I got to test Sacred 2 again tonight. I remember testing the various rendering modes but my display is shitty so the out come may not be really objective, ie it may not do justice to 1080p down sampled to 720p as upscaling quality offered by my display sucks. It's too bad they didn't offer the option to do this in game (you have to tweak the 360 general system options).
Benefit of 1080p over 720p: Is it worth it?
- Thread starter Nesh
- Start date
Then it´s either shit encodes or a shitty display device.. or 19 inch screen from a few meters away?
46" 1080p HDTV at 3-4m, 20" LCD monitor (1680x1050) at 0.7-1m. If BRD doesn't look better than SD it is becouse the source movie for the BRD was SD and just upscaled, bad encoding, low bitrate or bad dispaly screen that cant bring about the detail.
True but there is still a clear difference. Whenever blur is not applied for out-of-focus object then SD greatly looses. In scenes like facial closeup with background blurred out it's not as obvious. It's all about the bitrate and what you do with it, how it is distributed for the scenes.
I assume the PS3 is connected to you monitor. You might loose sharpness detail becouse the 1080p output needs to be downscaled to 1680x1050. If you let your monitor handle scaling it probably is a shit scaler like in almost all monitors and it will impact detail in a negative way. Let your GPU handle the scaling.
But suppose it would run at 60fps in 1080p and juddery in 720p, then the 1080p version would be better. Smooth framerate is always better than stuttering framerate but high resolution + smooth framerate gives the most.
Ofcourse, perfomance vs visual ratio.
corduroygt
Banned
That's a huge viewing distance. You'd be hard pressed to see the difference on that size screen from that distance.
THX recommends a viewing distance of 1.39m for this screen size.
http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-entertainment/home-theater/hdtv-set-up/
http://www.thx.com/consumer/home-entertainment/home-theater/hdtv-set-up/
That's much better. THX recommends 0.6m
Wrong for my case, it's very obvious. I happen to have several digital channels with several of them being science and nature channels that come in both SD and HD version aswell as a few movie channels in both flavors. This allows me to just switch channel to see same program in SD or HD. The difference is stark in pronounced detail, sharpness and colors for same program either 720p, or 1080p. Areas that are blurry/blurred out in SD version are sharp, detailed and well defined in HD version.
The problem with such distance is IQ will be crap on any HDTV of that size unless it is HD material of quality.
Sounds good for the monitor size. 0.6m roughly the distance my head is from monitor when reading and 0.7-1m for gaming or movies.
corduroygt
Banned
I meant to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. You can easily notice the HD/SD difference from that size/distance, but not 720p/1080p difference.
Yes it's harder between 720p and 1080p but it is also relative to what you're watching. Nature programs showing vast views, jungle etc are crisper and more defined. For movies that tend to use a lot of focus blur it's much harder to notice difference but it depends on the movie shown and how it is filmed and edited. The less of the scene(s) that is out of focus the easier to see the difference. On my PC monitor it's very noticable either way.
One of the reasons is purely based on source material, in the professional tv-world the equipment used to produce and edit Hi-Def, (and SD as well) varies to an extreme extent.
You have anything from 960x720, 1280x720,1440x1080 to 1920x1080 at framerates from 25 to 60 either progressive or interlaced.
Using a color sample from 4:1:1 4:2:0 4:2:2: to 4:4:4 (rare for recording devices)
With bitrates from 18 to 50mbit to 100mbit using either CBR or VBR in MPEG2 with or without long gop. And some even using AVC upto 100mbit.
And then we have the editing process where the material goes through a process where hardware, resources and money decides how gentle the original material gets treated. Do we dump it in a less bitrate heavy format with fewer demands on hardware and storage or do we dump it in an insane high bitrate and struggle with hardware demands.
Finally we render and master the product, the mastering media again decides the quality, is it a 25 Mbit XDCAM HD Disc, or is it a HDCAM SR HQ tape at 880 Mbit.
I can only say that, real SD material recorded on professional equipment, and edited at 1:1 , and put on Digibeta tape via SDI, looks fucking amazing. It´s amazing how good SD can look but pretty much no one ever gets to see, just how good.
Now imagine how good HD material looks at the source, in a HiDef OB Truck, recording concerts it´s almost sad how much can be lost when the final product is out on TV
Sorry, got carried away
40" screen from 2m. It's not a fault of either, but the fact that filmed movies have a lot of blur anyway. That's why CG movies look notably better. Depending on the film, some films will have subtle details like Blade Runner's lights that will stand out, or scenic shots where focal-distance at infinity and little camera movement means clear details. Otherwise any moving camera focussing at a non-infinite distance is going to have a smidgeon of blur that'll destroy the advantage of 1080p.
I've played PJM 1080p native too. You're arguing a perception issue here, so there is no right or wrong other than what a person actually sees. And I and many others can't see an obvious difference in plenty of casees, both games and movies.
Well sure, but that's not the choice, is it?! On fixed hardware, unless you have processing to spare that you can get more resolution for no cost, it's a choice between lower framerates and higher resolution, or lower resolution and more frames and/or shaders. That's where the OP's question comes from - is it better for PS3 games to render 1080p or 720p? Choosing 720p often means better framerates and the perceptual difference isn't all that high, if at all detectable depending on viewer and title, making it often the better compromise.
You did mention SD, if you seriously mean that SD vs 1080 p on a 40 inch screen isn´t a great difference, then you should consider getting your eyes checked.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Throw me and most of my friends in that group also. With a TV that has a good scaler at any reasonable viewing distance, 720p and 1080p will indistinguishable from each other in all but computer generated movies, and even then it's pretty debatable for most people. I personally don't know anyone (in real life) that can consistently tell me whether even a computer generated movie is running at 720p scaled or 1080p on my TV. I've had some friends claim they can, but when put to the test, they are often 50/50 as to whether they correctly guess what resolution it is.
480p versus 720p/1080p is sometimes noticeable however. Not so much with live action films unless it's a slow or non-moving panoramic shot, but noticeable with computer generated movies if you're actively looking for details.
IMO, if it were possible to get 8xMSAA or 4xMSAA+4x coverage sample, 720p would be indistinguishable from 1080p with the same AA levels for virtually anyone on modern day HDTVs.
Only time you may be able to tell is if something had absolutely miniscule details which would generally be lost at typical TV viewing distances.
Then again I don't expect next gen consoles to be capable of 8xMSAA although 4xMSAA + 4x coverage samples are a distinct possibility. And even AMD's new 2xMSAA+2x coverage sample AA is pretty decent with very little overhead.
Regards,
SB
Throw me and most of my friends in that group also. With a TV that has a good scaler at any reasonable viewing distance, 720p and 1080p will indistinguishable from each other in all but computer generated movies, and even then it's pretty debatable for most people. I personally don't know anyone (in real life) that can consistently tell me whether even a computer generated movie is running at 720p scaled or 1080p on my TV. I've had some friends claim they can, but when put to the test, they are often 50/50 as to whether they correctly guess what resolution it is.
But you cant ignore viewing distance and screen size. It will be all relative.
I doubt that though console games packs generally low IQ when it comes to textures, filtering etc. When it comes to PC games using AF and higher res textures native 1080p clearly preserves a lot more native detail. And the HDTV I got has a very good scaler part of Sharp Aquos system.
Not at all. My eyes are tested and I wear corrective glasses, so they're just fine. As are plenty of other people's. Lots of people watch DVDs on their HDTVs thinking they're getting HD, because they can't notice any difference. It's disingenuous to assume when I and my friends sat down to watch a 1080p movie for the first time and failed to see any advantage, and subsequent movies too, that we're all blind. We'lll sometimes point out when we notice a difference, like Blade Runner, or Monster's Inc., but it's not that often. Are you telling me in the bourne Supremacy with all those wild camera motions, it looks better at 1080p than at standard resolution? It's just a blur!
Reality is, if people can't perceive much of a difference, there isn't much of a difference. And I've explained why - there's a technical limit on the information density due to optical capture systems, meaning you can't actually get more perceptible information of a scene in 1080p than SD; a greyscale gradient in either resolution looks the same, and an out-of-focus mountain range in the distance looks the same, and a slightly motion blurred face will look the same.
I really, really hope that next gen there will not be any 1080p requirement. I feel that you then throw so much power out the window. So much of the potential power of the new system just go to a resolution upgrade. Let developers decide what resolution they think make their game look the best and the best ways to make their game look great. I would also be one of those that would prefer some good AA and more effects, better lighting and so on rather than higher res without really any huge benefit...
Personally I disagree with you here. I notice a large difference between SD and HD. However usually 720p is good enough for video - I do tend to struggle to notice a huge amount of difference between 720p and 1080p, the source really matters at this point.
Many PAL DVD releases were 576p and so when upscaled on a PS3 look pretty good, but imo there's still a noticable difference.
So you are saying blur looks the same in SD or HD, super. And i am not calling you blind, i just suggested your eyesight might not be perfect, which your glasses do suggest is true, but of course i doubt all your friends have bad eye sight
Bourne isn´t a tour de force of HD and not a great example, but it still looks better in HD blur than SD blur on my big screen. Even blur can become to soft. Pixar moves on my small 37 inch looks fantastic, yes the lowres versions looks nice, but not fantastic, there is a difference.
And just for the record, every time the camera isn´t wildy waved around in Bourne it looks fantastic in HiDef, just like every other HiDef movie.
How much you notice and care is clearly up to the person that is watching, that is the reality.
Might depend on the game. A game like Red Dead Redemption that has a long draw distance can always use more resolution to see the finer details far off. I'd agree that for stuff closer up it probably won't matter as much, especially since texture res of many games barely takes advantage of 1080p anyways. Still though, if you have a pc hooked to the same tv as a console, the resolution difference is apparent. I still wouldn't rank resolution very high on the overall image importance scale...but on my tv where I can a/b console and pc games I will say that the resolution bump to 1920x1080 on pc games is easily noticeable. Like on the new Tomb Raider game that plays from a 3/4 perspective. I a/b'd the 360 version with the pc. The 360 has a very good upscaler so you would think it would be close, but the pc version at native 1920x1080 was clearly better looking. Because of the camera view and distance the pc version let you see the finer details of everything.
I don't doubt that what you say is true, after all I experienced it myself years ago when I was demoing blu-ray and dvd to people to see if they would notice the difference and indeed many simply didn't. More often than not the quality of the transfer is what they noticed most. Still though it is fascinating to me how something so patently obvious to my eye where I can easily tell the difference between dvd and blu-ray from 15 feet away with one eye tied behind my back while someone repeatedly punches me in the head, yet it's completely not noticeable to others. It really is fascinating considering these same people all fall under the 20/20 vision moniker. Incidentally this is probably the same reason why abominations like qaa exist, since many like you probably can't tell the detail loss difference anyways. So while guys like me will find ps3 versions of games blurry as all heck due to its lack of hardware upscaling, qaa, or whatever detail destruction method is employed like in GT5, but others will happily play them and find them "hd" and "sharp". I'm just really happy there is choice so I don't have to live with the craptacular blur either in my movies or video games, but I understand totally that I am most likely in the minority. Hence...you get qaa, enjoy