Well the tittle says it all...

I knew for a long time that the Playstation 3 blu-ray player did not downconvert 1080p movies to 780p. As the majority people with HDTV's out there, my TV only offers me 780p and lets face it, why the rush to go 1080p? I can wait for a couple of years, get me a new furniture and then go on.

I have been a little away about the PS3 firmware updates; are there any improvements on that field? Can I play Blu-ray movies on 780p or will it still be looking like a DVD (480p)? I know that they do it with games, why not with movies?

countdown: 5 days for my PS3 to arrive...
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You are mistaken. PS3 is capable of down-converting Blu-Ray movies to 720p just fine. (BTW, it's 720p , not 780p.) What is does not do is up-convert standard DVDs to 720p or 1080i/p. Word on the street is that a future firmware update will add DVD up-scaling, but no official word from Sony. Some believe this would undermine their efforts to make Blu-Ray the next optical disc standard. If regular DVDs can be up-converted to look almost like an HD image, why buy Blu-Ray or HD discs? I think this argument is weak at best because a good HDMI up-converting DVD player can be had for under $200 now. I hope Sony does add it in the future. It will make a great system even better.

The PS3 is a sweet machine; enjoy it.

Ryan

Nothing I've read says they support 720p yet. I'll keep researching and get back to you if I find anything.

Andrew

In Sony OS you can choose 720p, 1080i, 1080p and something else i forget. I think it upscales on the 1080p/i. In Linux Yellow Dog mode it functions the same way. Next few patches it is supposed to upscale reguler DVD's.

They just enabled the WiFI in the most recent PS3 update and YDL patch so it is slowly progressing. There have allready been something like 5 or 6 Sony patches. Over 500 linux Yellow Dog patches.

Well, there ya go man. Looks like they got your answers.

This is the potential problem you were talking about. The problem was newly introduced HD tv's that only supported 1080i and not 720p. The result was that because the PS3 does not have a upscalar capable of converting 720p to 1080i it would then have to output the image in 480p.


Link

The article was true for November 16, 2006 it has changed though

The cell with the right software/firmware can upscale any format to the default TV resolution. My EDTV can display 1080i resolution but I am loosing 10% quality over HDTV. Far away you can't tell the differance. Yellow dog linux will have access eventually when sony allows it through the hypervisor.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/th [...] 03/02/7291

All i was doing was referring to the problem that he was trying to figure out. Unfortunately though the problem is not solved with the firmware update and since you have an EDTV you wouldn't be able to know the difference between a true 1080i source or the PS3.

So hmm, how does 960x1080 automatically equal 1080i at all? Well it doesn't and thats why the PS3 scaling problem isn't solved.

http://www.ps3forums.com/showthread.php?t=60621

heres what I've found... I don't like these fansites, still this info looks reliable. Now, should I put 720p for games as most do and then 1080i for movies? Can that be done, pick two resolutions for two diferent uses (gaming and movie playback)?

For you it doesn't really matter that the PS3 doesn't scale if you have an EDTV. An EDTV has a native resolution of 480p so it cannot display any more detail than the panels native resolution of 852x480 anyway. (You may see a small improvement with HD sources over 480 sources because of supersampling.) You are losing a lot more than 10%. Your EDTV has just over 400,000 pixels. A 1080i/p image requires just under 2.1 million pixels. You are actually missing over 80% of a 1080i picture with an EDTV. (I won't get into differences in temporal resolution between the formats. That's for another discussion.)

Ryan

720p and 1080i do not look very different, and often 720p is preferred more times than not over 1080i. Since 1080i is interlaced your, and i will tread lightly as others know more about this issue, you only get 540 of the lines at a time while with 720p you get all 720.

If you have a 720p TV then the problem discussed earlier will not effect you, its for TVs that only support 1080i, and not 720p. If you have a TV capable of 720p and not 1080p then just choose 720p and you won't have to worry about the potential scalar problems of the ps3.

HDTV 720p, 1080i
not 1080p

Thats my TV. I know that games the PS3 can convert easily to 720p. I'm just wondering about blu ray movies, wich some say cannot be downscaled to 720p (in theory the PS3 engine converts to 480p if your TV is not full 1080p)

That link sure looks reasonable... does anyone know if it is true?

i dont think that is true and i think your movies will run fine on either 720p or 1080i.

You misread my previous post as well as you must not have read the link from IcY18. PS3 does scale Blu-Ray movies; it does not scale games. The game must be designed for either 720p or 1080i/p specifically.

You should read what everyone is providing before assuming you are being called stupid even though no such thing happened. Everyone here is trying to help you with your question, myself included. You should try to be a bit more appreciative.

The short answer to your question is that as of the current PS3 firmware, you will be able to enjoy Blu-Ray movies scaled down to 720p on your television. Gaming resolution will depend on the exact title you are playing. Even if a game supports 480p and 1080i only, since your TV accepts 1080i too, it will automatically convert it to 720p internally. The PS3 is going to work great with your TV.

Ryan

I have actually checked the specs on my 2 year old Panasonic EDTV TH42PD60U. It is actually discontinued. When if finaly blows up I will buy a new HDTV.

I guess even thought my PS3 autodetects 1080i with the HDMI port, 480p is not high def.