*spin-off* TV/Console scaling quality

[(((interference)))]

I've seen other tests before that claim that Sony's V series is the best LCD overall, so test results vary greatly depending on how and naturally, who performs them. Bear in mind that this was a recent test with newer models (XBR's are known as S series in Europe)

I'd have to disagree that game mode on an XBR4 doesn't make a difference. With fighters, particularly something frame sensitive like Tekken, it's noticeable. For most other genres, as long as you keep all post processing off, you'd hardly notice a difference between the modes. Using your console's scaler is better too, since that's one more post processing to avoid (as light as it may be)

Once you turn anything on, particularly the 120Hz mode, it's incredibly laggy. Not to mention that there are other motion artifacts in that mode too even with movies. Scaling quality is generally good, and with lower resolutions, the TV does a better job since both consoles seem to crush blacks while upscaling 480i content.

Turn off the overscan mode though at 720p. Just go to the XMB (TV that is), and then Screen, while making sure you're running 720p native content. Set the field to - 1 and you're done. Naturally, set 1080p to Full Pixel mode.

Firstly I never have my overscan on for any content, always 1:1 mapping.

Game mode might make a difference, but it is not noticeable. I would much rather have the increased motion resolution you get by having frame interpolation on instead (which actually rarely induces noticeable artifacting when on the standard setting)

With 30 FPS games I cannot notice any difference, and even with 60FPS titles like Geometry Wars 2 (which is extremely lag sensitive) I think there is slightly less lag with Game Mode on, but it is likely to be down to the placebo effect as I haven't been able to find any correlation between my scores when playing with game mode on vs off.

Even professional reviews of the set have said as much:

I am not entirely sure if [Game/ Text Mode] is meant to reduce input lag (the manual doesn't specifically state so), but subjectively I didn't notice any lag with [Game/ Text Mode] "Off" anyway.

Perhaps the more compelling reason to avoid engaging [Game/ Text Mode] is so that we can continue to use [Motion Enhancer] with all the perceptible benefits it brings. When I spun the camera around the character in Ninja Gaiden Sigma quickly, [Motion Enhancer] "Standard" or "High" would preserve the detail of the leaves on the trees, the texture of the rocks, and the ferns on the floor better than if [Motion Enhancer] was "Off".

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/Sony-KDL40X3500/Picture-Quality.php

But it is a very common set, so I'm sure someone can do proper lag measurements and find out.

 

[London Geezer]

Hi guys,
Sorry, this might not be exactly the right thread but i have a question...

I have a Panny Plasma which is 720p. It does 'accept' a 1080p signal, but obviously downscales it to show it on the screen.
I have checked all the resoluions up to 1080p on my PS3, the reason being that i thought it would look better to have a 1080p downscaled to 720p (or whatever resolution the TV has, probably 1024x768) than feeding it a native 720p signal...
Is that right?
Bluray movies look amazing and PS3 games look good too. Should i un-check 1080p and only feed the TV a 720p signal?

 

[Sigfried1977]

Just leave everything checked and let the game in question decide what resolution best suited. There are like 2 or 3 games were forcing 720p is preferable.
I have a 1366x768 display and a downscaled 1080p image looks noticeably better than an upscaled 720p one. That's of course assuming the game displays at a higher native resolution than 720. It's a rarity, but it does happen every once in a blue moon, like with Wipeout HD, Sacred2 or the high end FFXIII cut-scenes. If the game puts out a 720p it doesn't matter one way or the other.

 

[joker454]

Hi guys,
Sorry, this might not be exactly the right thread but i have a question...

I have a Panny Plasma which is 720p. It does 'accept' a 1080p signal, but obviously downscales it to show it on the screen.
I have checked all the resoluions up to 1080p on my PS3, the reason being that i thought it would look better to have a 1080p downscaled to 720p (or whatever resolution the TV has, probably 1024x768) than feeding it a native 720p signal...
Is that right?
Bluray movies look amazing and PS3 games look good too. Should i un-check 1080p and only feed the TV a 720p signal?

Leave your PS3 at 1080p. I had a PS3 hooked to a Panny 720p plasma some time ago, and was wondering the same thing at the time. After some tests I noticed that blu-rays on that 720p display looked better if I left the PS3 at 1080p. The easiest spot to see the difference is when a movie displays something in the distance with fine lines, like a window with horizontal shades on it, or a brick wall with grout lines. In 720p mode the fine lines would create weird patterns as the scene moved around, but in 1080p mode those weird patterns were gone.

 

[SedentaryJourney]

Well, I've tested out Samsungs and Sonys primarily and they do; it would be extremely odd for Panasonic not to have such an option. I have a nearly 2 year old XBR4 that has the option for a full frame/sans overscan 720p view. Of course, it's not called full frame or pixel, just a +/- view. Look for it.

Not quite as good as 1:1 full pixel though. For 720p content even with horizontal and vertical scaling at -10 there's still noticeable overscan. I use the 360 to output 1080p so that's not an issue but very few PS3 games support 1080p. On games that can't display 1080p there should always be an option in game to resize the screen like GOW3 does.

 

[joker454]

Waking up an old thread here because I finally solved my PS3 blurriness problem, maybe others can benefit as well. My new 65" Panasonic plasma isn't uber low end, but it has utterly terrible 720p->1080p scaling. It's so bad that all PS3 games looked blurry as heck, it was just unacceptable to me at least, I hated it.

But I finally solved the problem! Most a/v receivers pass hdmi untouched. In most cases that's desired, but in the case of PS3 720p gaming on a 1080p tv it's actually not desirable unless your tv is a high end model with a really good scaler. So I just replaced my current receiver with a Pioneer VSX-1020-K. It comes with 6 hdmi inputs and lets you set how each input handles the signal, either let it pass untouched or you can tell it to use its internal Anchor Bay 1080p hardware scaler. I enabled that on the input the PS3 is on and let me tell you, the difference is night and day! It's so far beyond the quality of my tv's scaler.

From what I see the cheaper VSX-920-K model ($399 msrp) uses the same Anchor Bay scaler, so if you had the same problem I had with unacceptable blur then this is a relatively cheap way to fix it without having to spend mucho dinero on a high end tv. As as a bonus you get a whole bunch of hdmi inputs

 

[Mr Deap]

It's not so bad at 399$MSRP just to scale a game.

 

[SG79]

@ Joker.

Glad that worked out for you. I'm guessing the additional lag is unnoticeable?

Not quite as good as 1:1 full pixel though.

The mode I was referring to is actually 1:1 pixel mode for 720p. Not sure if it's something unique to the BRAVIA Engine Pro but it works. In fact, with some games that have forced 1080p modes like GOW3 or Uncharted 2, the 720p looks noticeably better on my TV.

 

[joker454]

It's not so bad at 399$MSRP just to scale a game.

Well that's msrp, presumably street price will be less. And you are getting a very capable receiver as well in the process! Plus it's far cheaper than changing tv's, and it perhaps lets you buy a cheaper model future tv with less bells and whistles since you can rely on the receiver to clean up the image quite nicely.

Glad that worked out for you. I'm guessing the additional lag is unnoticeable?

Well while I am extremely sensitive to sharpness, I'm not all that sensitive to input lag, so can't say that I've noticed any difference. I have LBP and Heavy Rain, and they felt the same to me. Heavy Rain though in particular looks so much better now. I had actually stopped playing it while I looked for a solution to the blur, and just started playing it again now that I fixed the issue. Did the night club scene, you go girl

 

[Sigfried1977]

I returned my Panasonic 50 inch S10 Plasma a week ago exactly because it did such a god awful scaling job. On the other hand it was incredibly fast and responsive, even outside of game mode.
The Samsung B850 I have now does a great scaling job. (not to mention it has vastly superior color reproduction - never knew Uncharted2 looked this good) Sadly it can't quite compete with the black levels of the Panasnonic Viera and it buzzes like a mother******.

 

[joker454]

I returned my Panasonic 50 inch S10 Plasma a week ago exactly because it did such a god awful scaling job.

Interesting, my 65' is an Panny 'S' series model also. It does some things really well, but scaling sure ain't one of them. I wonder if their 'V' series has better scaling, although even if it does for the price increase you're better off going with an 'S' series and that $399 Pioneer receiver.

 

[djskribbles]

Panasonic X, S, G, V and Z series all use the same NeoPDP panels. Most likely they will have similar scaling quality.

 

[homerdog]

Why would you make that assumption?

 

[djskribbles]

Because all the panels are very similar (if not the same). I've seen a few experienced calibrators at AVSForum say that all NeoPDP Panasonic plasmas (within the same year of course) use the same panel. Of course that doesn't have a lot to do with the scaler, but it seems that all the NeoPDP 9G Panasonic plasmas share a lot of similarities and I would think that at least the S, G, V and Z series will have similar scaling quality (the X series may appear to be different seeing as how it's a 720p model). Many people group the Panasonic NeoPDP models together because they're so similar, with each model up adding some features like THX certification (G and up), 24p handling (G and up), higher refresh rates (G10=48Hz, V10/Z=96Hz), more picture controls in the user menu (V/Z add gamma and a simple grayscale adjustment) and the Z is a sleeker, slimmer model.

 

[homerdog]

It is true the panels are all pretty much the same (except the 720p ones). But the scaler has nothing to do with the panel.

 

[specwarGP2]

How do you know they use different scalers? AFAIK, the only manufacturer that uses different scalers in their models is Sony (ie: the different bravia engine flavors)

 

[djskribbles]

It is true the panels are all pretty much the same (except the 720p ones). But the scaler has nothing to do with the panel.

I realize that (I mentioned it in my post) but it doesn't make much sense for Panasonic to put in different scalers. This wouldn't be the first time where a company would produce similar TV's hardware wise with the only thing separating models is software changes to create limitations on lower models. It makes sense for manufacturing purposes that they would do that. The savings from going with a cheaper scaler in lower models would easily be made up for with a more simplified manufacturing process (I would think). Considering the differences between the S - Z series are quite small (any feature a lower model lacks could easily be enabled or tweaked via software/firmware), that seems to be the case here.

Again, it's just a hunch. A better question would be, as specwarGP2 said, how do you know the scalers are different?

 

[homerdog]

How do you know they use different scalers? AFAIK, the only manufacturer that uses different scalers in their models is Sony (ie: the different bravia engine flavors)

Again, it's just a hunch. A better question would be, as specwarGP2 said, how do you know the scalers are different?

Lol guys, I seriously never said I knew the scalers were different. I was merely wondering why you thought they all used the same scaler.

 

[djskribbles]

I see. :smile:

Yeah... it's just a hunch.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Panasonic X, S, G, V and Z series all use the same NeoPDP panels. Most likely they will have similar scaling quality.

Not quite. At least the 2010 models have slightly different panels depending on the model number. The V-series uses faster phosphors. Not sure if the G series is different, but at least it's mll (black level) output is twice as low as the one in the S models (at least before the black levels rise again)

Still, the panels have nothing to do with the scaler. The best thing was just how fast the Panasonic was.I believe lag was under 20 ms in game mode. (the new LG Plasmas have a disappointing 80 ms in game mode using an HDMI connection and 60+ ms in PC mode)