Author Topic: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis  (Read 58393 times)

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Offline anubis6789

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #200 on: June 15, 2005, 08:39:44 PM »
Mario, you should be able to still play games in SD mode instead of HD. Key word there being "should".

Think of it like the GCN, if you have a 480p compatible scan game  you hold B on start up and it then asked you if you would like to enable progressive scan mode. then when ever you start the game again it will ask you if you want to enable progressive scan again. If you answer "yes", it will then ask you that same question on the next start up. If you answer "no" you will start the game with 480p disable and it won't ask you on start up again untill you hold B down on start up.

A better example would be the Xbox. You just go into the dash board and set it for the highest resolution you want it to play at. If you want to play it with SD resolution for some reason down the road all you have to do is select the lowest resolution.

Hope that helps.
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Offline BlackGriffen

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RE:No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #201 on: June 15, 2005, 08:51:23 PM »
Thanks for the advice, Ian. I wasn't really trying to be convincing, though. Mostly I was simply being sincere. I don't really have the high ideal that the content of any one email is going to have any effect whatsoever. If this works it will be because of the sheer mass of emails sent because it was on IGN. I seriously doubt that any more information will reach decision makers beyond "X pro HD, Y con" (and you can bet there will be at least a few con HD emails), if that.

The only reason I wrote what I did is that I meant it. If Nintendo doesn't even support at least 720i, I'm not going to buy a Rev until a year or two in to it's life, if then. It doesn't matter if they make it optional, available in the American market only, etc, but they should at least do that. Without even the option of token support I see it as tremendously damaging to the Rev's image in the U.S. The problem is twofold: the technogeeks who already have 16:9 screens and anyone who wants there console to be at least somewhat future-proof because they want to buy a 16:9 screen at some point in the future.

I honestly find it unusual that this information came out at all. This is the kind of thing you let slip under the cover of lots of positive news. That is, unless Nintendo is testing whether they can get away with it by judging the reaction. If that's the case, more information may get back to decision maker than just "pro" and "con." Not a whole lot more, mind you. Something like "make or break pro," "pro," "indifferent," "con." In which case, stick me in the make or break pro column because there is no technical reason whatsoever that the Rev can't perform well on a 720i screen that has about 1/3 the number of pixels of the benchmarked system in my previous post. After all, the three main factors in graphics performance seem to be "how complex is what you're drawing," "how sophisticated are the drawing algorithms," and "how many pixels do you have to push?" Given that 720i is demonstrably not that many pixels (a little more than half of a low res computer monitor) for a GPU to push, I don't see it significantly degrading game performance.

BlackGriffen

Offline anubis6789

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #202 on: June 15, 2005, 09:17:13 PM »
I don't mean to be a know it all , but BlackGriffen 720i is not a standard ATSC (or any other digital television standard that I know of) resolution, 720p on the otherhand is. Just wanted to let you know.
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Offline bmfrosty

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RE:No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #203 on: June 15, 2005, 09:32:30 PM »
Quote


480i: 153600 (N/A)
480p: 307200 (100%)
720i: 460800 (50%)
1024 X 768: 786432 (70.7%) <- Very common, not high res at all, computer monitor resolution (I don't know if they make monitors with a lower native resolution than this any more)
720p: 921600 (17.2%)
1080i: 1036800 (12.5%)
1280 X 1024: 1310720 (26.4%) <- Another common monitor resolution
1080p: 2073600 (58.2%)
1900 X 1200: 2280000 (10.0%) <- Resolution mentioned in the specs for a Radeon 7000 GPU with 32 MB of VRAM (ie dirt cheap and old as the hills).



1080p and 1080i have the same pixel bandwidth.  I prefer 720p as it's progressive and 60fps.  And oh yeah.  The ATSC standard sucks ass.

Offline Shecky

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RE:No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #204 on: June 16, 2005, 03:00:20 AM »
Quote

Originally posted by: anubis6789
Think of it like the GCN, if you have a 480p compatible scan game  you hold B on start up and it then asked you if you would like to enable progressive scan mode. then when ever you start the game again it will ask you if you want to enable progressive scan again. If you answer "yes", it will then ask you that same question on the next start up. If you answer "no" you will start the game with 480p disable and it won't ask you on start up again untill you hold B down on start up.


My TV doesn't automatically convert 480i signals on the "HD input" and so I get _no_ picture during start up.  This is good info to know, since now I won't franticly try and find the right controler to hold B at startup, or reset the system if I do forget.  

Offline BlackGriffen

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RE:No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #205 on: June 16, 2005, 07:37:55 AM »
Quote

Originally posted by: anubis6789
I don't mean to be a know it all , but BlackGriffen 720i is not a standard ATSC (or any other digital television standard that I know of) resolution, 720p on the otherhand is. Just wanted to let you know.

I beg to differ. Perhaps you're confusing what the TV can receive with what MPEG2 can encode? Regardless, your point is moot. Even if the TV doesn't accept a 720i signal, Nintendo can use an effective 720i by only updating even or odd lines in the frame buffer.

Thanks for saying something, though.

Quote

Originally posted by: bmfrosty
1080p and 1080i have the same pixel bandwidth. I prefer 720p as it's progressive and 60fps. And oh yeah. The ATSC standard sucks ass.

I believe you're incorrect and here's why. Progressive scan runs at 60 full frames per second. Interlaced runs at 30 full frames per second rendered as 60 fields per second. Each field is half the size of a full frame. Thus, unless the card is rendering the full frame and then discarding half of it on every render pass (a technological decision that I doubt is necessary, otherwise the original XBox would support 1080p as well as 1080i), the graphics chip only has to handle half of the pixels per second in order to render interlaced frames.

BlackGriffen


Offline anubis6789

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RE:No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #207 on: June 16, 2005, 11:56:16 AM »
I was just saying that 720i is not a standard and a direct feed of it would not work on most TVs. You are right Nintendo could just start line doubling. The only problem I really have with the idea of 720i support is, in my opinion, interlacing is ugly. I would prefer them to just go ahead and support 720p if they are even thinking about 720i, but that’s just me.  
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Offline anubis6789

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #208 on: June 16, 2005, 12:09:49 PM »
Professional, 720i is not on that list becuase it isn't a recognized broadcast standard used by the ATSC.

After reading a few of Griffen's links I am inclined to say that I was wrong and most TV's that accept a 720p signal will happily accept a 720i signal.

But interlacing is still ugly.  
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is." - Francis Bacon

Offline bmfrosty

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RE:No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #209 on: June 16, 2005, 04:39:38 PM »
Quote

Originally posted by: BlackGriffen

Progressive scan runs at 60 full frames per second.

BlackGriffen


No it doesn't. see the bottom of the following article:

Article

or Page 31 of the standard itself:

The Standard

or Page 24 of the Guide to the Use of the ATSC Digital Television Standard.

The Guide

And just so you don't forget.  I maintain that the ATSC standard sucks.

Offline anubis6789

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #210 on: June 16, 2005, 05:16:37 PM »
Why do you think the ATSC standard sucks bmfrosty?

I was just wondering because I feel that the ATSC standard could be better but is far from sucking (AKA NTSC).

Are you from a PAL (or god forbid a SECAM) region, and still harbour ill feelings towards anything remotly sounding of the bane of PAL's existance (NTSC)?

I am just messing with you but I would like to know. I myself think we should have gone the route of the VGA/SVGA/XGA/etc standards and just made PC monitors bigger.
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is." - Francis Bacon

Offline BlackGriffen

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RE:No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #211 on: June 16, 2005, 08:01:43 PM »
Quote

Originally posted by: bmfrosty
Quote

Originally posted by: BlackGriffen

Progressive scan runs at 60 full frames per second.

BlackGriffen


No it doesn't. see the bottom of the following article:

Article

or Page 31 of the standard itself:

The Standard

or Page 24 of the Guide to the Use of the ATSC Digital Television Standard.

The Guide

And just so you don't forget.  I maintain that the ATSC standard sucks.

Congratulations, you caught me unaware of the technicality that the 1080 formats don't support 60 fps. Whooptie-freakin'-do. That wasn't the point I was responding to, although it would effect my comparative pixel bandwidth assessments from earlier. Except, that is, for the one you mentioned. If you had payed closer attention to the link you provided, you'd see that both 1080 formats are limited to 30 fps. If 1080p were limited to 30 and 1080i were permitted to go at 60, you'd have been right, but because they are the same frame rate you were still wrong.

So, it looks like it goes like this because of frame rate limitations: 1080i, 720p, 1080p. Because of that, I would prefer 720p overall because it has the best refresh rate. 1080i becomes the acceptable minimum.

BlackGriffen

Offline bmfrosty

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #212 on: June 16, 2005, 08:55:44 PM »
1080i is the same pixel bandwith 1080p(30).  
They are both 30 FRAMES per second.  
On typical (correct) HDTV displays the display refreshes 60 times per second.
In 1080p(30), the image changes every other refresh.  
In 1080i, the image changes every refresh, but only the even or odd scanlines.

I could go on, but I won't.  BlackGriffen will return with more wrong assumptions about the standard I hate and am all too intimate with.  I won't correct him anymore.  It's not worth my time.

Offline MysticGohan24

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #213 on: June 16, 2005, 10:46:56 PM »
heh, I have an 46" Phillips HDTV it does 480p and 1080i, would this mean the 480 would be better than the 1080interlace? curious, as I would love to see TP suppor P-scan, provided I can get the componet cables
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Offline anubis6789

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #214 on: June 16, 2005, 11:11:57 PM »
Well if you were to ask me is 480p better than 1080i I would say yes,probably because i am a weirdo, but the argument between progressive and interlaced really comes down to personal preference.

Of course that is mooted because the GCN only has up to 480p. It still looks better than normal.

I am fairly sure that TP will be P-scan compatable, all Nintendo published games have been to my knowledge (except maybe Courtside).
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Offline MysticGohan24

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #215 on: June 17, 2005, 06:35:16 AM »
heh, thanx anubis. Thought p-scan was better can't wait, TP is gonna rock!~
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Offline BlackGriffen

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RE:No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #216 on: June 17, 2005, 07:10:13 AM »
Quote

Originally posted by: bmfrosty
1080i is the same pixel bandwith 1080p(30).  
They are both 30 FRAMES per second.  
On typical (correct) HDTV displays the display refreshes 60 times per second.
In 1080p(30), the image changes every other refresh.  
In 1080i, the image changes every refresh, but only the even or odd scanlines.

I could go on, but I won't.  BlackGriffen will return with more wrong assumptions about the standard I hate and am all too intimate with.  I won't correct him anymore.  It's not worth my time.

Ok, genius. If 1080i and 1080p are exactly the same pixel bandwidth, then why doesn't the original XBox support both? After all, same pixel bandwidth = same processing requirements.

On a final note, you too seem to be confusing the broadcast standard with what the TVs are capable of doing.

Here are some more people you need to go correct, oh infallible sourpuss:
From this thread
Quote

Actually I don't know of any HDTVs that can accept 1080p at 30 fps. Since 60 Hz is the refresh rate of the display if it can accept 1080p is usually only accepts it at 60 fps. There are only two displays that I know of for under $10K that can currently display and accept 1080p at 60 fps and that is the 37" Westinghouse for $2500 and the 45" Sharp for $9000. The 37" Benq might be able to but there has not yet been any confirmation on that.

Communications Engineering & Design Magazine
Quote

[...]
That trend was in evidence at the recent National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, according to Chuck Pagano, ESPN’s senior vice president of technology engineering and operations.
[...]
Even if such equipment does come to market, probably the biggest issue standing between 1080p and commercial service reality is transport bandwidth. By combining the higher resolution of 1080 with the greater refresh rate of progressive, 1080p is even more data-dense and could soak up even greater bandwidth.

That starts with the video produced from 1080p cameras. At present, 720p and 1080i cameras output video at about 1.5 Gigabits per second, but 1080p would roughly double that to 3 Gbps, Pagano says. To convert that into a standard 19.4 Megabit per second channel for transmission across a cable network, “there’s a whole set of other technologies that have got to be accomplished in between there.â€
[...]

In other words, 1080p/60 isn't in the present broadcast standards because of bandwidth requirements broadcasters cannot meet, but that does not preclude TVs from receiving such a signal in situations where bandwidth is not limited (ie from a console, computer, etc). Equally important, it does not preclude it from being adopted in the broadcast spec at a later date.

Now, who should I believe? I'm genuinely torn between the engineering magazine reporter with ESPN's senior VP of technology and engineering on her side, and the infallible one here before me in the PGC forums. Whatever shall I do?

BlackGriffen

Offline KDR_11k

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #217 on: June 17, 2005, 08:03:47 AM »
I'd prefer 480p100 over 1080p60 any day. Who's with me?

Offline couchmonkey

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #218 on: June 17, 2005, 10:28:43 AM »
*Eyes glaze over*
That's my opinion, not yours.
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Offline OptimusPrime

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #219 on: June 17, 2005, 10:32:00 AM »
If the human eye could see the difference between 100fps and 60 fps i would be with you but the human eye stops seeing differences at 30 fps so.... what's the hussle again?
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Offline jasonditz

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #220 on: June 17, 2005, 10:42:20 AM »
The human eye can see differences well past 30 fps. You can't make out the individual frames anymore at that rate, but the motion blur difference is still significant. That's why a computer monitor running at 100 (or even 75) Hz. is easier on the eyes than one running at 60.


Offline mantidor

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #221 on: June 17, 2005, 01:47:21 PM »
really? I had my monitor at 60Hz for like ever, and I just changed it to 85 Hz and all I see is the letters are kind of bolder but thats it, I dont feel this is easier for my eyes, in fact Im kind of feeling the opposite

EDIT:

I put it at 75 Hz and I see it exacly the same as 60Hz, the little "uneasiness" I was feeling with the 85Hz configuration was because the screen was kind of blurrier compared to before, and I think thats just a hardware issue, not my eyes' issue.

But its true that higher frequencies are necesary for games because the lack of motion blur, or is there a game who produces motionblur? I think not butI could be wrong.
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Offline KDR_11k

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #222 on: June 17, 2005, 10:11:14 PM »
Your peripherial vision can see a much higher framerate. Besides, you can spot the difference in brightness the refreshes cause, resulting in a bit of flickering. Seriously, 50Hz is awful, 60Hz is pretty bad still. Try looking next to (i.e. not at) a TV running at 60Hz, then do the same with a PC screen running 72Hz. Your black and white receptors are much better at seeing the difference than your color receptors. Most of the strain caused by low refresh rates is not noticeable immediately, your eyes tend to tire much faster however.

Offline jasonditz

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RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #223 on: June 18, 2005, 10:46:40 AM »
A lot of it is a matter of what you're used to. I had a job where a monitor only supported 48 Hz. one time. Believe me, after 8 hours a day in front of that I had a major headache.

Offline Mr. Saturn

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RE:No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« Reply #224 on: June 21, 2005, 03:33:35 PM »
You know in IGN's mailbag yesterday the subject of HD support came up and this person asked if Nintendo's even listening to us and Matt mentioned that several company executives are listening to us and he encouraged everyone to keep e-mailing Nintendo.