Progressive Scan on which consoles?

[Antoneo]

So Microsoft have finally dropped progressive scan for the dvd player part of the Xbox, does that mean that the games won't have progressive scan either? Does the Gamecube have progressive scan for its games? I have seen pics of a Panasonic? version of Nintedo's Gamecube and it was a DVD player as well...
Oh and please don't turn this into a console bashing thread. 😛

 

[LiQiCE]

The funny thing is ... On the back of the X-Box it says "HDTV support for games and movies" ... Now I don't have an HDTV or the DVD software to test this, but doesn't that sound like Progressive scan support for DVDs? ... I understand that Microsoft said that it didn't make it into the final release, but its just weird that the box actually says that.

Anyways, all X-Box games have support for at least 480p, some games will have support for Widescreen and some will support resolutions up to 1080i ... I'm not positive if this ability is built into all the games automatically, but I *think* that it needs to be programmed into the game (anything about 480p and widescreen support I mean).

GameCube will have support for 480p out of the box but its not clear if it will support any resolutions higher than 480p.

Panasonic's GameCube will have DVD support, but I also heard that it would not be available in America ... Guess its a wait and see thing for that.

 

[royaldank]

<< Panasonic's GameCube will have DVD support, but I also heard that it would not be available in America ... Guess its a wait and see thing for that. >>



There was a press release about two weeks ago saying that the DVD-GameCube will not be sold in America. It was reported on videogames.com

 

[Antoneo]

<< ...On the back of the X-Box it says "HDTV support for games and movies" ... Now I don't have an HDTV or the DVD software to test this, but doesn't that sound like Progressive scan support for DVDs? ... I understand that Microsoft said that it didn't make it into the final release, but its just weird that the box actually says that... >>


I thought progressive scan capability and HDTV support were two different things. Isn't progressive scan like writing the whole frame in one pass instead of two? HDTV is increased resolution, no?
Damn, no DVD gamecube for US? Why is it that all the good stuff never makes it to the US? or it takes an additional year to cross over the Pacific. ARG!

 

[Ferocious]

Yes, for games both Cube and Xbox have Progressive Scan capabilities (using component) with TV's capable of doing that feature.

Xbox does not have this feature when playing back DVD movies however. And of course the Cube can't play DVD movies at all.

 

[LiQiCE]

Well, there are a couple of different ways to phrase the new forms of TV available.

Progressive scan means that it is regular TV with no interlacing (640x480 Non-Interlaced). But in HDTV speak that is 480p (640x480 Progressive scan). Regular TV is called 480i (640x480 Interlaced) or NTSC, or SDTV (Standard Definition Television I think).

There are 2 other major resolutions for HDTV and those are 720p (1280x720 Progressive scan), and 1080i (1920x1080 Interlaced).

For DVDs there is an extra thing that needs to be done to display DVDs in 480p and that is called 3:2 Pulldown. Basically what that means is that when films are transferred from 35mm to a DVD they perform a process on the picture to make it interlaced. 3:2 Pulldown simply reverses that process so the picture isn't interlaced anymore and is then displayed on the screen.

Therefore according to the X-Box's cardboard box if the unit can play movies (assuming they mean DVD) in HDTV it would need to be able to be a progressive scan DVD player. Now this contradicts all the reports we've heard so it may be an error on the box, or it maybe a preview of things to come.

Anyways, I hope this clears up any confusion with all the differences in terminology and resolutions for HDTV 🙂

 

[Antoneo]

Thanks LiQice, that cleared things up a bit. Hmm... if you had a 16:9 widescreen TV, would the xbox display widescreen format?

 

[IshmaelLeaver]

XBox games can support 480p, 720p, or 1080i, but you have to buy the High Definition AV Pack add-on. DVD movies will not play in progressive scan mode, only games. They could have built both of these things into the console, but they chose not to. I'll let you guess why they didn't.

Gamecube has native support for 480p, but not for the other two resolutions.

The "Q", or Panasonic DVD/Gamecube is not coming to the US, but perhaps someday someone will figure out a region mod for it. It's easy enough to modify the regular GCN.

 

[LiQiCE]

I'm not sure if it would work for ALL games but I know for most of the launch games 16:9 widescreen is supported (definitely in DOA3 because I've seen screenshots of DOA3 on a 16:9 TV and they were taking up the whole screen)