My PS3 Is All About The TV

By Paul Munn | March 16, 2007

Last week I finally was able to get my spouse to agree that when a console perishes or otherwise rides off into the sunset after a long and fulfilling life in service to its master, a next generation console may take its place. This line of reasoning let me take the PlayStation 2 out from the cabinet beneath my television and put a PlayStation 3 in its place. My first week of impressions of and problems with the system have convinced me that with the PS3, it’s all about the TV.

Configuration
Four years ago I bought a monstrously heavy Sony 34-inch widescreen Trinitron tube television which was noted as being HD ready. Its manual tells me it can do 1080i and it has a DVI connector, so instead of using the component video Monster Cable from my PS2 for the PS3 — is uses the same AV connector on the back as the PS2 — I opted for an inexpensive HDMI to DVI cable from Newegg. I’d read all over the web that since HDMI and DVI are digitial formats, the quality of the cable itself isn’t a factor, so those $99 HDMI cables are basically a rip-off. I had the HDMI to DVI cable on hand when I bought the system, so I was able to use it when configuring the video. I have to admit that the 1080i picture is really sharp — for the most part.

I never had any kind of sound system for my PS2, and this continues with the PS3. I’m using the AV-Out cable from the PS3 that came in the box connected to the RCA jacks on the back of the TV set alongside its DVI connector. It works, and my TV is plenty loud, so much so that we never put the volume over 15 or 20% of maximum. Maybe when my kids get older I’ll invest in a sound system of some kind to go with the TV set and until then I’ll settle for not being able to wear headphones.

It didn’t take too long for me to figure out how to set the video to go out the HDMI port, and the audio to go out the RCA jacks. It was a relief that the option to send sound out the AV connector was there for people like me didn’t have a set with HDMI inputs.

The PS3 came with a nice, thick, heavy black ethernet cable in the box. This surprised me, as it’s not entirely required that you have an ethernet cable to use the system with a retail game, but given that some of the most compelling features and content for the system are internet-delivered, you should have one anyway.

When I powered the system on, it defaulted to DHCP and quickly grabbed an IP address and went online to tell me a system update was available. I changed its network settings to the static IP configuration my PS2 used to have and off I went.

Four Problems
This is the very first high definition signal my TV has had to deal with above the progressive scan 480p games my PS2 has given it, and it seems to have exposed four problems with my TV set I wish weren’t there.

First, in the HD 1080i mode my television seems to have a problem where it is projecting the image just a bit past the left edge of the screen, cutting off maybe a half-inch of the image. I’m used to seeing this on monitors when the tube is not properly adjusted, and one can typically use on-screen controls to center the image by moving it a little bit left or right or by scrunching it down (technical term, there) vertically or horizontally. I’ve scoured the controls and manual for my television and horizontal adjustments aren’t an option. The set also is slightly blurring the image at the far left and especially far lower left, probably due to the over-projection issue. So far this is only noticeable when browsing the PlayStation Store, which has text and other information in that area. Looking from the left to the right you can definitely tell something is blurry on the left side.

I spent some time on the phone with Sony tech support for my TV, and they ran me through a series of tests and asked me to test the PS3 with another tv set, then another HDMI to DVI cable to narrow the problem. They’re pretty sure it’s either the PS3 itself or the TV set. I haven’t had an opportunity to do this yet.

A second problem with the set, perhaps linked to the first, is a very faint left-moving strobing effect. I can just barely make out a little bit of a wave of slightly brighter light traveling right to left when the screen is very dark. It’s almost like a right-to-left scan line is being drawn, and only in low lighting. Perhaps this has to do with 1080i being an interlaced mode.

Third, I can’t get the screen to go to a 4:3 non-widescreen mode when playing a PlayStation 2 non-widescreen, non-progressive-scan game. This seems to be a direct limitation of my TV, since I visited a friend with a PS3 who could tell his quite new plasma flatscreen TV to go from widescreen to 4:3 mode without trouble. I can’t help but think the PS3 should be able to write the image into the video buffer and pad the left and right of it with black space. I’m told that going to 480i gets rid of this problem, but that means using the AV out and rewiring my sound output because the PS3 won’t allow me to change the video mode on the HDMI output to anything lower than 480p. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, however, because the solution for it involves setting the TV set to the same setting we use to watch TV on it with a minimum of distortion. There is a Wide Zoom mode for the TV set which zooms in the 4:3 image and stretches the left and right just a bit to fit. While being able to pick an actual 4:3 mode would be preferable, the Wide Zoom mode works quite well on just about every game I’ve tried on it.

Fourth, PlayStation 2 games tend to look noticeably less vibrant and a bit less detailed on the PS3 in 1080i than they did on my PS2 with the Component Video Monster Cable. It seems to look better than an SVideo connection does on a regular PS2, but not quite as good as the high-quality Component Video connection. It’s a minor disappointment, but at this stage of the game I’m not playing the PS2 games for their looks.

Next Time
Stay tuned for my next episode where I’ll dissect the latest firmware and give an earful on what needs to get better. After that I’ll dig into the PS3 titles I’m enjoying thus far.

Survey says?
In the meantime, have any PS3 owners with slightly older TV’s noticed any problems in HD video modes?