crazy_coug99 said:
As TehCookie said. If the aspect ratio is set for wide screen (16:9) and is set for high definition then the screen will come out blurry. Set the screen so it's 4:3 standard definition and that should to it. But granted, you are forcing standard definition graphics to perform on a high definition screen so there will be blurriness with the images especially if you've been playing on high definition graphics for the past couple of years. We have conditioned our eyes and our minds on high definition (720 to 1080) and anything less is trash (not saying that they are).
This is partially true, partially locked up in an old myth that was used to sell TVs when HD was a new thing.
Specifically, standard def doesn't automatically look bad, even to modern eyes. It may not be as detailed as full HD, but the most common problem with standard def equipment hooked up to HD TVs is the quality (or lack thereof) of the built in upscalers. See, modern HDTVs only have one resolution (the native res, 1280X720 or 1920X1080, depending on the set), and everything going into it has to be scaled to that resolution. Some of the very early HD sets were CRT models that could natively run at multiple resolutions, but they were limited in size and weighed a ton, so nobody cared about the benefits to picture quality.
Getting back on topic, if that scaler is low quality, it makes upscaled content look like crap. It's basically converting the video from one format to another, which always winds up in a loss of quality. Better quality upscalers lose less quality, although the best option is still an old CRT set if you really need your SD content to look its best. This is the real reason to buy, for example, a DVD player with a built in upscaler -- if it's better than the one in your TV, it'll make the DVD look better than just running it straight to your TV. For those of you who know about the old analog technology, it's analogous to the S-Video connectors in old laserdisc players, which had a built in comb filter that was better than the ones on TVs of the day, but later on were actually better to run off the composite output, since comb filters even better than what came on those things eventually got cheap enough to include in most TVs.
