Two numbers that have befuddled many HDTV buyers throughout the years are 720p and 1080i. What do they mean, exactly? There are plenty of technical explanations (here’s a great one), but most of you just want to know which will give you the best experience on your PlayStation 3. That answer will change depending on your television set, but if you want to see what the difference really looks like, check out these screenshots of GT5 Prologue. GTPlanet user R0M posted a few in this forum thread, and added 200 more to his post at TaxiGamer.
The difference, actually, isn’t startling. The 1080i images are larger, but it comes at the price of softness and loss in detail. On the other hand, 720p provides a crisper appearance at the cost of making graphical “jaggies” a bit more apparent. Which resolution do you prefer?
Like many early-adopters, my HDTV can only display 1080i and 480p resolutions. Because the PS3 does not have a scaler (like the XBOX360), any games listed as 720p play only at the Wii-esque resolution of 480p on my TV. (Then again, PS3 owners don’t have to worry about the red ring of death!)
Eventually I will get a new TV, but the 55″ Philips TV I have still has a beautiful picture. Friends who come over are still surprised how bright and clear the picture is, even compared with their LCDs. If I had the choice, I would take a progressive scan image over an interlaced image (as d3br34k5 said), but I don’t have that choice at the moment.
Jordan is correct — the PS3 renders 1080i games the same way it renders 1080p games, so if you have a 1080p set, you should also push for 1080-capable games. You also don’t have to deal with the reduced sharpness of your TV scaling the 720p game to 1080p.
What I also find interesting is that most of the games in the bargain bins are 720p only. This makes me wonder if there are many, many others who have TVs incapable of displaying 720p…
Here is a link to a list of PS3 games and whether or not they support 1080i/p. After the list of games, it also dispels many myths about 1080i and 720p.
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3&message.id=1543717#M1543717
Just to clarify, the 1080i reference images are actually 1080p. By definition, an interlaced image is impossible to ‘capture’ in its pure form (without missing out on every other line). Otherwise, you end up with all of the lines at once – and that’s the same as progressive scan.
I also run 1080p (I think the actual in-race resolution is 1280×1080) and play on a 47″ LCD. I’ve done an image comparison between 720p and 1080p settings in Gran Turismo and 1080p is definitely the option you want to go with.
If I had the option of running either 1080i or 720p, I would go with the progressive scan over the interlaced scan, every time.
Its washed out because of scaling.
I use 1080p through HDMI and have a crystal clear image plus the high resolution.