HD Confusion

Insanity

I've got a PS3 and an HDTV.

The TV will accept 720p, 1080i, or 1080p inputs, and has a resolution of 1366 x 768.

What I'm unsure about is whether to have the PS3 output at 1080p and let the TV downscale massively, or have it output at 720p and have the TV upscale slightly.

I'M SO CONFUSED =(

PeregrineFalcon

"Try them both"?

Without knowing/seeing your TV model and the signal processing firsthand, it's hard to say which will give you the better image. One might give sharper text, one might give less aliasing in movies/games, one might add unbearable input lag.

I do know that 1080i shouldn't even be on your list of potential choices. And check for a VGA input - you might be able to feed it near-native 1360x768 from your PC.

midgetspy

The TV would not be upscaling 720p, 720p is 1280x720. Since neither signal will be a 1:1 pixel display (I never understood the crazy TV resolutions 720p sets use) you might as well let your TV downsample your 1080p signal.

BubbaT

Depends on what the native resolution of the source material is.

For most games it's gonna be 720p, and I'd have the TV upscale from 720p. For Blu-Ray it's gonna be 1080p, and I'd have your TV downscale those from 1080p.

Having your PS3 upscale games to 1080p, then having your TV re-downscale them to 720p makes no sense. The more times the signal is scaled the more it will degrade - take a digital photo and blow it up, and then re-shrink it and it won't look as good as the original. Same with the BRD, but in the other direction.

I'm not sure if PS3 has separate modes for game and movie playback. If you don't want to change the settings every time, I'd leave it on whichever function - games or blu-rays - you use most.

PeregrineFalcon

BubbaT wrote: »

Depends on what the native resolution of the source material is.

For most games it's gonna be 720p, and I'd have the TV upscale from 720p. For Blu-Ray it's gonna be 1080p, and I'd have your TV downscale those from 1080p.

Having your PS3 upscale games to 1080p, then having your TV re-downscale them to 720p makes no sense. The more times the signal is scaled the more it will degrade - take a digital photo and blow it up, and then re-shrink it and it won't look as good as the original. Same with the BRD, but in the other direction.

I'm not sure if PS3 has separate modes for game and movie playback. If you don't want to change the settings every time, I'd leave it on whichever function - games or blu-rays - you use most.

The PS3 won't upscale 720p to 1080p unless you force it to by unchecking 720p in the output options. It always prefers native resolution whenever possible, and in most games that's 720p.

nexuscrawler

Generally you're better off letting the player do the scaling since it knows the signal better than the TV. Not sure how good your TVs scaler and the PS3s are though so your milage may vary.

Insanity

Thanks for the replies.

Although they haven't really pointed me one way or the other, I can't see the difference while trying, so I'm just going to try and ignore the fact that I may be viewing a slightly sub-optimal picture and enjoy the hell out of Wipeout HD :P

Grygonos

you should go 720p.

I have a similar display (not for gaming.. it's a bedroom TV).. but I have my hd cable box and my upscaling dvd player on it.

720p - 1280x720
1080i/p - 1920x1080


My logic (and from my own testing) was this, the amount of stretching from 1280x720 to the native resolution is less than the amount of shrinking (which still causes distortion.. don't fool yourself) that 1920x1080 has to do to go down to 1366x768. Ultimately, do what you think looks best.. but that was my logic for using it.