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[jimbo]

If I get a plasma TV that's 1080p in order to get the most out of the PS3, will all other 720p games look stretched and crappy? I want a TV that will work best with PS3 and Xbox 360 and won't have to do any comprimising. Any ideas?

 

[tetsuoxb]

I asked that same question at work today.

No one had a straight answer.... I think I am one of the few people in the office with a 1080p tv.

 

[mrklaw]

It'll look fine. Its basically a 1.5x upscale in both directions, so relatively nice and neat

 

[Gandara]

Mind you that I this is what I guess from reading a lot of post on the AVS forums, but the plasmas have a scalar that fits it to it's native resolution. As long as they can except the 720p signal, it will scale the input to the plasmas native resolution.

 

[svenuce]

As people mentioned, scaling hardware takes care of it.

But either way, if you're thinking that every game will support 1080p on PS3, you're in for a surprise. Most devs will wind up in the 720p arena anyway.

 

[chinch]

:lol :lol :lol :lol "stretched and crappy". :lol :lol :lol :lol

i'd be more worried about the actual plasma set & it's relative performance for the $$ than the 720p source (which will look awesome btw).

 

[Raistlin]

As long as the scalar in your sets are decent, it should look fine. 720p looks great on 1080i CRT's, so it'll look great on a 1080p as well.

BTW - what TV's do you have ... have you confirmed they accept 1080p?

 

[tetsuoxb]

As long as the scalar in your sets are decent, it should look fine. 720p looks great on 1080i CRT's, so it'll look great on a 1080p as well.

BTW - what TV's do you have ... have you confirmed they accept 1080p?

Sharp LC-45GD1 45" LCD. Confirmed support for 1080p if you bypass the scaler with a 3rd party model or a HDMI to DVI compliant cable. The scaler is a breakout box connected to the TV via DVI and not contained within the tv housing like other models.

 

[Raistlin]

NICE!!!

 

[Pachinko]

So how do these scalers work exactly ? If you for the sake of example(I did) make an image in photoshop of say 640X480 and then draw a single pixel somewhere on this image and increase the size to 1.5 while keeping the same aspect ratio you'll find that the 1 pixel becomes a small L shape becuase there aren't enough pixels to accuratly display that 1 pixel in it's 50% size increase , only 2 pixels aligned vertically or horizontally can be accuratly blown up.

What does a TV do to keep an image from looking distorted? does it just randomly throw in pixels that didn't exist before like when a 4:3 image gets stretched out to 16:9 or what ?

 

[Raistlin]

They use interpolation algorithms (crappy high level description of poor-man's interpolation coming) that average chroma and luminance values of the original and surrounding pixels to create a higher resolution representation of the original picture.

 

[Rhindle]

I have yet to see an LCD TV display games in anything other than native resolution and not look spectacularly crappy. Plasmas are not quite as bad, but still pretty bad. Buying a 1080p native set for next gen gaming is a horrible idea IMO.

 

[fortified_concept]

As long as the scalar in your sets are decent, it should look fine. 720p looks great on 1080i CRT's, so it'll look great on a 1080p as well.

BTW - what TV's do you have ... have you confirmed they accept 1080p?

Don't want to derail the thread but can you help me out?

Since the is the Samsung SlimFit WS-32Z only CRT HDTV I can find in Europe can you tell me if it can play 720p? And will it look good?

 

[Raistlin]

Don't want to derail the thread but can you help me out?

Since the is the Samsung SlimFit WS-32Z only CRT HDTV I can find in Europe can you tell me if it can play 720p? And will it look good?

I haven't looked into this model, but to my knowledge - only a couple of CRTs exist that can truly do 720p.

Most CRTs convert 720p to 1080i (effectively 540p), though honestly most can't even display the full 1080i image.

Regardless, 720p looks incredible on a decent HD CRT ... so if this has received good reviews, you've got nothing to worry about.

 

[fortified_concept]

I haven't looked into this model, but to my knowledge - only a couple of CRTs exist that can truly do 720p.

Most CRTs convert 720p to 1080i (effectively 540p), though honestly most can't even display the full 1080i image.

Regardless, 720p looks incredible on a decent HD CRT ... so if this has received good reviews, you've got nothing to worry about.

Nice. Thanks man.

 

[Raistlin]

I have yet to see an LCD TV display games in anything other than native resolution and not look spectacularly crappy. Plasmas are not quite as bad, but still pretty bad. Buying a 1080p native set for next gen gaming is a horrible idea IMO.

That is a combination of two things - crappy scalar, and low res sources.


The vast majority of HDTV broadcasts are 1080i ... are you saying it looks like shit on decent LCDs and Plasmas?

 

[Rhindle]

That is a combination of two things - crappy scalar, and low res sources.


The vast majority of HDTV broadcasts are 1080i ... are you saying it looks like shit on decent LCDs and Plasmas?

No, I'm referring specifically to games. Broadcast TV, DVDs, etc. scale just fine on most sets, but games get distorted to hell.

 

[Raistlin]

How does that make any sense? What is so magical about games that they somehow scale differently?

Are you talking about 480i/480p scaled to HDTV resolutions? I'd argue standard TV scaled to HD res looks like shit much of the time, so obviously games follow suit. You have to have a quality scalar to get decent results.

Scaling between differing HD resolutions isn't nearly as problematic imo.

 

[Sjoerd]

Well if it's any indication, games that run in 1280*720 look horrible on my 24" dell 1920*1200 lcd.

1080i Movies look great on my 720p projector.

Downscaling is ok, upscaling is not.

 

[Gunstar77]

Well if it's any indication, games that run in 1280*720 look horrible on my 24" dell 1920*1200 lcd.

1080i Movies look great on my 720p projector.

Downscaling is ok, upscaling is not.

This is my thoughts on the matter as well. I have yet to find a TV that upscales to my liking, I much rather downscale. This is why I bought Sony's A10, 720p for me.

 

[Shogmaster]

It'll look fine. Its basically a 1.5x upscale in both directions, so relatively nice and neat

I don't find 1.5X upscale "nice and neat". Playing variety of widescreen 480p XBox games on 720p set (which is also 1.5X upscale), it's rough and pixelly.

 

[Hooker]

Don't want to derail the thread but can you help me out?

Since the is the Samsung SlimFit WS-32Z only CRT HDTV I can find in Europe can you tell me if it can play 720p? And will it look good?

I'm in the same boat as yours, and I've been eye-ing this TV as well. But the thing that's stopping me is the lack of a HDMI input. If I buy a tv of this calibur, I want to be sure it's future proof...

(and holding out until the next gen console have launched will make it a lot easier in my wallet as well I reckon