f13.net

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/4694/

Way to not fucking get it Nintendo. Jesus.

I saw that the other day. I was too dumbfounded to post it.

Wow, how retarded.

I'm not saying that not having HD support is bad because "everyone" will have HD. I'm just saying that not having a feature that your competition is heavily marketing as important is stupid. Really, really stupid.

Calling this product the Revolution is going to spawn so many puns...

The mind boggles.

Hopefully it will at least support 480p.  Otherwise I'll have to buy a plane ticket to Kyoto....

I am mostly confused because the GAMECUBE supports high def.  You have to buy the stupid cable mail order, but it supports it.  Metroid prime widescreen high def is great I hear.

I don't have the high def cable yet (out of TV inputs and too cheap for a high def splitter), but the gamecube has better support for widescreen in first party titles than the Xbox seems to have.  Windwaker, pikmin2, metroid prime 1 and 2, mario party 6, double dash... all those support widescreen.  On my xbox... um... panzer dragoon oorta and ninja gaiden are the only games I have that do.  Many sites CLAIM that espn2k5 does, but it does NOT, there is distortion when in 16:9.  It would be a no brainer for crimson skies and mechassault to support widescreen but they do not.  Both are distored in widescreen (although they still look okay to me usually, they do not support it).


Pretty sad that the rev will be a step BACK on some games.  I don't mind too much, I generally prefer widescreen to hd if it is a choice of one or the other.  Both is preferable of course.

Cube supports "progressive scan" only.  480p at best, definitely not 1080.  The term "HD" means "1080i/p".

I can't say I really care one way or the other if the Revoluton supports 1080i/p. It's still going to be years before Joe Sixpack has a HDTV.

Doesn't HD also include 720p?  I see 720p listed as hd all the time.  It is only very recently that consumer level tvs even supported 1080p.

Edit: and my source was apparently smoking weed.  I know that 480p is not HD (just dvd quality) but I was led to believe that GC had some 720p games, but since I still only have stock composite output on it I was never able to verify personally (and didn't bother to google search it out)

I'd like to take this moment and ask someone about these numbers. What do they mean? What's the difference? Can you explain it in layman's terms. Thanks. I feel this way about speakers too.

I think ED or Enhanced Def is 480, not sure what 720 is.  A DVD player outputs in 480p, I seem to remember.  HD is actually 1080 and 16:9 per the actual specification.  480p is the low-water-mark here.

San Andreas on the PS2 does 16:9 across the digital cable, and prog scan at what I assume is 480 resolution.  I have not researched it since I'm at whatever the ceiling is for the machine.  The Cube doesn't tell me what resolution, either, only that it is prog scan... so I am assuming 480.

At least some Game Boy games will not display in prog scan mode when run from the GCGBP.

The Urbz claims to do 720p, but something between my Xbox and TV chokes at that setting.  Probably the out-of-production Denon receiver.  Since it is The Urbz, I have not spent much time looking into it.

You are making me sound like I know a lot about A/V, and I don't want to give that impression.

The number is the amount of horizontal lines of resolution.  The i is for interlaced, the p is progressive scan.

Interlaced means that each drawing of the screen is alternating odd and even horizontal lines.  So that during certain camera pans you can actually see the odd and even lines separate as they are always one frame/update apart.

Progressive draws all lines on every screen update.

DVDs are 480p for instance.  That means they have 480 vertical lines, and data for all lines in each frame.  Your dvd player could be 480p or 480i.  Progressive scan is definately better, I can pretty easily see the difference on a camera pan.  Xbox dvd playback is in 480i for some stupid reason involving licensing.... a hacked xbox can do progressive for dvds so it is not a hardware issue.

Hope that helps, and hope it is accurate.  I only recently learned the same stuff.  I still know nothing about speakers, heh.

While we're asking HDTV type questions, could someone elaborate on this:
How would this work?  I only buy legitimate DVDs and games but at some point I would like to make my own DVD compilations of TV shows and such.  If this blocks any DVD without some sort of anti-pirate flag I wouldn't be able to do that.

While component video cables only transmit video, HDMI transmits digital audio and "other" data like copyright shit.

Thanks that helps. P is better than I and the higher numbers mean better stuff. Now all I need to figure out is bang for the buck. How much better are the higher number in comparison? Is it worth a price bump?

I am just nitpicking, but I was pretty upset at the fact that San Andreas does NOT support 480p on the ps2. It does do 480p on the xbox, though.

They have no excuse to not use 480p on the ps2. It's just lazyness and "not caring" because apparenly joe 6pack will buy it anyhow.

and the 1080i that GT4 uses isn't "real" 1080i, but it's taking a 480p signal and using it to display 960 interlaced lines. So it has the same overhead as 480p, but is actually broadcast at 1080i (if that makes sense)

quick and dirty:

1080i = 1920x1080, interlaced. one pass it displays the odd lines, the next pass it displays even ones.
1080p = 1920x1080, progressive. displays both even and odd lines in one pass. Looks amazing. You could hook up a PC to a tv that does 1080p and it would look incredible.

720p = 1280x720, progressive. This is what most "HTPC"s use. There is no interlaced variant, and I'm not sure why. Looks great. Just think of it like playing your favorite computer game at 1024x768, but on a 48" tv. If you have a fry's nearby, and you see those plasma screens there showing ut2k4, this is the resolution they're using.

480i= normal tv
480p= progressive normal tv. biggest difference in video games is text readability and flicker, or lack of flicker.

If you are planning on buying a tv that will last for awhile, I'd pick up something that did 720p, 1080i, AND 1080p. There aren't too many on the market yet that do 1080p, but I'm sure youll get some use out of it further down the road. My tv is nearly 3 years old, a 48" mitsubishi, and it does 1080i, but no 720p. 480i/p is a given.

If you want something soon, just make sure it does 720p. I plan on upgrading when 1080p gets affordable.

It's just like computer monitors.  The bigger the monitor is in size, the higher the resolution you want on it, so that things are nicely sized and not blocky.  You could take a 15" monitor to 1280x1024 but then fonts would be too small to read.  You could keep a 21" at 640x480 but then everything is big, blocky, and pixelated.

For HDTV, the bigger the thing is, the higher the resolution you want, so that sitting next to it playing games, things look smooth and nice.

If you are going to get a huge TV, go ahead and drop some cash on a wireless controller and sit ten or twenty feet back.  Get off that beanbag.

Nope. HD means 720p, 1080i. 1080p is actually not currently part of the 'accepted' HD standard although it certainly will be soon but few broadcasters will use it due to bandwidth. HD signals aren't free.

"High-Definition Television. The high-resolution subset of our DTV system. The FCC has no official definition for HDTV. The ATSC defines HDTV as a 16:9 image with twice the horizontal and vertical resolution of our existing system, accompanied by 5.1 channels of Dolby Digital audio. The CEA defines HDTV as an image with 720 progressive or 1080 interlaced active (top to bottom) scan lines. 1280:720p and 1920:1080i are typically accepted as high-definition scan rates" The latter is generally what people mean referring to HD.

This is why many lower end plasma's are called HD "ready" which is marketing Bullshit for EDTV - extended definition. They downsample 720p signals to their own resolution which is higher than 480p but lower than 720p (often 1024 x 768 or even 8xx x 5xx) .

EDIT: To those who are thinking about buying an HD set - do a lot of research. http://www.avsforum.com is one of the most respected sources of consumer knowledge in this arena. Bigger is not always better - for instance 1080p - WOW that must be way better than 1080i right? Well yes, but what are you going to watch? The vast majority of HD broadcasts - both OTA and Cable - are 720p. The rest are 1080i. Very few broadcasters have endorsed the 1080p standard due to the increased bandwidth issue, not just on the cable infrastructure but on the digital channel spectrum they have access to by license. Personally i wouldn't buy a 1080p set right now - even BlueRay will have a hard time feeding one. Better to look at the 1080i/720p DLP's/LCD's/Plasmas. That's where the sweet spot is IMO.

EDIT2: A kickass PC hooked to a 1080p TV would be a valid use today and would look STELLAR. Big $$$ but that would be rocking.

Suppose I were not sure I wanted a CRT, LCD or plasma...?  I'm actually getting quite irritated with my PC monitor, not my TV, but I'll sponge up any info you have.

Is that also the reason the PS3 (apparently) will support 1080p while the X360 "stops" at 1080i? Sony can ensure their PS3 console works with their own HDTV sets - Microsoft does not have such an advantage.

Getting back to the Revolution: I think Nintendo are targeting a different (read: non-geeky) market that does not buy a HDTV set before they have to. Plus, higher resolution graphics do not alone a better game make. But very little is known about what it actually will do - except for the backwards compatibility. You do not need HDTV to play the SNES version of Mario Kart for instance.

If you have a Costco membership, they have a decent 30" Widescreen CRT HDTV for ~$600. I know schild uses one and loves it.

Agreed, unless you really have money to burn and must early-adopt every new tech, a 1080p TV is overkill for any source you're going to hook up to it. I suppose PS3 might support 1080p, but I wonder how many games are going to go the extra mile to code for this when its going to be such a small percentage of HDTV owners that will take advantage of it.

If you're looking for a new HDTV for the new consoles I'd say a set with a native 720p display is your best bet right now.

Heh, Mac vs. Pc debates looks tame compared to the religious fervor of TV fanbois. Basically $ for $ your best bets are LCD projection or DLP projection. These sets physically are similar to the old school CRT projection but much lighter, digital and use either a LCD panel or a TI Colour Wheel to project a picture. I'll summarize what i learned basically around these below, highly suggest researching on avs forums for in-depth info - thousands of HDTV owners of every kind of set and the benefits and problems of each.

DLP - I'm a big fan of DLP (i own a samsung 56" Tantus DLP) Digital Light Processing is the technology used by Digital projection theaters and is built by TI. It's essentially a colour wheel with 5 - 7 colours than spins at very high revolutions and is screened by a mirror to create pixels. It's complicated and one of the drawbacks is the moving parts (i've had to have the light engine/wheel assembly on mine replaced once under warranty.) Manufacturers of note - Samsung, Loewe, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, JVC

DLP Benefits:
* Near true blacks (contrast ratio) - not as good as CRT tubes but very good
* Brilliant colour fidelity
* No burn in (no phospors, screen is simply plastic or glass)
* Very sharp picture (some see this as a drawback, oversharpened image)
* Inexpensive

DLP Drawbacks:
* Rainbow effect - this is an odd effect that occurs when a bright object is on a dark background, generally moving. The eye catches the wheel colours and creates a mild rainbow halo around the object. Not all people see this, some do and it causes headaches in a small % of people.
* Not TRUE blacks. Some light always gets through reducing the black point.
* Moving parts in the TV

LCD Rear Projection. Essentially a transparent LCD panel that is projected onto a screen. Manufacturers of note - Sony, Hitachi

Benefits:
* Minimal artifacting (rainbows, jaggies)
* Stable technology, no moving parts
* High res (sony's first 1080p set was LCD RP)
* Inexpensive

Drawbacks
* Bad blacks and white crush. Any image with significant shadow or highlight areas (+/-DMAX) is lost. The LCD panel has the worst blacks and whites due to it's transparency.
* Screen door effect. Some people complain they see a 'screen' door where a fine black line appears between the pixels. I had a Hitachi 50V500 for a couple weeks and i never saw this.
* Colour crush. Sony LCD RP's display red crush (bluish hue) Hitachi's display blue crush (red hue). Requires professional calibration to correct.

LCD Direct View - similar to an LCD monitor. Many manufacturers.

Benefits
* Excellent picture, true blacks, great colour fidelity.
* Light small and thin
* High Resolution (1080p) available

Drawbacks
* Small. Anything in the 40"+ range is very $$$, a pretty major limitation in HD home theater

Plasma - hard to explain as i don't really know how it works. Essentially fixed pixels filled with gas that respond to electrical charges. All high end manufacturers make plasma - Phillips, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, JVC

Benefits
* Awesome picture. True blacks, brilliant colour. Equal to or superior to high end CRT.
* Light weight, thin and available in large formats (50"+)

Drawbacks
* Lower resolution per dollar. 720p+ sets are more than their DLP/LCD RP equivalents.
* Burn in. Some people complain of burn in when using plasma with PC's/consoles.
* Longevity. Early Plasma's are failing now creating concern over the technologies longevity.

Common issues - you want a number of things regardless which type of T.V. you buy:

* HDMI DVI port. THis will be key in the future for viewing copy protected hi-def content. Most have this.
* Scaler. These are all fixed pixel displays so all do some scaling. For instance my tv's natural resolution is 1280x720p. That's a nice resolution as it maps to the 720p standard directly. Be cautious with tv's that have native resolutions different from the 720p, 1080i/1080p standard, they are more difficult to hook up to PC's. All must scale 480i/p signals so understand how they do that. Samsung uses the Faroujda scaler which is pretty awesome and is one of their advantages.
* Inputs. As many as you can. I have DVI, 3xComponent and a bunch of SVideo, Composite inputs. DVI - HTPC, Component 1 - DVD, Component 2 - HD Cable Box, Component 3 - Xbox. Some (Hitachi) sets share component inputs (ie. 3 inputs but only 2 useable at a time if DVI used).


Good luck and if you have time surf avs forum, people there know this shit cold.

Aren't there DLP's that use multiple wheels that minimize the rainbow effect?

Not that i know of. Their are multi-chip sets that control 3 mirrors instead of the one chip one mirror method most use and this reduces rainbows significantly (3 chip systems are what digital theater projectors use). Ironically the newer TV's use 7 colour wheels to create a broader colour spectrum which makes rainbows worse. I've probably massacred the actual technical issue but that's the gist of it. That being said, i don't see the rainbows except very occassionally when my mouse cursor is on a black background and i catch it out of the corner of my eye.

Ahh yes, 3 chip. That's what I heard about.

I assume those are big ass expensive.

BIG BIG BIG ASS. Like Oprah's pre-diet. I believe there's only 1 or 2 on the market and they are crazy expensive. Rumour has it Sammy will ship a consumer 3 chip in 06/07 though.

It probably doesn't matter that Nintendo may not support HDTV.  Their target audience seems to be under 12 years old... they won't care.

That hurts, Signe.   :cry:

Not all NTSC DVDs are 480p. A surprising number of even non-TV sourced material DVDs are mastered at 480i.

3 chip DLP systems don't have a color wheel so there's no rainbow effect at all.

Edit: fixed typos

I'm sorry.   :?   I meant to say except for you but my hair is wet and I was in a hurry.

Edit:  This is meant for Ahoythematey but Trippy interrupted.

While I'm sure it's true the RP LCD doesn't have the same depth of black as a CRT for example, it's likely that it is something you would never notice. I have a 50" Sony rear-projection LCD that I recently purchased, and black looks like ...well black to me. It's the kind of "problem" you would have to really look for and make comparisons to notice. The so called "screen door" effect I have noticed a few times, looks like just a little bit of pixelization/interference, but I have only noticed it once or twice and as long as you're sitting far enough back from a big TV it's another thing you'd probably never notice.

I have no experience with DLP, but I've heard from people that had both extremes, a set that had noticeable rainbow and gave them headaches apparently and people that never noticed a thing ... not sure what brands they had went with unfortunately.

Depends. Videophiles would lynch you for this comment heh. I returned my Hitachi 50V500 due to light blacks and limited inputs. In a given situation you really can see it - ie. side by side with a CRT. But for most it's not an issue. It didn't bother me much, the limited inputs on the Hitachi were a deal breaker, but i can certainly see the difference in black levels, particularly watching a film like Blade Runner.

The more I hear, the more I read, the more I get the feeling that there isn't anything better than a standard CRT.

As the proud owner of 3 different technologies, let me say this right now:

CRT.

kthx.

You're correct depending on application. For image quality there is nothing superior to CRT yet. HDTV CRT's are beautiful things. However, fixed pixel displays are better at HTPC and PC/Console gaming. But you have to pick your poison, there's no perfect set yet.

CRT for gaming in any game where black is a necessary evil is still the best way to go. And since most games worth their salt have dark patches, CRT is the best way to go.

Also, I'll admit, firing up a projector just isn't as fun. And bulbs are expensive, period.

How are fixed pixel displays better for PC gaming? You don't get the refresh rate of CRTs, you lose the "sharpness" if you don't play at the native resolution and many LCDs only display 18-bit color.

I think he likes screen doors.  :-D

I just don't have enough middle fingers!

"Nintendo Brand Scores Among Kids"


Hummer and Nike? Abercrombie? This may be the first time in history that teenagers have their fingers over here, far from the pulse of cool, shoved securely up their collective ass.

And I'd almost forgotten why I hate children.

At least Dell is in the crapper where it belongs.

Useless.  Cool kids don't answer surveys.  Even if they did, who cares if they don't like Toyota?  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Wait, Levi's are uncool? WTF is wrong with kids these days? In my day, Levi's were the shiznit, or the '80's equivalent of the shiznit. Maybe the rocks? I don't remember, those times are a bit foggy.

Levi's will never go out of style.  Ever.

I can only assume you meant "those times were a bit faggy" and... they were.

Not in Italy, you're right.

How dare you suggest that Rob Halford was "a bit faggy" in his leather studded outfits.

You're right. I'll go impale myself on smoking hot pink liberty spikes worn by the girl next door with the "kill your television" shirt.

(http://achimai.boo.jp/archives/wham.jpg)

You have much larger displays (RPTV) that don't require convergence calibration. You have a 1:1 pixel mapping between a PC and the TV (usually 1280x720). Not sure what you mean about  18-bit colour - LCD panels?? My Dell LCD monitor does 32-bit colour and my Sammy DLP does 32 bit too. Perhaps lower quality LCD panels only do 18-bit? Dunno.

Personally i much prefer the 1:1 pixel mapping as it allows me to run my PC through my TV with no over or underscan - an issue on CRT RPTV's as they generally don't have the input options for digital signals that the fixed pixel displays do. If you mean your 32" CRT TV, that's fine, but i'm talking about 50"+ sets with HDMI/DVI inputs. Many new RP/CRT's have HDMI but getting them to work properly as a PC monitor is difficult in my experience. YMMV.

Like i said - pick your poison. FWIW most people who are more knowledgeable than i on this topic view CRT as the best quality but a dead technology.

Just out of curiosity, why do you think this is? Is it mainly the size/weight issue? To get a decent size CRT screen .. you're talking a really big, heavy beast of a TV.

501's forever.

A CRT costs more to manufacture, I think.  Manufacturers are spending more R&D on the new tech, while there's not much further the CRT can go, I imagine.  I figure by the time I really need a new TV, I can get some new tech with better or comparable quality.  Maybe that buckytube thing they are working on.

My 34" CRT must weigh over 200 pounds.  It is just ridiculously heavy.  I had to pull some Egyptian ramp shit to get it into the house, only to find that there was no way in holy-hell I was going to be able to lift that fucker onto the cabinet myself.  We watched TV at floor level for a week.

First of all most references to "32-bit color" really mean 24-bit color (8 bits for each of the red, green, and blue channels) and an 8-bit alpha channel (for blending effects). Next, Google on 6-bit and LCD and you'll see what I'm referring to. Many LCDs can only reproduce 6-bits of color for each of the RGB subpixels which means you are really only getting 262,144 distinct colors rather than the 16.7 million you get with a full 24-bit color display. And just cause your LCD spec says it supports "16 million" colors doesn't mean it is a 24-bit display. They could be lying or they could just be emulating the missing colors (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/lcd-guide_11.html) by using a method roughly analogous to the dithering people used to do before we got "true color" video cards. Annoyingly enough, it's often the "gaming" LCDs that have these 18-bit panels cause you can get faster response times compared to a comparably priced 24-bit LCD panel.

Cost, size and maintenance. CRT's (large RPCRT's) require convergence calibration somewhat frequently or they lose thier picture advantage. And they are fucking huge and heavy. Mostly though there's not a lot of capability to improve the technology. There isn't going to be any breakthrough's in CRT tech to improve them whereas LCD/DLP/Plasma are in their infancy (well, LCD are sometimes referred to as "old" as well.) Other technologies (LCoS) are being explored as well. In the end i think CRT's have just reached the end of their life cycle. The size, weight, maintenance and technical limitations overwhelm their current picture advantage - which i'd bet they don't have for long.

The extreme weight of my 34" CRT directly led to the purchace of the 30" LCD (which I loved untll about a min
ago, I will have to look up my ability to display all colors now)

CRT's may be the end all, but you better have lots of friends or professional movers if you ever want to take the thing to a new home.  Moving my cabnet a few inches to rewire took 2 people.

Ahh, shit. Nuked my hdtv fanboi post because I forgot to post after previewing.

Anyway, DLP, baby. Been gaming at 61" widescreen (1280x720, the set is 720p native via DVI) for the last year and a half and I can't say enough good things about it. Throw in some solid wireless control for sofa gaming, the hell with crouching over a computer desk! Sprinkle with DD5.1 home theater system, bake for hours of homestyle gaming goodness.

(http://home.twcny.rr.com/iamthey/images/kahuna2.jpg)

Planetside kicks ass. GTASA is friggin' awesome. Or dope, I guess. It was nice seeing a lot of E3 presentations on widescreens. Now include native support in the games, pigfuckers.

What about JVC's D-ILA system? It's a 3-chip DLP-like system. Is it any good? Costco has a 61" for $2500. (http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?prodid=11003783&whse=BC&topnav=&cat=&s=1)

JVC's breakdown of their technology. (http://www.jvc.com/Presentations/HDILA/drawbacks.html)

Seems to me D-ILA is the way to go. No screen door or rainbows. I like that.

My understanding is that Liquid Crystal on Silicon (or LCoS, D-ILA is JVC's brand name for that technology) displays have a much smaller contrast ratio compared to DLP (~1000:1 vs ~3000:1).