PS2 and HDTV

m3k · January 2007

I'm looking into buying a 37" lcd screen (720 p) to which I will be hooking up my PS2.

I'm told that the image will look like shit run over twice.

Is this correct?

Is there anything i can do about it?

Bob Sapp · January 2007

I'd imagine that's TV dependent. I play PS2 on my 52" DLP and it looks fine to me. FF12 looks great, in fact.

Alec · January 2007

It's also very game dependent. I'm running component to my 42 inch Westinghouse and FFX looks like garbage. But God of War in 480p looks pretty good.

AlphaTwo · January 2007

Alec wrote:

It's also very game dependent. I'm running component to my 42 inch Westinghouse and FFX looks like garbage. But God of War in 480p looks pretty good.

Note: a lot of games don't take 480p or widescreen:

See Okami and God Hand..

Alec · January 2007

AlphaTwo wrote:

Alec wrote:

It's also very game dependent. I'm running component to my 42 inch Westinghouse and FFX looks like garbage. But God of War in 480p looks pretty good.

Note: a lot of games don't take 480p or widescreen:

See Okami and God Hand..

That's why it's game dependent.

Nightslyr · January 2007

This is regarding the PS3 playing PS2 games:

I have a 32' HDTV. I run my PS3 at 1080i, but PS2 games look kinda shitty at that resolution. Do I have to change the resolution to something like 720 every time I want to play a PS2 game in order for it to look right?

Wezoin · January 2007

Nightslyr wrote:

This is regarding the PS3 playing PS2 games:

I have a 32' HDTV. I run my PS3 at 1080i, but PS2 games look kinda shitty at that resolution. Do I have to change the resolution to something like 720 every time I want to play a PS2 game in order for it to look right?

From what I hear that has nothing to do with resolution... Just a case of backwards compatibility being shitty on the ps3...

Nightslyr · January 2007

Wezoin wrote:

Nightslyr wrote:

This is regarding the PS3 playing PS2 games:

I have a 32' HDTV. I run my PS3 at 1080i, but PS2 games look kinda shitty at that resolution. Do I have to change the resolution to something like 720 every time I want to play a PS2 game in order for it to look right?

From what I hear that has nothing to do with resolution... Just a case of backwards compatibility being shitty on the ps3...

Ah... fuck.

MrDeadMan · January 2007

I've seen this thing at Gamestop before: Xploder HDTV Player

Supposedly it can force any PS2 game to run in 480p. But I can't find any reviews of it online that say if it actually works or how well it works, and I'm not brave enough to buy it on blind faith.

Bouncing_Soul · January 2007

Wow, I'm a little unhappy to hear this with my new HDTV. I haven't hooked up the PS2 yet, still need to get component cables.

Would it be stupid to just use s-video?

MrDeadMan · January 2007

I couldn't stand to use the PS2 on my HD until I got the component cables. I got the official Sony and a third party cable and I kinda like the thrid party one better. I can't remember what brand it was but it had connectors for PS2/Xbox/360.

Alec · January 2007

Component will give you an incredibly clear picture, but that means you will see EVERY jaggy.

I'm currently tracking down a copy of the Xploder HDTV Player. I've heard *terrible* things when outputting in anything over 480p, but I guess 480p would be good enough for me.

I'll let you kn ow if it improves anything.

ArcticXC · January 2007

Nightslyr wrote:

Wezoin wrote:

Nightslyr wrote:

This is regarding the PS3 playing PS2 games:

I have a 32' HDTV. I run my PS3 at 1080i, but PS2 games look kinda shitty at that resolution. Do I have to change the resolution to something like 720 every time I want to play a PS2 game in order for it to look right?

From what I hear that has nothing to do with resolution... Just a case of backwards compatibility being shitty on the ps3...

Ah... fuck.

I've heard that they've fixed that, or they're going to, or something along those lines... then again it could all just be a whole bucket of lies. I can't even tell anymore.

m3k · January 2007

MrDeadMan wrote:

I've seen this thing at Gamestop before: Xploder HDTV Player

Supposedly it can force any PS2 game to run in 480p. But I can't find any reviews of it online that say if it actually works or how well it works, and I'm not brave enough to buy it on blind faith.

This should be possible, as all the data is there, it just needs to be broadcast the correct way. I'd imagine there's some level of lag involved as every two frames need to be buffered, deinterlaced, and rebroadcast.

brynstar · January 2007

ArcticXC wrote:

Nightslyr wrote:

Wezoin wrote:

Nightslyr wrote:

This is regarding the PS3 playing PS2 games:

I have a 32' HDTV. I run my PS3 at 1080i, but PS2 games look kinda shitty at that resolution. Do I have to change the resolution to something like 720 every time I want to play a PS2 game in order for it to look right?

From what I hear that has nothing to do with resolution... Just a case of backwards compatibility being shitty on the ps3...

Ah... fuck.

I've heard that they've fixed that, or they're going to, or something along those lines... then again it could all just be a whole bucket of lies. I can't even tell anymore.

Yeah they fixed it with a patch the other day. The output resolution you have the PS3 set to has nothing to do with the output of the PS2 BC however. Those games always run in 720 x 480. Once you're done playing PS2, it switches back to whatever resolution you run the PS3 in.

The patch from the other day fixed a pixel flipping problem that led to vertical lines of running through the length of the screen, causing super jagged graphics.

Alec · January 2007

Review from IGN

Alec · January 2007

I have aquired an HDTV player. I'll take pics when I get home from work on how the PS2 handles with it. It's 1 PM, I will be home at around 5:30ish

FreddyD · January 2007

m3k wrote:

MrDeadMan wrote:

I've seen this thing at Gamestop before: Xploder HDTV Player

Supposedly it can force any PS2 game to run in 480p. But I can't find any reviews of it online that say if it actually works or how well it works, and I'm not brave enough to buy it on blind faith.

This should be possible, as all the data is there, it just needs to be broadcast the correct way. I'd imagine there's some level of lag involved as every two frames need to be buffered, deinterlaced, and rebroadcast.

LCD televisions have to do this as well before displaying the image. Modern televisions must do good job of it because I have to sit pretty close to tell the difference between 480i and 480p games on my tv.

MrDeadMan · January 2007

Alec wrote:

I have aquired an HDTV player. I'll take pics when I get home from work on how the PS2 handles with it. It's 1 PM, I will be home at around 5:30ish

You sir, are awsome. I am eagerly awaiting your findings.

dmauro · January 2007

I don't have component cables, and even if I did, a lot of PS2 games don't do 480p, so I keep an old SDTV next to the DLP HDTV to run PS2 games because they will lag on the DLP HDTV and look like shit (the ones that don't do 480p). I thought about upconverters and such before realizing that this was the cheapest and easiest solution (I already had the SDTV).

Alec · January 2007

I have only tested one game so far (after playing with the settings on my camera, it took a while to get them looking decent...I used FFX because it looks like GARBAGE in 480i over component)

Results: (Sorry if I break H-Scroll, but it's sort of a must:

480i - Booted normally.

480p

576p

720p

1080i

Sorry for not being able to get a good shot of Yuna in 1080i. I was playing with the lighting. In any case, I only wanted to demonstrate that when playing in 1080i, it doesn't use hardly ANY of the screen, as you can see. This is a 42 inch Westinghouse, anyway. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it supported 576p. Here's a couple shots of the menu.

576p

720p

1080i

480p filles up the entire screen, and as you might be able to tell from the screens of FFX, there is a MASSIVE difference between 480i and 480p. 576p looks good, but the image is shrunk from the full size of the TV...I prefer 480p, and it actually makes FFX look decent.

I'll test some more games later. My wife wanted to watch CSI.

Zeon · January 2007

Unless your tv has a resolution of like... 5760x3240 pixels, thats not 1080i, its just small.

Icewing · January 2007

Zeon wrote:

Unless your tv has a resolution of like... 5760x3240 pixels, thats not 1080i, its just small.

No no, the whole image including the black areas is 1080i. He's saying the problem is that the device makes everything sharp, sure, but does it by doing 1-to-1 pixel mapping (oh, and it squishes the 4x3 stuff into widescreen, apparently from those pictures, too).

MrDeadMan · January 2007

So I guess it's fair to say that:

-1080i is useless -720p is probably useless on any game that doesn't natively support widescreen (though I'd like to see FFXII or Shadow of the Colossus in this mode) -480p is probably the best mode for most games and while I'd like so see some more comparison shots, it looks promising Think you could supply a few more shots for us, and would you say it's worth the... um.. How much was the thing by the way?

mntorankusu · January 2007

m3k wrote:

MrDeadMan wrote:

I've seen this thing at Gamestop before: Xploder HDTV Player

Supposedly it can force any PS2 game to run in 480p. But I can't find any reviews of it online that say if it actually works or how well it works, and I'm not brave enough to buy it on blind faith.

This should be possible, as all the data is there, it just needs to be broadcast the correct way. I'd imagine there's some level of lag involved as every two frames need to be buffered, deinterlaced, and rebroadcast.

It doesn't deinterlace anything. That's not possible in this case. It just forces the PS2 to display things differently in the first place. Not to mention that if a game runs at more than 30fps, there's no way to deinterlace without losing data, and the signal quality wouldn't be any better.

Alec · January 2007

Just got in from seeing Pan's Labyrinth, lemme load up SotC and FFXII.

Bought it off a friend for super cheap.

Alec · January 2007

On most pics, I've taken a "TV shot" where I show you how the resolution looks on my TV, and then I zoom in for a "quality shot" to show you if it looks any good. Unfortunately, stills don't illustrate this in the best way, so I might make movies of it in action. I'm not doing 1080i because they're all the same size, and it's worthless.

FFXII in 480i - I didn't include a TV shot because it fills my screen. Looks sort of poopy.

FFXII in 480p - Does NOT fill the screen like other games do...possibly why the PS3 has so much trouble with this game in backwards compat. Not recommended...

FFXII in 720p - Doesn't use much of the screen, but looks the best by far.

SotC in 480i

SotC in 480p, 16:9 This game supports widescreen and progressive in the options menu, so I didn't use the HDTV Player for it. Curiously, it doesn't look as if 16:9 took effect.

SotC in 720p - HORRIBLE LAGGGGGGGG

I'd personally stick with in-game 480p...although, I must admit, I can't notice much of a difference in this game.

And just because I love me some Guilty Gear...

Guilty Gear XX Slash in 480p - I'm a beast with Faust

GG looks SO FRICKING AWESOME IN PROGRESSIVE. Worth the money? Well, I think it retails for like $35, since it comes with component cables, but I already had some. I got it off my friend for cheap, so it was worth it to me. I don't think I'll ever play a PS2 game (that doesn't support progressive) again without loading this baby up in 480p, first.

Zeon · January 2007

Icewing wrote:

Zeon wrote:

Unless your tv has a resolution of like... 5760x3240 pixels, thats not 1080i, its just small.

No no, the whole image including the black areas is 1080i. He's saying the problem is that the device makes everything sharp, sure, but does it by doing 1-to-1 pixel mapping (oh, and it squishes the 4x3 stuff into widescreen, apparently from those pictures, too).

I know... but its kind of like buying a 50" screen and only having 20" display any image. I wouldnt call that 1080i when only 1/3 of the screen is being used, id call it 480p squished down to make it look nicer. Which is pretty much exactly what it is.

MrDeadMan · January 2007

Once again, you are awsome. I think I need to head down to gamestop and see if they still have one of these bad boys. FFXII looks great, and it's a shame about the lag in SotC, it looks really good in still-shots.

Also, I just realized that is the exact TV I've been looking to get for my living room

Vegan · January 2007

Don't think of the games as looking "worse," but rather more accurate.

Flesh Into Gear · January 2007

I might have to grab one of these things. Have the exact same TV as you too.

Dukhat · January 2007

By the way, a PS3 upscales every PSone and PS2 game it emulates up to 480p. Currently its the best PSone/PS2 emulator/Blu-Ray player on the market.

I also hear there are actually going to be games specifically made on the PS3 too but don't take my word for it.

imundercover · January 2007

Dukhat wrote:

I also hear there are actually going to be games specifically made on the PS3 too but don't take my word for it.

I don't think anyone takes your word for anything, judging from your post history.

Alec: You say that 720p looks best on FFXII, why? Its all squished and stretched out?

Alec · January 2007

imundercover wrote:

Dukhat wrote:

I also hear there are actually going to be games specifically made on the PS3 too but don't take my word for it.

I don't think anyone takes your word for anything, judging from your post history.

Alec: You say that 720p looks best on FFXII, why? Its all squished and stretched out?

Because 480p doesn't make it fill the screen, and I didn't do 576p since most people's TVs can't support it anyway. 720p is flattened and stretched out, but it doesn't look distorted, and it looks quite natural. It also shows the least amount of jaggies, and overall just *looks* the best.

I'll try to take a video, but my cam doesn't do much justice.

powersurge · January 2007

Most of my PS2 games look like crap on my HDTV even with components so I hooked it up to a SDTV in a bedroom. God of War was one of the few games that didn't look like ass on the big screen.

If sony patched the PS3 to upscale ps2 games (and added WS support to those that did not originally support it) I'd buy one just for that. PS2 has an awesome library its just a shame most look horrible on HDTV's.

Alec · January 2007

This HDTV Player really helps with some games if you force them into progressive.

But the in-game progressive that some games have (God of War, SotC) are by-fay better than the HDTV Player's forced progressive.

Penny Arcade

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