Lyris Lite :: PS3 to upscale DVDs to 1080p as of tomorrow

...although there's still no way to remove the region lockout from the DVD player component, meaning that many of us still won't be able to take the PS3 seriously as a standalone DVD player. Nevertheless, tomorrow's System Update will indeed add the long-awaited scaling capability to the machine.

Some sites like to parrot 1080p upscaling as a way of improving your existing 480-line (or 576-line for Europe) DVDs to 1080p quality. These people have the wrong idea and are only setting themselves up for disappointment. A better way to look at it is that upscaling standard-def DVDs (or any type of video source) to 1080p is a good way to stop your TV making the video look worse before its video processors get their filthy silicon hands on it. It's a somewhat more pessimistic, but also more realistic view. And, to those sites' credit, it's true that upscaling algorithms can help smooth jagged edges and make the video that little bit nicer to look at. No idea how well the PS3 will manage this, though.

The 1080p upscaling can also be applied to PS1 and PS2 games as well, not just DVDs. Remember, that's UPSCALING to 1080p, the games are still rendered with 480i (for NTSC, that is) in mind for technical reasons, and are then worked upon by the PS3 hardware, rather than them being altered to actually output in real 1080p to start with. Although the machine is fast becoming even more of an internet joke, it's good to see that Sony are improving the already capable hardware as promised. I'll post impressions on how well the DVD upscaling performs tomorrow (with the few DVDs that our R2 Japanese PS3 will actually accept, that is).

So, even the PS1 and PS2 backwards compatible games will be upscaled as well?

What do you want to bet that Final Fantasy 7 will sill look like crap and have all of it's textures and mapping STILL be as jagged and ugly as hell?

The PS2's Texture Smoother did absolutely nothing for that game, either.

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