 1080i output for next gen games, and possibly a reason that Sony are pushing 1080p not 720p? (1080p being the full frame size needed for a 1080i output)

Do you think western devs will have to code for 1080 because of this, or will they rely on the consoles necessary scalers to deliver - especially considering the proportionately lower sales of western software in Japan.

What exactly is your question about? Coding to support higher resolutions is trivial. What it comes down to is how much power the platform you are coding for has to support those higher resolutions and what devisions you make on the art asset creation side to support said high resolutions.

 

[mrklaw]

I find 1080p overkill when most people have SD sets, and those with HD probably only support 720p or 1080i.

But if Japan is a 1080i HD country, with progressive flat panels they will be moving to a 1080p country more quickly than the rest of the world. Therefore Sony and other Japanese developers may see the need to support 1080p when 95% of the world will never use it.

To me thats a waste of power and resource. But I was just commenting on whether this regional difference is why the choices have been made. More of an observation than a question, really.

 

[duckroll]

That's like saying it's a waste of resources to make good games in the first place since most people can't tell the fucking difference! :lol

 

[mrklaw]

no. I just don't want the power of the consoles stretched simply for huge resolutions that noone will use. I don't want lower framerates, less polys, poorer textures.

If they can handle it without breaking into a sweat, then great. But 1920x1080 2x more pixels than 1280x720.

 

[ChrisReid]

That's like saying it's a waste of resources to make good games in the first place since most people can't tell the fucking difference! :lol

Larry doesn't like you giving away secrets.

 

[Rhindle]

If they can handle it without breaking into a sweat, then great. But 1920x1080 2x more pixels than 1280x720.

That would be 1080p, which I don't expect will be widely supported at all.

 

[mrklaw]

That would be 1080p, which I don't expect will be widely supported at all.

But you'll need to use a 1920x1080 full field buffer to output 1080i cleanly. Even if you are outputting i, you'll still need to render p.

 

[Spider_Jerusalem]

I don't think there'll be many developers that will develop at resolutions higher than 720p. This beacuse it would be much more demandig for the console, and probably the games would end up on being less detailed and polygons-rich, even if with an higher resolution.

It's like on PC today: using the same hardware, do you prefer playing a game on lower resolution but everything turned on, or at higher res but with many graphical features disabled? I prefer the first.

 

[RuGalz]

When Sony shoot for 1080p in hardware, it only means that they want hardware to be powerful enough to support that, which means the hardware they end up is most likely better/faster than if they shoot for 720p right from the beginning. They didn't say anything about games have to be mandatory 1080p - it's just like they didn't tell developers that your game has to run at 60fps or they won't release it on the ps2. Resolution support is still in the hands of developers and most likely 720p will be the common denomiter. I really don't see why this topic keeps coming up as something worth arguing over that whether they should or should not support 1080p - of course, by all means, go for it if you can do it effectively at manageable cost.

 

[akascream]

I can't believe there is even a standard for interlaced images at higher resolutions. Fucking morons, we're trying to escape bullshit like that.

 

[RuGalz]

I can't believe there is even a standard for interlaced images at higher resolutions. Fucking morons, we're trying to escape bullshit like that.

Ya no shit. But then again, best technology isn't always the most popular thing.

 

[borghe]

no. I just don't want the power of the consoles stretched simply for huge resolutions that noone will use.

I didn't realize I or anyone else on here with an HDTV was no one. :\

plenty of us have HDTVs. stop acting like everything should be developed directly for those who haven't upgraded yet, especially when sets will likely run as low as $400 by the time these systems actually come out in mass quantites (next year).

I can't believe there is even a standard for interlaced images at higher resolutions. Fucking morons, we're trying to escape bullshit like that.

technically there is nothing wrong with interlaced images. virtually no one can point out interlaceing artifacts on a 1080i picture in most cases. the interlacing becomes a problem strictly at lower resolutions where there is lewss detail and the artifacts are more apparent.

1080i is gorgeous. anyone who complains about it being interlaced doesn't understand the real problem with interlacing or why for the most part it goes away at higher resolutions.

 

[RuGalz]

1080i is gorgeous. anyone who complains about it being interlaced doesn't understand the real problem with interlacing or why for the most part it goes away at higher resolutions.

1080i at film frame rate isn't the same as 1080i at 60fps. You'd still have image shearing artifacts fairly noticeable on the screen. It's probably reduced on HDTV set due to filtering but I certainly would take progressive over it any day.

 

[Danj]

I didn't realize I or anyone else on here with an HDTV was no one. :\

plenty of us have HDTVs. stop acting like everything should be developed directly for those who haven't upgraded yet, especially when sets will likely run as low as $400 by the time these systems actually come out in mass quantites (next year).

Hey, some of us live in countries where HDTV hasn't even been launched properly yet, and the only HD ready sets are 37" LCD units costing upwards of £2000 (=$3600). So don't tell ME I can get a $400 HDTV next year, it's not gonna happen.

 

[dark10x]

no. I just don't want the power of the consoles stretched simply for huge resolutions that noone will use. I don't want lower framerates, less polys, poorer textures.

If they can handle it without breaking into a sweat, then great. But 1920x1080 2x more pixels than 1280x720.

Perhaps Sony has learned a lesson? When the PS2 was being designed, they did not look towards the future in regards to video output and the end result was "teh jaggies".

Hey, some of us live in countries where HDTV hasn't even been launched properly yet, and the only HD ready sets are 37" LCD units costing upwards of £2000 (=$3600). So don't tell ME I can get a $400 HDTV next year, it's not gonna happen.

Some people will be able to make the jump quite easily...others will not and many already have. Why should they only cater to the low-end users and aim towards the past?

 

[borghe]

1080i at film frame rate isn't the same as 1080i at 60fps. You'd still have image shearing artifacts fairly noticeable on the screen. It's probably reduced on HDTV set due to filtering but I certainly would take progressive over it any day.

there is no "you'd still have" about it. I've been watching 60Hz 1080i for over 3 years now. Whether it is 24fps 2:3 telecined to 29.97fps, or full out 29.97fps produced HD video. except for VERY rare circumstances, there are no noticeable interlacing artifacts. the extra resolution makes anamolies like moire patterns and stair stepping very difficult to occur, and things like color artifacting are literally impossible.

before you talk about something, it helps to actually have a lot of experience with it. Almost every single piece of network television I've watched in the past 3 years, pretty much damn near everything on HBO, not to mention half a dozen other channels...

would I take progressive over interlace? depends. 1080i is still effectively a better resolution than 720p. There are still more pixels and more density per refresh than 720p, and the effective resolution (1920x1080 which is visible as the entire resolution to the human eye) is over twice the detail of 720p. That being said, obviously I would still take 1080p over 1080i in most cases. It will still give you more density and more detail per refresh. the only situation where I might still take 1080i is where you are starved for bandwidth (ATSC television) and the double the pixels per refresh essentially means half the bits per pixel when encoding.. then it would depend on whether the encoder could still deliver a great picture at the same bitrate.

 

[dark10x]

Outputting a PC game that is able to run at 60 fps to a TV in 1080i produces very smooth results with virtually no artifacting of any sort.

 

[Nerevar]

Outputting a PC game that is able to run at 60 fps to a TV in 1080i produces very smooth results with virtually no artifacting of any sort.

Are you saying if the game is being run at 1920x1080 natively, or if it's being upscaled? Because if you're talking about upscaling that really depends on the graphics card or the internal scaler chip doing the scaling.

 

[Danj]

Some people will be able to make the jump quite easily...others will not and many already have. Why should they only cater to the low-end users and aim towards the past?

They shouldn't, but they shouldn't make HDTV either the main focus or a requirement for games on the console. If that happens, I predict that Europe will become an "SDTV ghetto" for gaming, simply because we're behind on the TV technology.