XBOX360 - will 720p converted to 480p look like crap?

[trickytree]

Will it? The 360 puts out 720p natively, but can scale down to 480p. I've no intention of buying a new TV, so is this going to look rubbish or as good as native 480p? I know most LCD monitors look lousy when they do this.

Also, are all games going to be widescreen this time? My TV won't do 4:3 at 480p, and I can't be doing with that stretch-o-vision. If the PSP can manage it, grumble whinge...

[Schweino]

720p is always widescreen, so yes, all games will be widescreen.

[brians]

Will the xbox 360 not have menu options to specify your tv type, and therefore let you get a fullscreen picture if you have a standard tv? I'd need to know this before deciding to order one, since I can't stand pictures with large black spaces at the top and bottom, if I'm going to be stuck with this on the xbox 360 I'll not be buying one at all.

Brian

[fahrenheit]

I believe it will be up to the developers to implement proper ratio support, so there could be some games that have black bars in 4:3 ratios. And there may even be games like Soul Calibre 2 that is 4:3 within a 16:9 ratio when in 720p.

Also the quality of the 360's video chip will have a large bearing on how successfully it downscales from 720p and upscales to 1080i.

[Psyduck]

Itakagaki (Or whatever the DOA guy is called) has said DOA4 will support 4:3 TVs, so it's definitely up to developers

[EvilBoris]

Will it? The 360 puts out 720p natively, but can scale down to 480p. I've no intention of buying a new TV, so is this going to look rubbish or as good as native 480p? I know most LCD monitors look lousy when they do this.

Also, are all games going to be widescreen this time? My TV won't do 4:3 at 480p, and I can't be doing with that stretch-o-vision. If the PSP can manage it, grumble whinge...

It won't scale it down, that would be a waste of proccessor power, it will just output standard 480p, its not at point where they are abandoning standard definition yet.

[sj33]

Actually, it does scale it down. The 360 is 720p native for all games. The internal scaler scales it down to 480i/p etc (as well as to 800x600/1024x768 for VGA monitors, and even scales up to 1080i if you own such a set)..

[Lyris]

720p downscaled to 480p will definitely not look like crap.

I'm assuming you have a 480p plasma given by what you've said? If so you have two options. Either let the Xbox 360 do the downscaling to 480p and feed the plasma a native 480p signal. Or, tell the Xbox 360 to output 720p and see how well your panel handles the downscaling. Then go with what looks best.

[trickytree]

It's a CRT so no down-scaling by the TV.

I can't imagine they'd allow it to be crap at 480p or 480i, still the majority of users will have 480i sets so hopefully it'll look ok.

Might wait for some verdicts first though, to be sure.

[sj33]

It's a CRT so no down-scaling by the TV.

I can't imagine they'd allow it to be crap at 480p or 480i, still the majority of users will have 480i sets so hopefully it'll look ok.

Might wait for some verdicts first though, to be sure.

720p on a 480p screen can look crisp as heck actually.

[trickytree]

720p on a 480p screen can look crisp as heck actually.

Hope so, 480 / 720 = 2/3, so I guess every third line will be skipped, which should look ok. Does it work that way, or is the whole image 'sampled' and resized, as with FSAA?

Sorry for sounding nerdy, in reality I almost certainly don't know what I'm talking about

[sj33]

Hope so, 480 / 720 = 2/3, so I guess every third line will be skipped, which should look ok. Does it work that way, or is the whole image 'sampled' and resized, as with FSAA?

Sorry for sounding nerdy, in reality I almost certainly don't know what I'm talking about

It won't be anything as lame as line-skipping or anything. The 360 has a internal scaler built for the job.

[Schweino]

And there may even be games like Soul Calibre 2 that is 4:3 within a 16:9 ratio when in 720p.

And that is because 720p is widescreen natively

The xbox doesn't have enough processing power to run SC2 in 720p, so they bordered it down to a 4:3 box inside a 16:9 box.

[fahrenheit]

I know what 720p is and the reasons for SC 2 being 4:3, just using it to illustrate the point about developers picking and choosing what ratios they wish to support.

[sj33]

Microsoft seem pretty strict on *proper* HD support though. It's more likely most develops would opt to include 4:3 modes, as Tecmo are doing with DoA4, as opposed to making any game in 4:3 specifically.

I personally support this. Asda sell widescreen TV's for what, ?150 now?