720p, xbox, and my Sony KP51HW40 (1 Viewer)

[Dave Mark]

I played NBA 2K3 on my XBOX last night. It is one of the two XBOX games that has a 720p signal. I tried it both with 720p "yes" and 720p "no" selected on the XBOX inquiries of what my TV accepts natively.

When 720p was selected, the image was MUCH better. It is the best looking game on my XBOX. The jaggies around the players and letters almost completely disappeared. The animations were silky smooth. The TV also locked into full mode (this has never happened to my set before). The signal had some quirks though. The starting lineups took up about 1/3 the space on the screen they normally do and the ESPN ticker in the lower right hand corner was also about 1/3 its 480p size. Also, at the team select screen, the team logos took about five seconds before they would appear (no delay in 480p). Overall, I'd say the picture with 720p selected is about 20% better than when 720p is not selected.

Oh, I tried holding the buttons down at start-up but never got a prompt asking me about resolution. I also started-up without holding the buttons and noticed the same picture quality.

The problem is, my Sony KP51HW40 TV is supposed to downconvert 720p to 480p, so I don't really get what's going on. I would have thought the signal would get worse as a result of the downconversion when compared to a natively displayed 480p. I don't have an HD tuner, so it is tough for me to tell if I'm viewing a 1080i, 720p, or 480p signal due to my lack of experience.

Does anyone know what's going on or what might be causing this might be causing this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also, thanks to Dave F for pointing out a similar situation on another thread (he used a similar Sony HW model and Tony hawk 4) and prompting me to try it.

 

[BrianDB]

I do not pretend to know, factually, the answers to your questions. However knowing the theory of 'puter games and such. the reason that the 720p setting looks so much better than the 480p is that the game is out putting a 1280x720 (720p) resolution as opposed to a 640x480 (480p) screen.

To get a better idea of this take any 3D computer game run it @ 640x480 then change the settings to 1280x720 or the closest resolution. You will notice that there are significantly less jaggies and such. Even if your set is down-converting the 720 to 480 it is still showing less of the jaggies as the xbox is not generating them in the first place.

I hope that gives you a start to you concerns.

The other way to look at is to take 2 identical digital photos (presuming you have a digital camera) one in 640x480 mode the other in the mode closest to 1280x720. View them on your computer. However before looking at them set your screen resolution to 640x480. Use your favorite image manipulation software and bring the 640 picture up full screen. You will see some blockyness and such. Now bring up the 1280 pic, once again ensuring it fills the entire screen. Now while you are viewing a 1280 picture you are only able to see a 640 resolution the picture should (in theory) look much more sharp and detailed. Even though you, theoretically, are looking at the same amount of detail.