I'm more interested in 480p PS3 games than 1080p PS3 games

[Squeak]

but the thing is, you can watch the most incredible graphics ever made (film grade CGI movie)
at 480p, or even lower resolution (i.e. VHS) that are beyond anything in realtime.

Just the fact that we can separate "graphics" and resolution like that, tells a great deal about the "optical psychology" of the human eye.
Higher resolution is only akin to slightly better glasses, aka better sharpness. Something which can easily be discerned from the actual scene rendered.

I'm a bit wary of overzealous, proud owners of giant plasmas or projection screens telling us that they would rather have their eyes gouged out, than playing games at 480.
First of, you're being dramaqueens, and secondly you haven't seen what real AA can do yet.
The difference between 480p and 720p isn't as great as many makes it out to be. The really important thing is that it's progressive and digital.

Why not concentrate on getting to the holy grail of realtime graphics; Good Enough (tm), and only then start to worry about higher resolution.

 

[London Geezer]

Agreed 100%. Watch Madagascar (to name one) on even a cheap upscaling DVD player and you definitely won't want to poke out your eyes. Which is silly, why poke out your eyes when you can just get very stoned and get VERY amazing colours and all sorts of special effects, on the screen and all around it!!

 

[fearsomepirate]

Remember also that when we talk about consoles, we're talking about machines with rather limited resources compared to PCs with the latest high-end graphics cards. While those cards may barely lose any performance when going from 640x480 to 1024x768, I wonder if it would make much difference on the X360 or PS3.

 

[Monty]

Um, no. HD-DVD hasn't been driving the sales of HDTV because it just came out, and most people haven't watched HD movies, either. And don't forget that lots and lots of people watch SD content over composite or RF, which really hurts the picture quality. A DVD in progressive scan looks a heck of a lot better than one plugged into your VCR, which then runs over an RF cable to your 1997 televesion.

who said anything about a 1997 television and a RF cable?

If you have the best 480p television out and watch DVD's at 480p its still no match compared to a 780p tv and 780p content, it's this difference in visual quality which creates the demand for HD content\TV's

And you cant trust the developers will use high levels of AA, UE3 cant even use it, so games using that engine and all its features would look terrible at 480p with staircases all over the place.

 

[fearsomepirate]

If you have the best 480p television out and watch DVD's at 480p its still no match compared to a 780p tv and 780p content

The point is that most people haven't even seen HD-DVD, so they can't possibly be comparing it to standard DVD over 480p. The majority of people buying HDTVs didn't own Xbox 360s or HD-DVD players. They were almost doubtlessly comparing a horrible cable TV signal to an HD digital signal. Saying people have bought all these HDTVs because of how awesome HD-DVD looks is simply incorrect, not a matter of opinion. For the most part, they're comparing HD digital cable to SD analog cable TV. It doesn't matter what you personally like best; it matters what people have actually seen. People don't buy products based on what some guy in a little-known forum says. They buy based on what they've seen, and so far, what they've seen is Regular Cable TV vs HD Cable TV, which is a lot different than DVD 480p vs HD-DVD 720p.

There's a big difference than your personal opinion (720p is eye-poppingly better than 480p) and an incorrect fact (people are buying HDTVs because of how much better 720p HD-DVD looks than 480p DVD). You made a statement about what's driving sales, not what you personally think is superior.

 

[London Geezer]

This thread has become a "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" kind of discussion, and was never meant as such.

Please keep personal opinions, and especially attacks based on those opinions, to a minimum.

 

[darkblu]

fearsomepirate, your posts in this thread bring me a dejavu ; )

the reaction of some people to hdtv as if they had lived under a rock and the first thing they saw after they cawed out, apart from the sunshine, was hdtv, is nothing short of amusing. on a second thought, scatch the sunshine part - it must've been nightime and all they saw was just an hdtv playing the superbowl ; )

of course, living in a commercially hyped-sick world does not help either. eveything now is 'H-Deee', starting from eye lences to the groceries in the local convenience store. only yesterday i saw a pair of men's underware in sears that was branded '3D-something'

..and then how is one supposed to respect the marketting dronez?

 

[London Geezer]

..and then how is one supposed to respect the marketting dronez?

Hey! They're only doing their job!! (And i'm not just saying that cause I'm gonna be one of them soon enough)

 

[darkblu]

Hey! They're only doing their job!! (And i'm not just saying that cause I'm gonna be one of them soon enough)

then i expect nothing less of you but to singlehandedly overturn the hideous marketing trends for something better ; )

to be honest, there's one company in the IT industry (of which i'm naturally more familiar) whose marketing i can't shake a stick at, and that's apple - those guys know their business. generally marketing seem to fall in the same cathegory of human psychology as intentionally-provoked sex appeal - when carried intelligently it can drive you towards the object, when done dumb & gross it drives you away (regardless of the actualy qualities of the object). for me apple usually do the former, while the rest usually do the latter.

 

[assen]

Dead Rising for 360 looks substantially better in real life as opposed to what I saw online.

QFT.

If you say that HD content is not that impressive, or unecessary, you obviously aint seen any HD content. ... HD is honestly another level of viewing content. Once you actually experience it, you'll wonder what you ever did without it. It's like comparing dial-up to broadband.

Hear, hear! I spent about an hour yesterday picking a HDTV CRT. Before it, I was in the "they're screwing us by making us buy all our movies again"; after, I'm a believer. Don't buy the "stupid consumers won't even be able to tell the difference" line.

.

 

[Monty]

There's a big difference than your personal opinion (720p is eye-poppingly better than 480p) and an incorrect fact (people are buying HDTVs because of how much better 720p HD-DVD looks than 480p DVD). You made a statement about what's driving sales, not what you personally think is superior.

Hows is it an incorrect fact? Theres two posters on this very page who have said they have gone an got a HD compatible monitor\tv so they can view HD content, because 780p looks better than 480p.

To me, it sounds like your saying these type of people are a extreme minority and that most people have old equipment and never seen anything better than a typical analogue tv signal.

 

[swaaye]

Well I like to think of myself (heh heh). I don't have any sort of TV service coming in right now. I don't consider the shit on TV to be worth another $50/mo minimum to the cable company (I give them $40/mo for my cable modem already). I have 2 TVs, one 1992 27" CRT and a 9 month old 27" CRT. I just watch DVDs occasionally and DIVX files. Nothing is HD content. I don't have either nextgen console.

Do I see any reason to spend over $1000 on some decent HDTV? Nope. "NextGen" consoles? Not other than Wii, and it will be served by my ancient archaic tubes.

It's too bad that 360's games don't auto-drop resolution when u use a SDTV. Maybe more of the games would run well then. Oblivion at 640x480 should run like wildfire.

 

[pc999]

To me, it sounds like your saying these type of people are a extreme minority and that most people have old equipment and never seen anything better than a typical analogue tv signal.

Well, that is true.

 

[ninzel]

It seems that these conversations often degrade into an HD vs non HD arguement and that's really not the issue. I don't think anyone is saying that HD is worthless or shouldn't be pursued. More like,how about we do more at current SD res first then when we have really gotten alot out of that,then think of moving on to HD.
When I used to game on PC,when I had the choice of going up in resolution,or adding more AA or AF,I would choose to stay at the lower res and get the detail,AA and AF settings as high as possible first. Then if I could spare the frames per second I would try bumping up the resolution. So I can see where the original poster is coming from.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Hows is it an incorrect fact? Theres two posters on this very page who have said they have gone an got a HD compatible monitor\tv so they can view HD content, because 780p looks better than 480p.

Two points:

a) The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

b) You specifically said that people were buying HDTVs because of how much better HD-DVD looks than regular DVD. The fact is that the majority of HDTV sales have thus far been prior to anyone even seeing HD-DVD, and few televisions actually owned by people out there will display 480p but not 720p, so there is no possible way the majority of HDTV consumers have compared HD-DVD visual fidelity to 480p DVD fidelity. You are now revising your claim to be about "HD content" instead of "HD-DVD." I don't have an argument against people buying HDTV because of "HD content," because it's true. However, your original premise, which is that they saw how much better HD-DVD looks than DVD is false.

To me, it sounds like your saying these type of people are a extreme minority and that most people have old equipment and never seen anything better than a typical analogue tv signal.

This is true unless most people who currently own HDTVs owned EDTVs first, and that almost all those people who owned EDTVs bought component cables for their DVD players and watched digital cable. I don't have any data, but I don't think that many people went the analogue -> EDTV -> HDTV route. I think most folks went analogue -> HDTV.