HDTV Help

[Hush24]

Hello, I recently bought a Samsung HDTV.

Naturally I picked up some component cables so that I could enjoy some of the 960x540 resolution videos through SMS.

Unfortunately I have a problem I need some help with.

First thing I did was I changed Component Video Out to Ycb/pb Cr/Pr in System Configuration.

I launched SMS (2.9 rev3) and went to Display Settings to change the TV System. Here's the available options I found:

-pal
-ntsc
-DTV 480p
-VESA (60Hz)
-DTV 1080i
-DTV 720p

They all work and the resolution changes accordingly but the first thing i noticed is that the letters in the menu kind of have a colorful blur to them.

I tried a few standard resolution XviD files. They looked alright but were kind of blurry, The 960x540 videos however look horrible. Way worse than the lower res XviDs and way worse than they look on my computer or a standard def TV. All pixelated and blurry.

This goes for all the display options. I tried many videos and it's the same with all of them.

Can anyone help?

I forgot to say, my TV is Samsung LE32B450 HD Ready.

I did some investigating and tried to play a game with progressive scan. It was Guitar Hero III and it did not work. Is it possible I bough damaged component cables?

[spud42]

play a normal DVD through the PS and not SMS use the component cable. is the picture ok? if so then the cable is fine. could be the upscaling of the 960x540 pic to the 1366 x 768 resolution native to this TV. did you rip these movies yourself or are they downloaded? too much compression can make for blurry picture in higher res situations..

[Hush24]

Thanks for replying, Spud.
I tried playing a DVD. Seems fine although the picture is very pixelated with many artifacts.

The 960x540/960x544 files are downloaded. I tried many of them with the same result.

I'm also concerned about the blur in 720p and 1080i modes. Obviously 1080i should'nt work since my TV is 720p, but the 720p mode also has the blur (as well as the 480p mode). It's hard to describe. The letters in the SMS Menu are white but they kind of blur to the right in a colorful manner.

Do you have HDTV? Maybe I could upload a small 14mb sample of one of the 960x540 files and you could give it a shot on your TV, if it's not a problem.

[spud42]

i have a LG full HD LCD tv. LG4250FD model.. 1920x1080 if you want to post a rapidshare link i can test the file for you...

[HRGS]

I have a BRAVIA full HD LCDTV.

1) Did you try decreasing 'Sharpness' of the picture on your TV settings? Also different modes (cinema, vivid, etc.) reveal different levels of artifacts.

2) SMS is internally zooming the picture on all display modes and that may be the cause of blurring you see (also it has a bad effect on motion enhancements done by TV sets), So nothing can be done about it unless the author of program decide to implement an 'actual size' mode someday.

3) Try pressing SQUARE while playing the video to test different zooming modes.

[Vegeta]

Hush24, I also had blurring issues with 720p/1080i and the problem was using a cheap 3rd party component cable.

I replaced it and now the picture is pin-sharp in the HD modes with no blur.

Here is the thread where I made mention of it:

http://psx-scene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62035 (1080i and 720p colour question)

[dlanor]

While we're on the subject of these resolutions, everyone should be aware that some of the defaults in the 'advanced' section of the display settings of SMS are not really well optimized.

For example, in 720p I was at first unable to center the picture well vertically, without suffering breakup of the bottom-most lines of the picture during playback (never in menu). And when I did center the picture I still had small unwanted borders at top and bottom.

These problems were all fixed by changing three of the "Advanced settings..." values as follows:

"Display height:" was raised from 676 to 684 (The ideal 720 would be too high for screen)
"Synch. parameter 1 (Video):" was raised from 660 to 684.
"Synch. parameter 2 (GUI):" was raised from 660 to 684.

After applying those changes I could then recenter the picture with just a single 'spare' line both at top and bottom of the screen. And then I naturally saved my settings to MC.

The precise values needed for perfect optimization may vary for differing TV sets, but the values I used here should suit many of them.

The same kind of tweaking may improve results for other resolutions as well, such as 1080i, where I found that I got the best picture and audio results using these settings:
"Display height:" set to 1018
"Synch. parameter 1 (Video):" set to 520
"Synch. parameter 2 (GUI):" set to 520
"Synch. parameter 3 (Audio):" set to 480

Before I made these changes I had serious audio synch problems in 1080i, which seem to be cured now. And the picture is now perfectly centered for this mode as well. But since it is an interlaced mode I still prefer using the 720p mode to watch my movies and TV series.

Even so, it is quite impressive how large file collections you can access without having to scroll in 1080i. When you keep shows collected in one folder per season you can normally see every file in a single listing in this resolution, which is very nice. I guess some users will choose 1080i for that reason alone.

Best regards: dlanor

[SP193]

Hey! You're not the only one with this problem. My parents upgraded our 10 year old ~42-inch CRT TV to a Samsung BRAVIA series 7....and the graphics on my PS2(Especially text) became rather blurred. I am using RCA by the way.

I think that it's because it's aspect ratio is now 16:9 instead of the old 4:3 which the PS2 expected to be connected to by default...

Strangely, the blur problem seemed to "disappear" in uLE if you set your screen mode to PAL.... weird..... try that in SMS if there is such an option.