"1080p is meaningless"

360 News | So says Microsoft bigwig.

In a recent blog post, Director of Technical Strategy for Xbox Live, Andre Vrignaud, has dismissed 1080p output (very high resolution, for those who don't know 720p from 540i) of the PlayStation 3 as "meaningless this generation". Not surprising, considering the Xbox 360 doesn't support 1080p.

"Most modern HD displays (Plasmas, LCD, DLP, etc.) display content progressively, even if they first received an interlaced signal," notes Vrignaud. "Let me restate that: when you're watching a 1080"x" signal on a modern HD display, you're almost always watching a 1080p signal. The only difference is where the de-interlacing happens - but the displayed output is always 1080p."

So if what he's saying is correct, 1080p and 1080i are, in most cases, going to look the same. But, Vrignaud went on. "As to games, 99% of PS3 titles will natively render at 720p; the few that come out with 1080"x" support are either going to be simple classic arcade ports that don't need to render complex scenes (think the original Battlezone), will give up a lot of in-game visual effects and simply won't look very good (hence the poor showing of Gran Turismo "HD" at this past E3)." Ouch.

Not that this really matters, though. According to Vrignaud, we "won't see any 1080"x" games for the PS3 this year." Vrignaud's reasoning behind this is that, as the Xbox 360 and PS3 have relatively similar specifications (in his eyes, at least), multi-format developers who want their games to work on both consoles will only have their games running in 720p anyway.

"Simply put, a developer who is planning to release their game for both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 will aim for a common attainable ground," said Vrignaud, with that common ground being 720p. "Just make sure you have a recent HDTV that de-interlaces 1080i signals correctly and you'll be just fine."

More on the incessant sniping between Sony and Microsoft as it happens.

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41 Comments

Spanca

5 years ago

mqphu1 wrote

"HARDLY ANYONE WILL OWN 1080p SETS THIS GENERATION!"
Are you talking about you and your neighbours or for REST of the world?

This generation will go for 6 to 10 years. Thats 2016.
Technology are moving really fast.
* Remember what technology was like in 1996 and how much those plasmas cost? *

Although 1080p displays are expensive now, but give it a couple of years displays will very AFFORDABLE.

If any of you ever been to a IEEE technical conference (and I DID). They are currently talking about super resolution images.
Thats 1200p upto 2080p.

DVD is using MPEG2 and HDDVD is using MPEG4 (or MS format) BUT
in the literature, MPEG7 is already become standard.

SONY is the only active research company out of MS and N,
they know how far display devices will advance in the next decade.

My point is technology are far more advance than any of you can imagine.
By saying 1080p is useless this generation is WRONG.
"A PESSIMIST"

Seriously, forgo one of these tech/gaming conferences you go to so many of and enroll yourself in an English course at your local Tafe.

If anyone else had posted what you did I'd take the time to post an intelligent reply, but there's no incentive when I know the only response available is some incoherent babble smashed out via an English keyboard. I'm pretty sure the puppy I got last week could make a post on PALGN that's easier to read than any of yours.

Zarnoss

5 years ago

http://www.vxm.com/CNT_FED_Display.html

I guess it will be meaningless when there are sets coming out like this.
Will technology ever catch up on itself?

admeister

5 years ago

Here's some info on MPEG-7, it's not much use on it's own:

MPEG-7 is a multimedia content description standard. Thus, it is not a standard which deals with the actual encoding of moving pictures and audio, like MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. It uses XML to store metadata, and can be attached to timecode in order to tag particular events, or synchronise lyrics to a song, for example.

It was designed to standardise:

* a set of description schemes and descriptors
* a language to specify these schemes, called the Description Definition Language (DDL)
* a scheme for coding the description

The combination of MPEG-4 and MPEG-7 has been referred to as MPEG-47.

mqphu1

5 years ago

Sorry ENGLISH BOY if my posts are TOO hard for you to understand.

I don't know why i am even bother with this forum, where
most of you are either fanboys, jokers, nerds or dumb fools.

PERIOD.

chriharr

5 years ago

1080p is lacking in most modern devices, I have a Plasma and an LCD TV which are both capable of displaying up to 1080p, but i don't have any devices which yet go that high in resolution, My DVD player runs DVD's in 576p tops, ofcourse Plasma and LCD both Upscale the resolution to a native 720p so picture resolution is greatly enhanced

I don't think 1080p will be classed as a Resolution standard for atleast 8 more years, 1080p will be killed in 5 more years by another advanced Picture resolution.

Zarnoss

5 years ago

mqphu1 wrote

Sorry ENGLISH BOY if my posts are TOO hard for you to understand.

I don't know why i am even bother with this forum, where
most of you are either fanboys, jokers, nerds or dumb fools.

PERIOD.

Hey there is no problem with constructive critisism is there?
And you chose to post on an English speaking forum so it would be courteous to use the english language in a non-bastardised way.

I have no offence at people grasping with the english language having a go at posting but sheezus, there is no use getting into a tiff and not having the vocabulary to back it up as you will always end up 'sounding' like an idiot when in all fact you are most likely not.

cheers.

Also embellishments can easily be sniffed out by the astute forummers here.

admeister

5 years ago

Just because I looked something up doesn't mean it was hard to understand. I don;t know much about MPEG7, so I thought I'd post a bit about it.

I'm not a dumb fool, you and your posts fit that description far better. Could you try posting properly for once?

Jellyfish

5 years ago

admeister wrote

Just because I looked something up doesn't mean it was hard to understand. I don;t know much about MPEG7, so I thought I'd post a bit about it.

Thanks for that Adam, I had no idea what that was.

If anyone's interested, most people can't handle resolutions beyond 1080p because it causes motion sickness from being too real

IMO 720p looks perfect, 1080i has some funny issues with high speed movement, but looks good for normal TV. Can't wait to see the "next" generation when Nintendo brings out a HD console.

InfernalEternal

5 years ago

I have an LCD TV that is capable of handeling 720/1080i, I sure as hell wont be upgrading for atleast another five years.

Whilst HD-penetration is relatively strong in America (Im pretty sure HDTV sales now outnumber SDTV sales, I think), I cant see it becoming the standard (the majority of TV purchases being HDTV's) here until atleast 2010.

GooberMan

5 years ago

mqphu1 wrote

Although 1080p displays are expensive now, but give it a couple of years displays will very AFFORDABLE.

And in a couple of years, it'll just be like progressive scan options in current gen consoles - lower resolution will be the standard, and it won't be garaunteed to be in every title. Unless SEDs get really cheap really quick after they're released, I don't see the average consumer rushing out to get a 1080p set within the next five years (especially as there are SD HDTV receivers that still work on their current TVs, and the new HD DVD/Blue Ray players have analog outputs aswell).

admeister

5 years ago

That's a good point you make there, the penetration here is far lower. That's not to ay that people here aren't worried about this sort of hing (look at thread), but it won't be as much of a factor here as in the US. I certainly don't have a HD TV, that's for sure.

EvilHayama

5 years ago

1080p might be more affordable, but not as affordable as the 720p or 1080i sets, and there will be no great reason to buy 1080p (everything that plays on 1080p will also play on a lower res and most people won't care about the difference)

Nev

5 years ago

Whether or not the majority of people are able to take advantage of 1080p, it certainly doesn't make it "meaningless," in this generation or any other.

This kind of mentality was why Nintendo chose to remove the component out from the GameCube. When my original GameCube kicked the bucket, I had to hunt down an older model to make use of my $50 cables, or else suffer the woes of composite (shudder), especially as PAL GameCubes don't even support S-Video.

I don't care if only a dozen people make use of 1080p.. Why should they miss out just because most people don't have a TV that supports it?

It's entirely plausible that many people will choose to upgrade to a 1080p-capable TV within a few years of purchasing a PS3. If the 360 and PS3 didn't support HD resolutions, I probably wouldn't even consider buying an HDTV at all, but as they do, it's one of the next things on my list.

If the PS3 having 1080p made it $50-$100 more expensive than it needed to be, or caused the games to run at a significantly lower frame rate, I could see the point here.

Karai Pantsu

5 years ago

Nev wrote

I don't care if only a dozen people make use of 1080p.. Why should they miss out just because most people don't have a TV that supports it?

Yeah! Why should the handful of exorbitantly rich people have to suffer because the majority of the(any) country don't have stupid amounts of disposable income?! Why should they have to bow and scrape down to the same level as us plebs when they have the money to buy our lives on a whim? I honestly don't know! Let's go and pleasure our money givers!

admeister

5 years ago

True, it is rather unfair on most of us, a lot of people can't afford things like this. Still, don't make fun of rich people too much, some people like us do save up, you know.

Karai Pantsu

5 years ago

Yeah, that was a drunk and belligerent post... I was fairly out of line.
Sorry for jumping down your throat there Nev, I took what you said the wrong way.

I actually think this whole high-def pissing war is largely meaningless - most people who are interested in games will make their console choice based on the games available/comming, not the little differences in the display. It must be great to have games running in high-def, but I have to say that even on my SDTV X360 games look pretty damn slick.
I'd buy a reasonably priced PS3 before I got anywhere near buying a HDTV I reckon.

Sin Ogaris

5 years ago

I'll buy a HDTV as soon as stations sstart delivering a decent amount of broadcasts in HD, you know television broadcasts, what TV's are designed for.

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