PS3 Downscales 1081i Sets To 480p

[Shawn Andrich]

PS3 Downscales 1081i Sets To 480p

Older 1080i-only TV sets that do not support 720p will find themselves playing games such as Resistance: Fall of Man at the lower resolution 480p.

While the Xbox 360 will take a game rendered in 720p and convert it to 1080i for older HD televisions, the PS3 will take the same game in 720p and downscale it to 480p instead. This means that games without any built-in support for 1080i will give older high definition TV owners a standard TV resolution. IGN has tested Resistance: Fall of Man, NHL 2K7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, and Need for Speed Carbon and found they all shifted down to 480p.

Sony has yet to make any public statements about the issue, fans remain hopeful that it might be resolved in a firmware update or future revisions of the console.

Source: IGN [http://au.ps3.ign.com/articles/746/746282p1.html]

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[Ajar]

I actually think 480p is classified as EDTV [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDTV], not SDTV, but that's just a nitpick.

 

[Shawn Andrich]

I was tempted to make the distinction, but it's close enough for jazz in this case. The difference between SDTV and EDTV isn't anywhere near the leap from EDTV to HD. People with older HD sets are going to notice a clear difference and they aren't going to be happy about it.

 

[Ajar]

I suppose that "standard TV resolution" doesn't necessarily imply "standard definition" anyway.

I definitely agree with your point. It seems particularly strange given that I believe the front end user interface of the PS3 can be displayed in 1080i -- why not games, then? Bizarre.

 

[Goofonian]

It seems particularly strange given that I believe the front end user interface of the PS3 can be displayed in 1080i -- why not games, then? Bizarre.

The issue is not that games can't be displayed in 1080i, its that games designed for 720p can't be upscaled by the console to 1080i for TV sets that don't accept a 720p signal.

Your point about the user interface doesn't really relate here because the user interface will have been designed to run at 1080p. I'll assume the oversight on sony's part was because they assumed that all their games would be programmed for 1080p (this may come true in the second generation of software) and so could be easily output at 1080i when required. Pretty costly oversight in my opinion, forcing a large majority of early adopters to play their launch games at much lower resolution than both their TV's and console are capable of. Especially after they will have already paid extra for the cables required to get high def.