Specifications

CD, DVD, BLU-RAY & PlayStation 3 Secrets
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These are the resolutions supported by the PS3:
Display Definition Resolution (NTSC PS3) Resolution (PAL PS3)
Full High Definition (HDTV) 1920x1080p 1920x1080p
High Definition (HDTV) 1920x1080i 1920x1080i
High Definition (HDTV) 1280x720p 1280x720p
Standard Definition (SDTV) 720x480p 720x576p
Standard Definition (SDTV) 720x480i 720x576i
It is important that you get a display that has the highest resolution possible (1920x1080p). Because your HDTV will scale and
stretch any signal that is not native to its display size, you should also purchase games or video that can be output in the
resolution of your display.
Many PS3 games these days are able to software scale and stretch so the signal matches 1920x1080p, but the internal
rendering resolution is actually lower. In many cases, the buffer is rendered in multiple passes before it gets passed to the
HDTV.
Each pass may be software scaled and stretched, or not, so you may get blocky and non-blocky images together on your
display. Note that VGA (carries analog RGBHV signals) common in computer displays is not supported by the PS3.
The standard software development kit from Sony given to game developers provide the following basic resolutions that can be
scaled and streched to 1920x1080p via API calls:
• 1600x1080p
• 1440x1080p
• 1280x1080p
• 960x1080p
Note that the developer can always directly render to the buffer at a higher resolution in separate passes to provide better
details like for example the Heads-Up Display and detailed photos and images inside the game.
PS3 Color Space (sRGB to x.v.Color)
sRGB, BT.601, and BT.709
A color space standard defines a specific range of colors, and how they should look from devices like HDTVs. Standard
Definition television uses BT.601 color space standard, HDTV uses BT.709 (compatible with BT.601) color space standard, and
computer displays uses sRGB (compatible with BT.709) color space standard.
he PS3 supports all three standards, and uses different color space standards in different scenarios. The PS3 RSX buffer stores
images in digital RGB format, in the sRGB color space. Blu-ray and DVD movies are stored in YCbCr format on disc and is output
in YCbCr (BT.601 or BT.709 color space) or converted first to RGB (sRGB color space) depending on your setup options.
As previously mentioned, the RSX manipulates values of 0-255 for each of the primary colors of RGB. In television, because of
the limitation of early analog signals (inclusive of converting digital to analog), using the full range of values in 8 bits (0-255) to
represent each of the RGB primary colors left problems in the display.
To compensate for these problems, the full range of values was limited to 16-235 instead of 0-255. So video content (like
DVDs) and displays (like TVs) would treat all values lower than 16 as 16, and higher than 235 as 235. The darkest primary color
value you get would be value 16, and the brightest primary color value you get would be 235.
This SDTV standard became BT.601, which was then expanded upon into BT.709 in HDTV. The BT.709 standard got carried
over into sRGB color standard used in PCs and computer displays. This meant a primary color value of 123 in BT.709 HDTV
display should look the same as a primary color value of 123 in sRGB computer displays.
However, in sRGB color space, values lower than 16 and values higher than 235 were valid colors, unlike in BT.601 and BT.709.
sRGB color space content retained these values because computer displays (using analog RGBHV in VGA) were better than TV
displays at the time (1998) when sRGB color space standard was defined from BT.709.
This meant darker and lighter primary color values on computer monitors were viewable, while analog TVs couldn't handle
them. It should also be noted that analog RGBHV used in VGA computer displays were also better than TV because all the
primary elements were separated from each other, like the Horizonal Sync (H) and Vertical Sync (V).
RGB Limited/Full Option when using HDMI connection
If you are using a HDMI connection, the digital signal is better than the analog RGBHV in VGA (the PS3 does not support
RGBHV, nor VGA connections). Because of the digital HDMI connection, analog problems associated with values less than 16
and values greater than 235 in TV do not exist.
This meant you can output the full 0-255 primary color values to your HDTV untouched if it supports HDMI 1.3, and you also
turn on RGB Full option in the PS3. The RGB Limited option was created to allow the PS3 to output to earlier HDTV displays that
followed BT.709 in HDMI 1.2 protocol, which do not or could not support displaying 0-15 and 236-255 primary color values.