PS3 downscales Blu-ray to 480p on 720p HDTVs Thursday January 4, 2007

Posted in: Consoles Technology

1. Steve Marshall

   Jan 4, 10:56 AM

   Of course, the great thing about 1080i and 1080p is that 1080 they
   both only go as far as 30 frames per second, which isn’t fast enough
   for sport or video-games. (Or rather, there’s no specifcation for
   anything faster than 1080x/30 yet). This is fine for cinematic
   content, but for fast-moving content, it sucks.
   
   Further, the Xbox 360 will down- and up-scale any content to
   fit whatever format you tell it you’re outputting to. All games for
   360 are required to support 720p/60, 480p, and 480i. If you’re
   outputting to a 1080p set, though, the 360 will upscale the 720p and
   drop the framerate. Conversely, if you’re watching 1080p content on a
   720p screen, you’ll get downscaling to match your screen, not to match
   the lowest common denominator.
   
   The scaler they’ve used is right there in every 360, and should be
   able to handle whatever content you throw at it… Well, for the
   forseeable future, at least. It’s been mentioned somewhere that it
   should be able to handle up to 1080p60, if not higher.
   
   So much for Sony’s ‘true’ HD claims, eh?

2. mark_in_bc

   Jan 4, 02:25 PM

   The PS3 will only play Blue Ray at 1080i/p if your TV only supports 720p it falls back to 480i. Go to display settings and disable 1080i/p and see for yourself.

3. rwj_in_ont

   Feb 26, 04:49 PM

   I have had my ps3 since day one and I have had nothing but a wonderful experience with it.
   
   It plays blueray discs (I own 20+ now) on my Toshiba 62 inch BEAUTIFULLY. It does so on both 720p and 1080i. Some of my titles have just blown my mind. (Superman, T2, Ice Age 2, Into the Blue, etc)
   
   All my games (8 of them) perform wonderfully and the online gaming is a pleasure.
   
   The ps3 is a wonderful system and I feel bad for those with insufficient technology that won’t support all the great things the ps3 does, but shouldn’t ppl have researched their purchase first?
   
   Rick Jaynes
   St Catharines, Ont

4. elmo

   Mar 3, 11:20 PM

   I have both Bluray and HD-DVD. So far, I would say the video quality of HD-DVD is for some reason slightly higher, and I attribute that to the PS3’s software decoding of bluray vs hd-dvd hardware decoding.
   
   Audio quality is about the same (very high).
   
   There are very few HD sets that can’t “accept” a 1080i signal. This is the problem sony is talking about. If your set can’t accept a 1080i signal, and only accepts a 720p signal – then it will downgrade to 480p.
   
   Most modern HDTVs can accept 1080i and downgrade to 720p, if that’s their native resolutoin!
   
   -ELmO

5. Lev

   Mar 24, 08:29 PM

   I purchased the PS3 yesterday, launch day in Europe, and was sad to discover today that it can’t play Blueray films at my SONY HDTV’s native resolution of 720p. :( What a disappointment!
   
   I own a Xbox 360 already and am now debating just purchasing their HD drive instead since Sony hasn’t even attempted to resolve this problem since the console was released in the states and Japan over 4 months ago. (That’s just pathetic)
   
   I was disappointed enough with the PS3 in that there isn’t even a way to change the background wallpaper, like you can on PSP, but this Blueray playback is a joke. I don’t know if this is simply a limitation of the hardware scaler, or if Sony is just trying to force people into purchasing their overpriced 1080p TV sets, but Sony has definitely cheated 720p owners out of a decent player. While it’s true that the PS3 is supposed to be a gaming console, Blueray playback was part of the justification for it’s outrageous price, and now I find out that the thing can’t even play Blueray films at my TV’s native resolution!? What a rip off… Even the 360 scales DVDs to 576p, which is STILL higher than PS3 will scale a Blueray at for 720p owners.
   
   Thanks a lot Sony. The entire year leading up until PS3 was nothing but disappointment after disappointment with Sony retracting previous claims left and right… I don’t remember anything being advertised about this “experience high definition” crap only applying to 1080p sets.

6. Nathan Pitman

   Mar 26, 09:58 AM

   Lev@ Sorry to hear that you’ve been so badly let down by Sony. Out of interest, as someone who owns both systems how do you feel they stack up against each other?

7. Charlie Stephens

   Mar 29, 11:10 AM

   I purchased my ps3 yesterday form blockbuster since i have a samsung hd ready tv it supports 1080i (ps3 auto set it to that) so i have had no problems with playing back blu ray movies. I rented a few from blockbuster (as here in the uk when you buy one they give you a load of free rental vouchers) i thought i may as well rent a action movie (mi3 since i havent seen it) and it looks awesome. Motorstorm looks and sounds great as does resistance. I think personally the ps3 is better than the 360 (having owned a 360 for a year and selling yesterday) The main issue with the 360 was there were constantly things wrong such as disc tray not always coming out silly things like that. And having to buy a wireless bridge (which cost 60 pounds) and the 45 pound a year subscription to xbox live (for you guys in the states that is 120 dollars for the wireless bridge and about 90 dollard for the year xbox live) the ps3 online service is free the wireless is built in so yeah the 360 cheaper but by the time you add up all the extra things you have to buy for it (not to mention battery packs and charger and the hd dvd add on if you want to watch hd dvds) it comes to just slightly more than the ps3 premium 60 gb version. Oh nearly forgot 360 doesn't have a hdmi socket which kinda sucks. (although the elite 360 will have a hdmi socket) So all of you out there moaning about ps3 stop and think because end of the day once you got a 360 added all the extra stuff you have to buy. And plus the 45 pounds a year xbox live membership. Makes the ps3 not seem quite as expensive. Plus generally its just a better console more features menu displays are easy to use. Games look slightly better than the 360 (even the launch titles dare i say it). Although it could all come down to whether blu ray wins or hd dvd i suppose but to Microsoft might have been an idea to put the hd dvd drive in the new 360. Anywho il let yall make your own minds up which console better or which one you go for i just know i picked mine!!!

8. sp00n

   Mar 30, 08:55 AM

   I have similar problems with my setup (Yamaha 2600 AV Receiver+Pa nasonic PT AE900 HD 720p beamer). When I configure my XBM to 720p the everything looks awesome except for the fact that I can only play BD at 480p in that setting. When I ‘upgrade’ to 1080i I will be able to play BD (with some very minimal blurring but the native 720p for the beamer just looks far better). An additional side effect I get for free as well with this setup is a very nasty interlace garbage in the build-in XBM web browser. So I the only workaround I have right now is switching between resolutions to even be able to use both functionalities, albeit crippled. It is really beyond me how Sony can position this product as HD and not even support the de facto standard, 1080p is far and away from being the household standard. And while I’m at it… Sony may as well throw in a $2 chinese produced component cable…. instead of that wonderfully useless Multi-AV->RGB cable… paaaaa lease….

9. Harm

   Apr 18, 03:41 PM

   I think it comes down to the fact your HDTV must be able to accept either 1080i/p even if the native display resolution is only 720 lines. However forums like these may help to make Sony create a firmware update for the PS3 that allows you to up scale to higher resolutions. Note that the Cell processor is known as a ‘broadband’ engine so it should in theory be perfectly matched to the task of upscaling from the various standards into either 720p / 1080p . I’m just hoping they will do that, so you guys pls. keep complaining, I think this CAN be done in software … greetings, Harm

10. paulMASSACRE

    Apr 19, 10:52 AM

    I have Casino Royale, Hostel and Kung Fu Hustle on Blu-ray. I originally set my Playstation 3 output to 720p as this was preferable in terms of the fast pace of the games and the films. But then, as mentioned, the PS3 downscales the Blu-ray disks to 480p. The quality is quite poor when set to this, so I then decided to give the 1080i a try. And to be honest, this is more than sufficient. I havent noticed any difference between when it is set to progressive or interlaced.
    I do hope that a firmware update is released that does allow the output of Blu-rays at 720p, but then again, no loss if they dont!

11. LoveDoctor

    Apr 20, 05:39 PM

    So.. what happens if you’ve got a 720p HD-Ready TV, and you set the PS3 to 1080i/p output.. will your TV downscale the immage from the PS3?
    
    I just tried it on my TV (It’s a 1080p full HD) and was surprised to see that the problem described above is actually true.. I just had to test it.. Anyway, this was not fixed in yesterday’s 1.7 release
    
    I’ve just had Sony on the line, and they confirmed that they know this occurs and they’re looking into it right now. They’ve said it’s got to do with the Stream that are on the disc, if the movie is not on the BD in 720 but is on the disc in 480 format it will pick the 480 stream if your PS is set to 720 :( They’re going to see what they can do about this and perhaps a SW solution will be fortcomming.

12. Mothra

    Apr 21, 12:49 PM

    @LoveDoctor – thanks for the update… I hope you’re right. :-)

13. smudger69

    May 9, 06:01 PM

    HI ive had same problem on my panny 42 ” its 720p but downscales to 480 on bd but if i set the ps3 to 1080i it plays at this, in the manual for the tv it does state it can take 1080i input through hdmi lead so it must play in that resolution.
    Is anyone else having probs in uk with conection over wireless network mine just goes online when it feels like it i dont know if its a week signal from my router, any ideas?

14. Alex

    May 26, 05:19 PM

    Upgrade system to 1.8 and enjoy!!!
    Problem resolved.

15. rob121

    Jun 3, 11:40 AM

    yeah i have had problems with my samsung tv it wouldnt play blue ray films to its max
    through the ps3 any ideas please email