Recommended PS3 Settings for a 4:3 CRT TV

[Tempest]

I've got a Sony 36XS955 4:3 CRT TV. It's a nice TV as it's 36" and does almost full 1080i due to its Super Fine Pitch tube. I've been playing around with the settings in the PS3 menus, and I'm not 100% sure what to pick for some of them. One thing I noticed is that any 4:3 material from a DVD (mostly TV series) is postage stamped in the center of the screen rather than being full screen. I can zoom in with my TV remote, but then I lose several inches on the sides. I'm wondering if this is happening because the PS3 is displaying in 1080i and that's just how it displays 4:3 material in 1080i.

 

Another thing I've been screwing around with is the PS2 upscaling. If it I leave it on Normal, I get that postage stamp problem so I've had to set it to Full. I'm wondering if this will distort the picture though.

 

There are several other settings that I haven't messed around with (like the True White setting), does anyone have any recommendations based on what they've done with their PS3?

 

Tempest

[spacecadet]

I've got a Sony 36XS955 4:3 CRT TV. It's a nice TV as it's 36" and does almost full 1080i due to its Super Fine Pitch tube. I've been playing around with the settings in the PS3 menus, and I'm not 100% sure what to pick for some of them. One thing I noticed is that any 4:3 material from a DVD (mostly TV series) is postage stamped in the center of the screen rather than being full screen. I can zoom in with my TV remote, but then I lose several inches on the sides. I'm wondering if this is happening because the PS3 is displaying in 1080i and that's just how it displays 4:3 material in 1080i.

 

Yep... and this is one of the issues with 4:3 HDTV's.

 

I don't know if there's any way around it. The issue is that the 1080i spec is 16:9, while your TV is 4:3. So feed it 1080i, and 4:3 material is going to be centered within the 16:9 1080i signal, which is then going to be centered within the 4:3 confines of your set. There's no such thing as 4:3 1080i, so if you set the PS3 to output 1080i, it's going to output 16:9, and it's going to pillarbox 4:3 content in that 16:9 signal. Your TV's then going to letterbox the 16:9 signal with the 4:3 content pillarboxed inside it.

 

You're in a pretty unique situation. There aren't many 4:3 HDTV's for just this reason. If your TV wasn't an HDTV, no problem - you'd just set the PS3 to output 480i or whatever and you'd have 4:3 for everything. But then you're not getting the HD resolutions your TV's capable of.

 

If it's any consolation, you *should* still be getting full resolution when you zoom in. Because the PS3 is sending you the full resolution; it's just a question of how your TV chooses to display it. If the TV is doing its job properly, it will just expand 4:3 content to full res and chop off the sides, thereby giving you full vertical res and only losing the pillarbox.

 

btw, did you at least try changing the "DVD Upscaler" option to "Off"? I don't know if that'd force it to just output 480i or 480p natively, which is 4:3. (Not sure what it'd do to 16:9 DVD's in that case, though, but hopefully it'd just letterbox them like it would on an SD set.)

 

Another thing I've been screwing around with is the PS2 upscaling. If it I leave it on Normal, I get that postage stamp problem so I've had to set it to Full. I'm wondering if this will distort the picture though.

 

The purpose of "full" is to act as a stretch mode on widescreen TV's. I don't know what it would do on a 4:3 set. Isn't it just filling out to the sides but leaving a letterbox? If so, then yeah, it's distorting your picture.

 

There are several other settings that I haven't messed around with (like the True White setting), does anyone have any recommendations based on what they've done with their PS3?

 

IIRC that setting affects mostly digital sets. I do know that the PS3 comes set from the factory to a 16-235 color space, which is weird. On my set, all the colors looked washed out and black was most definitely grey. If black looks black on your set, though, then your set probably is using that 16-235 color space. (Mine uses 0-255, so I had to change this setting to get true black.)

Edited August 20, 2007 by spacecadet

[cimerians]

Here are my settings. I have a 42" Westinghouse widescreen flat 720p TV.

 

- Im using an official Sony HDMI cable (I somewhat recommend this. I used the Cyclone brand and it did not work with my Westinghouse).

- The PS3 is in 1080i display mode.

- PS1/PS2 upscaling is on Normal. (But not on full)

- PS1/PS2 Smoothing is OFF. (I just dont like the effect and "faded look" that PS1 games have with this setting on)

 

Some games may look better or worse with upscaling but so far with each patch release almost all games I have look better with upscaling turned ON.

 

I have played around with all the settings for a long time and these were the best settings for me.

[Tempest]

Well that sucks. I suppose I can play PS2 games on my PS2, as they look about the same (the upscaling effects were minimal). I can also watch 4:3 DVD's on the PS2 in all their 36" full screen goodness. I suppose its a small price to pay.

 

Tempest

[moycon]

Not trying to highjack this thread, but what produces a better picture 720p or 1080i or does it really matter?

Personally when I try both, the look about the same to me, or 1080i looks kinda worse actually.

[Tempest]

Not trying to highjack this thread, but what produces a better picture 720p or 1080i or does it really matter?

Personally when I try both, the look about the same to me, or 1080i looks kinda worse actually.

 

From what I've read it depends on the TV. Some TV's don't do 1080i well, and some TV's convert all 720P signals to 1080i anyway. I've been trying to find the answer for my TV, but it's not a common TV so I'm having trouble. I may just spend some time fiddling around with it.

 

Some people say that 1080i makes games look blurry. I really haven't noticed.

 

Tempest

[+SpiceWare]

Looking at just the picture detail you get:

• 720p has an image that's 1280x720, or 921,600 pixels.
  
• 1080i has an image thats 1920x1080, or 2,073,600 pixels.
  

Based on that, the 1080i is better because it has over twice as much detail. However, and this is a biggie:

• if your set only shows 720p then anything 1080i will have to be scaled down(tossing out lots of pixels)
  
• if your set only shows 1080i then anything 720 will have to be scaled up (extrapolating data that's not really there). This tends to soften the image.
  

as such, you'll always get the best picture if your set is receiving a signal that it natively displays.