Next gen and HD - will PAL miss out?

[PARANOiA]

Wondering if anyone here can share their opinions about HD modes in the next gen of consoles, namely for PAL territories. Living in Australia, I have a HDTV and an XBox, but it doesn't support High Def.

Do you think all consoles will have HD as standard next gen - and if so, is PAL likely to be missed? I know last time there was some contention due the the fact that standards hadn't been finalised - and I'm not sure if they have for PAL territories.

If not, next gen I will definitely be importing. During the PS1 gen I held out even though we missed some brilliant games. This gen I held off since MS seemed committed to PAL - even stating on the box the machines were HD capable. I figured if no one supported PAL they're release less games, and no one would support it, etc etc, in a downward spiral.

So... ?

 

[wco81]

HDTV sales in the US are growing fast, even though by the time the new consoles are released, the installed base will be in the low double-digits. At best.

You would think the obstacle to full HDTV support in the next generation is mostly business than technical. That is, games developers decide it just isn't worth it because the installed base is so low, for them to support HDTV modes as well as the NTSC and PAL modes which is what most people will continue to use.

You would hope that the reason they don't produce HDTV games is that the hardware simply isn't capable.

 

[MrWibble]

Something else which I think is necessary is the relevant TV standards people in Europe / Australia to stop being idiots and drop 50Hz.

I'm sure it's not helping the hardware guys that even the shiny new HDTV "standards" aren't quite compatible between Europe and the US...

 

[cybamerc]

MrWibble:

> Something else which I think is necessary is the relevant TV standards
> people in Europe / Australia to stop being idiots and drop 50Hz.

DVB spec supports both 50 and 60 Hz.

> I'm sure it's not helping the hardware guys that even the shiny new
> HDTV "standards" aren't quite compatible between Europe and the US...

Blame the US. Europe and US was working on a joint standard when the US decided to do its own thing.

 

[London Geezer]

Next gen and HD - will PAL miss out?

Simple answer: yes.
Not so simple answer: PAL territories ALWAYS miss out on everything.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Something else which I think is necessary is the relevant TV standards people in Europe / Australia to stop being idiots and drop 50Hz.

Hmm better resolution than NTSC and better color reproduction, as well as being much easier to convert from 24 FPS cinema film.
I would much prefer to stick with PAL over NTSC.

That said I think that we are all going to adopt the same HD spec europe really does need to get it's finger out over HDTV, and as the PAL and NTSC differences are completly irelavent for HD I think we can look forward to a future in which you can buy a TV anywhere in the world and not worry about it's compatability (except for the power supply).

I would expect all the next gen consoles to be HD capable, but wouldn't object to having to buy an add-on to enable the functionality. As it wouldn't seem fair to make all the users pay for the functionality when only a fraction of them can use it.

CC

 

[ChryZ]

Maybe we are more lucky with next gen after all ... and they don't remove HD features right away or at least leave it open like Sony did with 480P. The reason for my hopes are: HD capable Plasmas&LCDs are getting cheaper by the minute, Europe got it's first HDTV channel (sat/url), next gen will/must last until 2010-2015 and playback of HD footage will kinda be important by then. Anyway, at the first signs of screw-ups, I'll do what I did since SNES, then its going to be a import NTSC console again ( import games are quite painless these days ) and a additional PAL one, when the prices are coming down.

 

[rabidrabbit]

If Sony goes with BR, and MS with HD-DVD or some other high definition DVD formats, I'd think HDTV resolutions will be in next gen consoles.
If not in games, then in pre-recorded material like films, in game fmv...

Anyway, if the resolution is kept to current standard in next gen, wouldn't much of the detail that the power of those consoles would allow, go waste on TV screen. Higher polycount and anti-aliasing in 640 x 480 resolution can go only so far.
Or will there be some kind of post processing, filtering or other techniques to make the on screen image look as clean as films from dvd's?

 

[London Geezer]

I dont think the problem here is realyy 50-60Hz, since any TV built in the last 5 years (or more) can display both signals. Resolutions and prices, and general lack of CARE from the public is.

 

[MrWibble]

Hmm better resolution than NTSC and better color reproduction, as well as being much easier to convert from 24 FPS cinema film.
I would much prefer to stick with PAL over NTSC.

Resolution is irrelevant to HDTV because the resolutions don't differ. Only EDTV and SDTV resolutions vary between regions.

Colour reproduction is also irrelevant when dealing with a component or RGB signal - it only applies to the way signals were encoded for composite transmission.

The 24FPS cinema is not a completely sound argument either (though I grant you it's partially valid) because although motion is smoother on PAL, it's also at the wrong rate, and the audio tends to get mangled instead. I usually choose PAL over NTSC where possible, but neither is perfect for this purpose.

A better solution would be adopting 72FPS everywhere

 

[Ug Lee]

You can quite easily rig an unmodded PAL Xbox to output progressive scan for games.

Also I don't believe the PAL market will miss out next gen, for a few reasons which I will elaborate on later.

 

[MrWibble]

I dont think the problem here is realyy 50-60Hz, since any TV built in the last 5 years (or more) can display both signals. Resolutions and prices, and general lack of CARE from the public is.

Prices are at least partially driven by demand, so you can blame public apathy for that too.

There's a bit of chicken and egg in that whole argument though - why *should* the public care about buying HDTV TV's when there's no content to watch? DVD is SD resolution, there is virtually no HDTV broadcast content anywhere in Europe, nor does it look likely to arrive any time soon.

Also, your generalisation about sets doing 60Hz is flawed. Not all TVs do that, even ones built today. The majority do, certainly the high-end ones do. But even then there are exceptions. At the cheaper (i.e, most popular) end of the market there are probably many TVs which just don't do anything other than basic 50Hz.

I know people who have sets bought recently, brand named, not cheap, which just present a rolling picture if you drive them at 60Hz...

Even my relatively high-end plasma screen will only do 50Hz if you drive it digitally (arguably the best possible connection for it). It does other rates on analog, but even then it appears to "interpret" the rate and resolution as it sees fit, producing some inexplicable stuttering motion where there's none at source...

TVs, and differing standards, are a huge problem when trying to make a mass-market device to connect to them...

 

[PiNkY]

I remembered reading that there is no problem in simply sticking the US/JP Hdef kit in your PAL box and get 480p for every game over component out. You won't get 720p though.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Hmm better resolution than NTSC and better color reproduction, as well as being much easier to convert from 24 FPS cinema film.
I would much prefer to stick with PAL over NTSC.

Resolution is irrelevant to HDTV because the resolutions don't differ. Only EDTV and SDTV resolutions vary between regions.

Colour reproduction is also irrelevant when dealing with a component or RGB signal - it only applies to the way signals were encoded for composite transmission.

The 24FPS cinema is not a completely sound argument either (though I grant you it's partially valid) because although motion is smoother on PAL, it's also at the wrong rate, and the audio tends to get mangled instead. I usually choose PAL over NTSC where possible, but neither is perfect for this purpose.

A better solution would be adopting 72FPS everywhere

Err yes, that is why I said that the differences were irrelevant when talking about HDTV.

The 24 FPS issue is still valid. The sound doesn't get mangled as they simply speed it up ever solslightly resulting in perfectly synched but slightly higher pitched audio. (This was originallly, I would expect them to now be able to speed up the audio without increasing the pitch, after all my friends CD player can manage it).

I guess you are suggesting 72fps because that is the suggested minimum
for flicker free display. But I think (not sure) that only applies to VGA phosphors. Most TV's use phosphors which take longer to fade, and presumably LCD's and plasma screens have no flicker at all. Or was it because 24 divides into 72 nicely?
CC

 

[Dio]

Something else which I think is necessary is the relevant TV standards people in Europe / Australia to stop being idiots and drop 50Hz.

Give me the choice between 50Hz PAL and 60Hz NTSC - well, there isn't one. That's why HDTV isn't taking off over here - because PAL is a decent quality standard (which isn't to say its a good quality standard). Instead, we just have 16:9 and 100Hz as our innovations - almost all new large TV's have both of these.

A PAL signal and an NTSC signal use almost exactly the same video bandwidth - so we got our better quality for a loss in frame rate. Note also that we have 50Hz power grids.

There's a bit of flicker (but with TV-persistence phosphors it isn't really noticeable) and 100Hz has fixed that anyway.

 

[MrWibble]

Err yes, that is why I said that the differences were irrelevant when talking about HDTV.

But this thread is talking about HDTV...

My point, is that "HDTV" isn't really a single standard any more than SDTV is - the PAL regions still want to impose a 50Hz variant, and that to me just spells disaster (quite aside from the utter lack of adoption it's getting). So there *is* still argument for 50Hz (not from you - from the people coming up with the "standards"), and my reply to you was merely to point out that the traditional arguments for the difference, which you brought up, shouldn't apply to HDTV...

The 24 FPS issue is still valid. The sound doesn't get mangled as they simply speed it up ever solslightly resulting in perfectly synched but slightly higher pitched audio. (This was originallly, I would expect them to now be able to speed up the audio without increasing the pitch, after all my friends CD player can manage it).

The sped-up audio is still a problem though... it's subtle, but it's noticeable - especially when there's any chance of a comparison.

And if you pitch-shift then any purist will complain that you're introducing an unnecessary processing stage into the chain and that you're not getting the "best" output...

Personally when I've got digital source-material I'd like it to get all the way from the source to the destination with minimal loss and processing.

I guess you are suggesting 72fps because that is the suggested minimum
for flicker free display. But I think (not sure) that only applies to VGA phosphors. Most TV's use phosphors which take longer to fade, and presumably LCD's and plasma screens have no flicker at all. Or was it because 24 divides into 72 nicely?
CC

The latter, actually. It seems to be a reasonable compromise for most applications. Unfortunately so much existing footage and equipment is geared for 60Hz or 50Hz that it's never going to happen.

I'd settle for a 60Hz global standard, with high-end sets allowing 72Hz for us purists watching traditional film-source material.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

My point, is that "HDTV" isn't really a single standard any more than SDTV is - the PAL regions still want to impose a 50Hz variant, and that to me just spells disaster (quite aside from the utter lack of adoption it's getting). So there *is* still argument for 50Hz (not from you - from the people coming up with the "standards"), and my reply to you was merely to point out that the traditional arguments for the difference, which you brought up, shouldn't apply to HDTV...

Fair enough, I read it as the usual x is bette than y format, which in the SDTV case is kind of irrelevant as they both have sufficent pros and cons that it really boils down to user preference.

And if you pitch-shift then any purist will complain that you're introducing an unnecessary processing stage into the chain and that you're not getting the "best" output...

Personally when I've got digital source-material I'd like it to get all the way from the source to the destination with minimal loss and processing.

Given the amount of processing that occurs on film soundtracks, I would not think anyone could spot a processed or a 'native speed ' soundtrack. Of course it does mean that our films are shorter! yet another example of rip off britain


CC

 

[Guden Oden]

The sped-up audio is still a problem though... it's subtle, but it's noticeable

Not unless you got a really good musical ear. It's 4% difference, I haven't ever noticed any 'problems'.

And if you pitch-shift then any purist will complain that you're introducing an unnecessary processing stage into the chain and that you're not getting the "best" output...

Well 'purists' are idiots anyway. Obsessed about details that for all intents and purposes are irrelevant...

 

[jvd]

There simply wont be enough units . Mabye they will support edtv or hdtv or whatever new standard they come out with (in best buy a month ago i had to learn what all the diffrent kinds were (and i'm not talking about the res)

Then what res do you program for. Everyone has a diffrent res in hdtv .

That was one of the worse moves they could have made for the tv industry .

By the end of the ps3 and xbox 2 life lines hdtv will be mabye at a 25-35% installed base and mabye we will see a ton of games start using that .

But i think we are just going to see a ton of fsaa on the systems

Why else have tons of edram and video ram .

 

[PARANOiA]

Next gen and HD - will PAL miss out?

Simple answer: yes.
Not so simple answer: PAL territories ALWAYS miss out on everything.

That makes me a sad panda

Seriously, though, this actually infuriates me. Living in Australia is backwards enough politically, can't I at least play the same quality VIDEO GAMES as overseas?

You can quite easily rig an unmodded PAL Xbox to output progressive scan for games.

Also I don't believe the PAL market will miss out next gen, for a few reasons which I will elaborate on later.

Care to share how I can play progressive scan? And when will you elaborate?