xbox 360: resolution shmesolution

Durandal Infinity

To make it simple Im using HDMI the panel's native res is a standard 1366x768, should I run the 360 at the PC resolution by 1360x768 (6 pixels off horizontal) or 720p (1280x720) quite the quandary as I know the 360 outputs normally a 720p resolution.

NailbunnyPD

Why not test both and see which looks better? I would say the larger res, but that depends if its going to stretch the image the additional 6 pixels. I would assume you can toggle that on the display, though.

eobet

Can you really control that? What about Halo which was locked to... 620p? And COD4 which is locked to 600p?

1366 is simply a stupid resolution for a TV to have (mine does too, unfortunately). I heard a rumor that the only reason for the resolution was so that marketing could pitch "1 megapixel displays" to people...

NailbunnyPD

eobet wrote: »

Can you really control that? What about Halo which was locked to... 620p? And COD4 which is locked to 600p?

1366 is simply a stupid resolution for a TV to have (mine does too, unfortunately). I heard a rumor that the only reason for the resolution was so that marketing could pitch "1 megapixel displays" to people...

The resolutions in those games are upscaled to output at the intended resolution, but the rendering is all done at the lower resolution.

Durandal Infinity

ALL LCD panels that are 720p/1080i TVs pull that oddball res, what I wanna know is what is optimal; WXGA resolution or 720p

darleysam

It's things like this that are really putting me off the thought of getting a HDTV yet. I'm all for options and stuff, but there just seem to be so many ways to trip up and get something that you don't actually want, or that won't work precisely as you like. If it were me, I'd probably not notice a 6-pixel stretch, but still, there seem to be a whole lot of available resolutions (beyond what I know as 720p, 1080i and 1080p) that it just sounds like a mess at the moment.

NailbunnyPD

Durandal Infinity wrote: »

ALL LCD panels that are 720p/1080i TVs pull that oddball res, what I wanna know is what is optimal; WXGA resolution or 720p

Again, just adjust and see what looks better to you. It probably varies by TV.

NailbunnyPD

darleysam wrote: »

It's things like this that are really putting me off the thought of getting a HDTV yet. I'm all for options and stuff, but there just seem to be so many ways to trip up and get something that you don't actually want, or that won't work precisely as you like. If it were me, I'd probably not notice a 6-pixel stretch, but still, there seem to be a whole lot of available resolutions (beyond what I know as 720p, 1080i and 1080p) that it just sounds like a mess at the moment.

TVs and Computers displays are getting intertwined, so you are seeing two different terminologies being used for the same thing. There's also the difference between interlaced and progressive, but all you need to know about is that p > i.

When an input image is not the same resolution as the display's native resolution (such as the case here), the display will typically upscale the resolution to match that of the TV. The quality of this upscale can vary based on the image's resolution and the display's ability to upscale.

darleysam

That's the thing, I'm familiar with computer resolutions, and I know what the i and p mean, as well as the 720 and 1080. It's just that it seems every tv out there is sporting something a little different, some quirk or 'feature' that makes it just slightly not what you expect. I just want to be able to walk into a shop (or online, whatever), decide if I want a 720p tv, or pay a bit more for a 1080i or 1080p, and know that when I get it home and hook it up, it will work properly with any console I want to plug into it (without having to scale, re-size or squash anything), or any dvd or HD player that I plug in. I hear so many stories of this not being the case.

Daedalus

darleysam wrote: »

That's the thing, I'm familiar with computer resolutions, and I know what the i and p mean, as well as the 720 and 1080. It's just that it seems every tv out there is sporting something a little different, some quirk or 'feature' that makes it just slightly not what you expect. I just want to be able to walk into a shop (or online, whatever), decide if I want a 720p tv, or pay a bit more for a 1080i or 1080p, and know that when I get it home and hook it up, it will work properly with any console I want to plug into it (without having to scale, re-size or squash anything), or any dvd or HD player that I plug in. I hear so many stories of this not being the case.

Oh, that's easy: take all your shit to the store with you.

Seriously, if you're seriously shopping for a $four_digits TV, they'll let you test it with whatever you want.

darleysam

Yeah, when I do get round to it I will probably end up doing something like that, or doing some serious research before doing so. It's just a concern that it seems to be the norm.

harvest

In my experience, a 1080p LCD behaves exactly like you'd expect when connected to a computer via VGA or DVI or HDMI. Weird-ass resolutions have to scale or distort the picture sometimes when you can't out put in their native res.

Barcardi

i just want to take this opportunity to say that my 360 came back today, with a 1 month gold subscription

but i think its a sign that Microsoft hates me, the code for the free month does not work

Chenjesu

The reason I've heard for this retarded 1366x768 which nothing actually supports is technical. It take exactly (or almost exactly) 1 megabyte of memory to store one frame, so its convenient from a TV engineering and manufacturing standpoint.

Daedalus

harvest wrote: »

In my experience, a 1080p LCD behaves exactly like you'd expect when connected to a computer via VGA or DVI or HDMI. Weird-ass resolutions have to scale or distort the picture sometimes when you can't out put in their native res.

I tend to take it for granted that the native resolution looks good. The important things to test are the scaler and the deinterlacer. Here are some common problems:

Non-native resolution progressive scan content (say, your 480p Wii on that 720p LCD panel) looks like shit: it's the scaler's fault. Generally pretty bad with the "bargain" brands, as it's one of the things they save money on. Of course, if you're just using a 360 with the TV, you don't really need a scaler in the TV and so you can save money on it too.

SD (480i) content looks like total shit: this is the mark of a bad deinterlacer. 480i content is never going to look as good on an HDTV as it does on a good ol' fashioned CRT SDTV, but how much worse varies based on the quality of the deinterlacer in the set.

Old low-definition (240p) games don't work at all: this also means a shitty deinterlacer. Old games made back in the N64/PS1/Saturn days and earlier display in this resolution, as do some of the early games in the PS2 library and every NeoGeo game on the Wii Virtual Console (even if your system is set to 480p). The only 240p game you're likely to encounter and actually want to play is Ico, but god damn, Ico is a really good game, so you might want to test for this sort of thing.

Delay: this usually means a terrible scaler. Test Guitar Hero or a similar game on a new TV before you buy it. Some games nowadays allow you to account for this delay but it's always a pain in the ass to set up exactly and still doesn't help for fighting games and the like. You can also test this with a laptop running a clock on the panel and the TV at the same time: make sure the clock is showing milliseconds and take a picture of both screens at the same time and see what the discrepancy is. That method is really overkill, though.

Daedalus

Chenjesu wrote: »

The reason I've heard for this retarded 1366x768 which nothing actually supports is technical. It take exactly (or almost exactly) 1 megabyte of memory to store one frame, so its convenient from a TV engineering and manufacturing standpoint.

Also, you can display a standard PC 4:3 resolution 1024x768 image without needing to scale it.

setrajonas

Daedalus wrote: »

Delay: this usually means a terrible scaler. Test Guitar Hero or a similar game on a new TV before you buy it. Some games nowadays allow you to account for this delay but it's always a pain in the ass to set up exactly and still doesn't help for fighting games and the like. You can also test this with a laptop running a clock on the panel and the TV at the same time: make sure the clock is showing milliseconds and take a picture of both screens at the same time and see what the discrepancy is. That method is really overkill, though.

Is delay due to a bad scaler? I was under the impression that it was intrinsically due to TVs having to de-interlace the video signal, and that games running in prog. scan didn't particularly suffer from this problem.

Daedalus

setrajonas wrote: »

Daedalus wrote: »

Delay: this usually means a terrible scaler. Test Guitar Hero or a similar game on a new TV before you buy it. Some games nowadays allow you to account for this delay but it's always a pain in the ass to set up exactly and still doesn't help for fighting games and the like. You can also test this with a laptop running a clock on the panel and the TV at the same time: make sure the clock is showing milliseconds and take a picture of both screens at the same time and see what the discrepancy is. That method is really overkill, though.

Is delay due to a bad scaler? I was under the impression that it was intrinsically due to TVs having to de-interlace the video signal, and that games running in prog. scan didn't particularly suffer from this problem.

Any time you're scaling an image from one resolution to another, you will have a minimum of one frame (1/60 of a second) delay. One frame dropped is almost unnoticable. Cheap shitty scalers will have far more than one frame. Adding deinterlacing to the mix will of course make it even worse ("game mode" deinterlacing will probably stay down to 1/30 of a second or so but won't look very good; regular deinterlacing may be even worse). It varies from TV to TV; some will have it worse than others, and the only way to know is to test it yourself.