PS3 reviews... looking forward to some hands-on comments... (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

It's funny I saw the lines outside of Best Buy and at Target today and it sorta made me wish that I liked something enough to sit in line for three or four days for it.

 

[ppltd]

We sometimes have a warped sensibility on what is important. It is a game console. I personnaly would rather wait a few months and let Sony fix the bugs, and actually release a game or two more worth owning before punking down my money. Just my opinion.

It was January before I got my 360, and it only happed because I was in BB while a delivery was being pulled off a truck. Had not gone in to buy one, but since it was there, I figured, why not. I might do the same if I come across a PS3, depending on the reviews of it's BD playback capabilities.

 

[Aaron Cooke]

I don't know how/if this effects blu-ray playback or not but the big news for today is that the PS3 hardware can NOT upconvert 720p to 1080i so games that are made in 720p like resistance of man can only be played in 480p on some TV sets.

All major stores around here (columbus OH) have been camped since about 72 hours before launch and the minor or out of the way places seemed to start forming lines abou 24 hours in advance.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Upscaling to 1080i/1080p for both non-1080p games and DVDs will probably be firmware upgradable in the near future on the PS3.

 

[Cees Alons]

Possibly. But I will not buy the thing before I see it realized.

(Of course, "720p is already beautiful". Yeah. According to that reasoning we do not really have to get TrueHD or DTS-MA either, if just below-par is already beautiful.)

All that said: I really still don't believe it won't output 1080i or 1080p. That would defy the whole logic of having a PS3 for HR BD-movies. What high-resolution if you can't see it?


Cees

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I'm sure it will output 1080i from 1080i sources, but why should it convert 720p to 1080i if the game designers or video producers decided they wanted to work in 720p? Sure, it would be nice if it upscaled video, assuming that the quality was better than what nearly every television does anyway, but it's scarcely vital.

 

[Grant H]

BD movies would not be effected. They're 1080p. It just can't UPSCALE a 720p source to a 1080. Just as it can't upscale DVD's. As Jar Jar would say, "Meesa no scalee."

 

[DaViD Boulet]

ChrisDac,

some HDTV displays can't accept a 720P native signal. They can only accept 480i/p or 1080i.

However, most of those sets don't have HDMI either. Can anyone confirm if the PS3 will pass 720P/1080P from games over component or just via HDMI?

 

[ppltd]

Cees,

I wouldn't worry too much about it, as most us us won't be able to touch one until well into next year. By then, Sony should have it fixed .

 

[Grant H]

I wonder what the proportion of 720p to 1080i/p games is going to be.

Are their 1080 games all 1080p? I know I saw some of the launch titles were 1080.

I can see why people would be a little upset. There's obviously some information lost when being bumped from 720p down to 480p. But if there won't be that many 720p titles and not that many people will be affected anyway.... There were 720p sets before any 1080p sets were around, right? And now people have 1080p sets. I'm probably one of the few who would actually be affected...if I actually purchased a PS3. No HDMI, no 720p. Though even HD cable boxes can convert 720p to 1080 i for my TV. If they have a chip in the system taht can do it, it will likely be enabled some day. Much like my Philips DVD player that had a chip capable of scaling to 1080i (over component) before there were a lot of players around that upscaled.

Of course, if there are going to be a lot of 720p titles and more people with handicapped TVs than I imagine, that's a big downer for gamers.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I am aware of the existence of HDTVs which don't accept 720p (if I had my way there wouldn't be any 720p, but that is another story), hence my "nearly all" — given that it's part of the ATSC standard, and it's almost the only HD game going in Europe, though, I don't expect that too many people will be too badly affected. In any case, the quantity of 720p mastered video software out there is quite limited, and I rather expect it to stay that way.

 

[ppltd]

I thought one of the big selling points Sony was using against the 360 was the fact that the games would be 1080p, running at 60 FPS. Now their premeire entry is only 720p? What gives.

 

[ToEhrIsHuman]

Remember that it is only a launch title (I'm assuming you are referring to "Resistance" as the 720P culprit.) The NBA 2K7 (I think) title is 1080P as are others I'm sure. And I think we will see 1080P game titles as the norm in the future (at least I certainly hope so.)

 

[ppltd]

This is true, but with so few titles available, and Resistance set to be the systems 'Killer App', it is a problem for Sony. I would question why the 720p limitation of the game. Was it lack of time, or some issue with memory or the Cell processor that limited the game to 720p. What ever the case, it is hard to blame the devopers for something that wasn't included in the system.

These problems should go away when the developers get to know the system better. Certainly, the 360 launch titles were not without their problems.

 

[BrianB]

It's worth noting that almost every 360 game renders at 720p, but the scaler 'solves' the issue. If the PS3 games had access to the scalar, it would be no issue. Hopefully something that can be resolved through firmware.

 

[Brian Kaz]

Since no one is offering up some hands on reviews in here I thought I'd share a little. For the record, I'm using the Ps3 with HDMI set to 1080/60p output to a Sony Pearl projected on a 110" Carada screen.

I'll get the one real nag out of the way: The HDMI port is FINICKY. I'm using a Monster 800 4ft cable into an Elite receiver which offers pass-thru for the 1080p signal, and I had to fiddle with it for a few minutes before it finally took. After that, I couldn't touch the thing or the signal would be lost again. Strangely though, if I take my Blue Jeans cable from the Elite and go straight into the PS3, I would have no troubles.

BD Playback: This is my first BD Player (I also had a HD-A1 for a month but took it back due to it's glitchy disposition. Will probably try an A2 someday). The only frame of reference for HD content I have is to the 7 or so HD DVD movies I've seen. First off, the audio quality of the PS3 is uniformly EXCELLENT, be it movies or games. The menus, loading, etc are very responsive, much like a regular DVD player.

As for picture quality, Blackhawk Down is the best of what Ive seen so far (I have Taledega Nights, BHD & Xmen 3). The image is crisp and vibrant and the audio is pure crack for the ears.

Xmen 3 I'd label one notch below BHD. The image is a bit grainy, but not too soft. Definitely looks and sounds great. I'd say it's on par with V for Vendetta on HD DVD.

Talledega Nights is both slightly soft and slightly lacking in sonic "oomph". It's not bad, but it's not awesome either. But hey, it was free! I think sony should have packaged in a better representation of the format for us first timers, but getting it early is a nice treat.

They have a long way to go on the internet front. There's some HD game/movie trailers and a couple of demos to download but not much else. But if you have the chance, download the demo of Blast Factor, it was in 1080p but full on old school gaming. Aside from that, the controllers cool, the system is purty to look at and it's HEAVY.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

-KAZ

 

[Chris S]

So do you think this is a problem with the cable, the reciever, or the PS3? Sounds like a cabling issue to me.

 

[Brian Kaz]

Well, I just messed around with it again and was able to recreate the problem with my Blue Jeans cable. It's not as bad, but there's definitely an issue. This problem could be isolated to my unit.

A couple of other things: The PS3 will display the bitrate of a BD movie when you press the SELECT button. On Talledega Nights, the bitrate was anywhere from 19mbps to 30mbps. I'm guessing the softness and such is inherent in the transfer.

I've also had one hang up so far that keeps repeating: I downloaded the NBA07 demo (at 1gb) and I get nothing after the initial start screen.

Still have a lot more to discover...

 

[Brian Kaz]

By the way, the movement on BD films is great. Pans that would normally judder are silky smooth. I'm not sure 1080/24p could do much better (might be my Pearl doing this, though).

Also, there a "Coming to Blu-Ray" preview on Talledega that's pretty awesome. It shows clips from a bunch of films including Lawrence of Arabia and Big Fish that should come on BEFORE you watch the movie. This would get people more excited about BD than the main movie.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Good news...sort of My internet was out yesterday, so my decision to sell my PS3 for $3k was made for me...because today they are selling for $1200. So I am going to open it in a few minutes. I have Resistance, BHD, and Kingdom of Heaven. Reviews later tonight.