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[Jelly4000]

Erm...1080i is widescreen....

By definition (unintentional pun) it has to be....

[Hopeful]

Untrue.
I have a 1080i 4:3 tv.
I've played xbox games in 1080i/4:3 mode.
You may be right about someone's definition of the standard
But somehow my tv says HDtv Monitor 1080i on it
So I do have a TV that's 1080i/4:3, and there was a 1080i mode for it on the first xbox.

[paranoia4422]

QUOTE(Hopeful @ May 28 2006, 06:09 PM)

Untrue.
I have a 1080i 4:3 tv.
I've played xbox games in 1080i/4:3 mode.
You may be right about someone's definition of the standard
But somehow my tv says HDtv Monitor 1080i on it
So I do have a TV that's 1080i/4:3, and there was a 1080i mode for it on the first xbox.

Your Tv is most likely stretching the image

[Hopeful]

QUOTE(paranoia4422 @ May 28 2006, 06:16 PM)

Your Tv is most likely stretching the image

Bottom line the XBOX had a mode where 1080i signals display in 4:3 ratio on my 4:3 screen.
The 360 does not.

[gordita37]

That doesnt make it a True 4:3 ratio.. stretching it is still 16:9 in a way. Besides I would much rather look at the black lines then the stretched image. And also you should have maybe looked into it a little bit. Most people know that most 360 games go int 16:9 when using 720p or 1080i. Some are even widescreen at 420

[Foe-hammer]

QUOTE(Hopeful @ May 28 2006, 11:42 AM)

Bottom line the XBOX had a mode where 1080i signals display in 4:3 ratio on my 4:3 screen.
The 360 does not.

Bottome line is the xbox DID NOT have a 4:3 1080i mode.  If there was anything going on, it was your TV doing it.  1080i is 1920x1080 interlaced, no matter how you STRETCH the facts.

[Foe-hammer]

QUOTE(Hopeful @ May 28 2006, 01:50 PM)

I see what some of you are thinking, and in a way it's good logic.
However, this indeed seems to be a flaw in the 360 that does not exist on the xbox.
There's a 1080i/Standard setting on xbox that is not present on 360.

The regular xbox has an option to send 1080i signals sized for a 4:3 screen.
I.E. there was no stretching.  The image was either letterboxed or refit.
Wether or not this is techinically 1080i it was using my TVs 1080i scanline mode to produce an excellent image proportioned to the 4:3 screen.

On the 360, this mode is missing somehow.
I'm not saying the 360 is letterboxing the image with black bars giving me a makeshift widescreen image.
That would be great. The image would be correctly proportioned like on the xbox.
I'm saying 360 is stretching a 16:9 image over a 4:3 screen. NPCs look like starving skinny-headed freaks.
The regular xbox did not do this. It had a mode for TVs like mine.

You are quite correct, and sorry for being so short/missunderstanding with you (my bad day's some times transfers through my finger. ).

I never knew that a 720p/1080i game on the xbox would show up in the correct 4:3 ratio if the 'standard' video setting was checked instead of 'widescreen'.  I'll have to check it out with Amped2 to verify this.  With the 360 some games due show up in the correct 4:3 ratio with the vga cable, if 'standard' screen is selected, instead of having black bars on top and bottom.  CoD2, for example, does fill the entire 4:3 screen in HD with the vga cable when.  So it's up to the developer wether they support 4:3 Hd or not with the vga cable.

[Hopeful]

QUOTE(fahrenheit @ May 29 2006, 01:32 AM)

Let me see if I understand correctly.
Hopeful, are you getting an anamorphic 4:3 image? Everything is looking tall and skinny? If so, then you need to manually engage your TV's 16:9 mode to correct the image proportions and retain all of the vertical resolution in the image.

Some games only have a 16:9 aspect ratio and whether or not you set 4:3 in the standard definition settings, the game will ignore it. The benefit to you is that you are not having the hardware draw the blackbars for you from part of the available resolution. When you manually compress the image down, the black bars are just blank and all of your vertical res is squeezed closer together giving you a sharp and detailed (and proportional) picture.

Because now with the 360 developers are only required to create games in a 16:9 aspect ratio (720p) you can expect less 4:3 support as time goes on. Either embrace it or look at getting yourself a new display.

Anamorphic image, thanks for giving me a better way to describe it. You're correct, everything's tall and skinny. I'm not sure how to manually engage 16:9 mode on my tv, or if it's an option. It's a great idea though.  It would be nice if the 360 used its powerful hardware to achieve this tiny task on its own, in case some tv's don't have this feature? Would it have been as easy for M$ as adding a couple of snippets of code?

Would you agree that even if a game ignores the fact that you have a 4:3 screen, the hardware shouldn't? And that a 16:9 image should be displayed on a 4:3 screen compressed in black bars for correct proportion?

I'd take proportional 1080i with black bars, rather than warped fullscreen, any day. Yet for some reason on 1080i on the 360, you don't even get a standard screen option like you did on the xbox.

::::

"Some games only have a 16:9 aspect ratio and whether or not you set 4:3 in the standard definition settings, the game will ignore it."

Question: Does this mean some 1080i games adjust to 4:3 if you select it in standard definition settings?

::::

"now with the 360 developers are only required to create games in a 16:9 aspect ratio (720p) you can expect less 4:3 support as time goes on. Either embrace it or look at getting yourself a new display."


You're probably right. That's very thoughtful of M$, since I don't have the budget to get a new TV. To me this is similar to when the 360 came out and M$ no longer made the xbox HD cables needed for 5.1 surround. The only option was to track down some really obscure cables that only best buy has. Playstation 3 is starting to look a whole lot better.

::::

Thanks

[Foe-hammer]

QUOTE(Hopeful @ May 29 2006, 09:23 AM)

Playstation 3 is starting to look a whole lot better.

And why is that?  What garantee do you have that the ps3 will support HDTV standard screen either?  I'd be very suprised if they do.

[fahrenheit]

The thing is, if you set the 360 to 1080i or 720p, it will assume that your display is a 16:9 display.
Your only hope is to find the 16:9 mode for your display.

If your 4:3 TV does support a 1080i signal, then a 16:9 mode is an absolute guarantee to be included within the TV's software. To leave this feature out and support 1080i signals would be a huge blunder on behalf of the manufacturer.

Which brings us back to why MS would do things as they have, they don't need to have a letterboxed 1080i mode, because the TV is perfectly capable of compressing the image. Its also the lesser of two evils this way.
Remember, if you get the console to draw the black bars for you, then you can kiss those lines of resolution goodbye. But if you get the TV to compress the image down, all lines are used for picture information and the black bars are merely blank.

Hunt out the 16:9 mode on the TV, it will be there.

[fahrenheit]

QUOTE(Hopeful @ May 31 2006, 08:25 AM)

I must admit I don't understand the idea that external hardware can't compress the image the same way as the TV. I'm open minded though and you may have a point whos science I do not understand. Can you explain it?

OK, imagine that your TV is infact a giant torch and that the lines of resolution are the light that the torch produces. When you are watching fullscreen 4:3 programming, the focus of the torch is wide open. The light spreads out and fills top to bottom. When you engage 16:9 mode on the TV, it is like refocusing the torch's beam to make it more concentrated and less spread. The result is that all of the lines of resolution are pushed together to the center of the tube, scanlines become harder to notice and you get a nice sharp, more intense image. The black bar areas aren't sent any light, it is all concentrated to the center of the tube.

If on the otherhand you told the console that you wanted it to create the letterbox image, you would be telling the TV to keep its focus wide open and rather than refocusing the light, you would be adding a giant mask over the screen to blacken out the areas that you don't want to see. This is wasteful because you are effectively losing light (resolution) behind those black bars.

I hope that analogy was helpful. If you look at DVD movies, they are almost always produced in anamorphic widescreen as they are designed to maximise vertical resolution. Because when we stretch video vertically, we notice that image quality degrades. However, stretching video horizontally doesn't result in such noticeable degradation. This is why anamorphic 4:3 video is better than letterboxed 4:3 video for widescreen owners, because the TV merely has to stretch the image horizontially. With letterboxed footage, it would need to stretch from one corner to the other diagnally, which of course is enlarging vertically.

[Hopeful]

QUOTE(fahrenheit @ May 31 2006, 05:39 AM)

OK, imagine that your TV is infact a giant torch and that the lines of resolution are the light that the torch produces. When you are watching fullscreen 4:3 programming, the focus of the torch is wide open. The light spreads out and fills top to bottom. When you engage 16:9 mode on the TV, it is like refocusing the torch's beam to make it more concentrated and less spread. The result is that all of the lines of resolution are pushed together to the center of the tube, scanlines become harder to notice and you get a nice sharp, more intense image. The black bar areas aren't sent any light, it is all concentrated to the center of the tube.

If on the otherhand you told the console that you wanted it to create the letterbox image, you would be telling the TV to keep its focus wide open and rather than refocusing the light, you would be adding a giant mask over the screen to blacken out the areas that you don't want to see. This is wasteful because you are effectively losing light (resolution) behind those black bars.

I hope that analogy was helpful. If you look at DVD movies, they are almost always produced in anamorphic widescreen as they are designed to maximise vertical resolution. Because when we stretch video vertically, we notice that image quality degrades. However, stretching video horizontally doesn't result in such noticeable degradation. This is why anamorphic 4:3 video is better than letterboxed 4:3 video for widescreen owners, because the TV merely has to stretch the image horizontially. With letterboxed footage, it would need to stretch from one corner to the other diagnally, which of course is enlarging vertically.

Ok, You mean a signal from the xbox draws the scaled image including drawn on black bars rather than drawing only the 16:9 image and having the tv concentrate it into the center. That's a good point which popped up as a possibility in my mind. I'm still wondering one thing though.

Is there no way to send a video signal that triggers a tv's 16:9 mode?

Also a couple of completely different questions:
Would it be a relatively light task for the 360's monsterously powerful hardware to simply reproportion a 16:9 image to 4:3, cropping out the extra side video or even just letting it venture off-screen? Would this have been a simple matter like writing a couple of lines of code?

[BCfosheezy]

I apologize if this post comes off the wrong way.
I just don't understand why you are shifting the blame to MS and xbox 360 when YOU bought the wrong tv for your application. If you wanted 1080i in the correct proportion you should have got a 1080i capable widescreen display. You clearly were not aware that the standard for 1080i was 16:9 ONLY and that is nobody's fault but your own. I'm tired of hearing people complain and shift the blame when they are clearly the one at fault.
From this post we learned that the xbox was able to run 1080i in standard mode. What was neglected was the fact that if you run a 1080i image in a 4:3 aspect ratio you cut off a significant amount of the image on either side. If this was not so, you'd get a distorted image. The fact of the matter is, 1080i is the vertical number of pixels. Unless they are changing the image rensolution from 1920 x 1080 to 1440 x 1080 the image will be wrong. Since there is no high definition standard for this resolution I don't think it's fair to assume that the xbox 360 would support it and to knock MS for not supporting it. It is especially not fair after they tell you exactly what resolutions they support and explicitly say that they will not support hd resolutions in 4:3 format. I seriously doubt anyone else will do this either because High definition 4:3 televisions are not in the majority by any means. They are a minority and do not conform to the HD standards. There is no reason for anyone to support such a thing. Since the tv manufacturer made such a device, THEY should be the ones making it compatible with the standards set forth... Not the other way around.

[fahrenheit]

Every single 360 game from here till the end of the consoles life is designed in 16:9 aspect ratio. Its mandatory. If a 4:3 mode is included, it is entirely up to the games developer.

If you wish to chop the sides off the image, you are doing yourself absolutely no favours as you will be missing important interface graphics such as healthbars etc. You have to either work within these limitations, get yourself a new true widescreen display or complain to MS to make 4:3 support mandatory. I'm a 16:9 advocate, so you will not get support from me if you wish to do the latter. MS is pushing the 'HD Era' remember, people in your position simply do not come into that equation. You are an afterthought at the end of the day. Its no good complaining about how things were, this is how things are now (and for the better I might add).

As for the question "Also, how do you go about watching a widescreen DVD with the TV in 16:9 mode without having the xbox draw black bars?"

You would tell the console that you have a 'Widescreen TV' rather than 'Letterbox' and you would engage 16:9 mode on the TV.

[BCfosheezy]

QUOTE(Hopeful @ May 31 2006, 05:07 PM)

 
Listen.

The 360 was bought for the TV. The TV's been around way longer than the 360, as I said. Most people don't go out and buy a tv for a game console do they? You generally buy the console for the TV, not the other way around. It's supposed to be compatible. I didn't do an exhaustive study of the 360 before scooping up the core system I was lucky to come accross. Knowing about the compatability flaw wouldn't have had helpful impact anyway, since I already had the TV. It's not like avoiding the 360 would have helped. I mean it looks nice in 480p, it's just not HD.

The 10x less powerful xbox supports this kind of TV meaning it should have been a given for 360. Even if you're warned "We don't support this kind of TV" it's still the console's flaw. Warning you about it doesn't make it less of a flaw. You can disagree but I don't see it making any sense.

Regarding the fact that 1080i 4:3 chops off the extra viewing area widescreen uses
What's your point? It's 4:3. It wasn't supposed to have that extra viewing area anyway.
You still get a 5x sharper 4:3 image.
Technically not still exactly 1080i?...And?
Is the point tech specs or a sharper image?

This has gotten out of hand and off topic though, and I'll ignore any similar topics/bickers since all they are is a hassle. Back to the topic of constructive solutions, are there any other better than 480p solutions aside from a distorted image? How good does 360 look on a standard computer monitor? Also, how do you go about watching a widescreen DVD with the TV in 16:9 mode without having the xbox draw black bars?

It's obviously not a flaw with the console but rather a flaw with your comprehension. The xbox 360 was designed for High Definition Sets. Since the High definition standard is very specific, there is really no reason to include resolutions that are not HD and have to compromise viewing on the sides. This would lead to a problem for developers if they had to worry about information being cut off by this resolution.

If you bought the xbox 360 for the tv like you said why wouldn't you make sure it worked before you bought it? I wouldn't go by an accessory for my vehicle without making sure it would work. I wouldn't go buy clothes without making sure they would fit. I damn sure wouldn't try to blame the product being sold out for me being ignorant. At any rate it would have been a flaw to break the standard and include resolutions that are not supported. You have no valid points and you are being a crybaby by blaming your own ignorance on the company that you sought out for your entertainment needs.