I just realized the TV out does not support component or anything else that can do P* Scan, if the Pandora is more powerful than the PSP than why can't we have the option for this since I will be hooking it up to my HDTV and I'm sure its fast enough to handle some emulators with V-Scan and P on?
Tv Out Basic?
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Chip
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It is not a matter of "power". The Pandora is limited to composite and s-video because that is what the SoC can handle natively. To get other video formats out (component, VGA, etc) they would have had to add additional components. That would have increased the price and complicated the design - possible pushing the ship date out even further.TylerAW said:
The line had to be drawn somewhere.
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crazedover
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The only difference between the PSP and Pandora is that the PSP has a progressive signal, whereas the Pandora will most likely have an interlaced signal. You probably won't even notice the difference. In fact, the Pandora will have a preferable TV-out, since the PSP does not scale its signal to 480p, it just outputs its 272 pixel height (of course, it depends on what you're doing on the PSP...) On the other hand, the Pandora won't have to scale its signal at all, no matter what you're doing, because its screen is already 480 pixels in height. This will save both processor time and electricity. This is really a non-issue.
crazedover said:
Actually - when playing videos, the PSP will output 480i via component or composite cables. You are correct about games, the image gets badly letterboxed when putting out PSP games. Though I haven't tried it, some emulators can now output their games fullscreen using 480i on the composite cables - I'll have to try it some time.
One big weakness in the PSP and also PMP's (like the Archos 605 and Cowon A3) right now is that none effectively fill a screen larger than 480P. The "stretch" functions are based on a 4:3, 480 pixel television. So, the best way to get a picture that's not distorted - is by using the TV's "zoom" functions if available. The Cowon A3 at least has a zoom increment (I'm told) of 10% so you can come close to the right scale for a 720 or 1080P tv. In short, there's no anamorphic outpit, which any cheap DVD player can do.
Will the Pandora have anamorphic output, or will we have to play games in order to fill out an HDTV without distortion? I'd be very curious about this for both games and videos - because I haven't found a handheld device that does this effectively. I love my Archos, but it's really only great at outputting to an SDTV. If the Pandora could do so - I'd be considering it to replace both a PMP and a PSP.
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Chip
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That's really up to whoever writes the driver. Ideally we should be able to choose how the video out is converted from 800x480 to 700x486 (letterboxed, cropped, squashed, etc). Even with these options you will have to do some playing around to get everything to jive. To watch a movie on your HDTV, you will have to consider the way the original video was recorded, the settings in the media player software, the output settings for the Pandora hardware, and the settings on your TV. Kind of a pain in the ass, but there is no way around it. There are just too many different ways that digital video can be encoded.PolloLoco said:
I'm also assuming we'll have both NTSC and PAL support, since Pandora is an international project. Can we get an official statement on any of this?
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foft
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When I saw the topic I thought it was going to be a suggestion of booting to a BASIC READY prompt on screen+tvout. So it would be like the good old 8-bit days
That would rock!
That would rock!
Prophet
God I'm old.
Me too!foft said:When I saw the topic I thought it was going to be a suggestion of booting to a BASIC READY prompt on screen+tvout. So it would be like the good old 8-bit days
Made me think of my Atari 800 (my first computer).
In fact we can do exactly that by running emulators. With composite output it will look just like it used to.
A few reactions:TylerAW said:
1) As explained already, the SOC is pre-configured that way. It has nothing to do with "power."
2) For emulation purposes, composite and s-video will actually give the more faithful image anyway, since all those 8bit, 16bit and even 32bit systems rarely output anything better than s-video. (Aside from PAL regions and their lovely SCART - back in the day I had RGB cables for my consoles to use on my Amiga monitor!)
3) PSP's output for games is horribly letterboxed, and is limited ONLY to progressive scan. So it's a big tradeoff there.
Lastly I will add this is a handheld first and foremost. I understand the desire for progressive scan, but you can't expect everything you would from a console in a handheld. I think it's already impressive enough. And s-video is a decent signal. Not great, but decent enough for classic games and video playback.
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Let me clarify this tv out issue with respect to anamorphic output.
I have a $50 DVD player that plays divx and xvid. If I use composite cables to an SDTV, or HDTV - the file is automatically displayed painlessly. Stretched full screen at the right aspect ratio, letterboxed as needed.
The portables I've used are equally as good with SDTV. But on an HDTV it all goes bad. WS films are either stretched further or horribly cropped. 4:3 content is even worse. Purely because the portables don't know how to fill a 720 or 1080 screen.
Its a shame that +300$ portables (archos and cowon) can't output as well as a cheap DVD. I'm hoping Pandora's drivers will take HDTV output into account.
I have a $50 DVD player that plays divx and xvid. If I use composite cables to an SDTV, or HDTV - the file is automatically displayed painlessly. Stretched full screen at the right aspect ratio, letterboxed as needed.
The portables I've used are equally as good with SDTV. But on an HDTV it all goes bad. WS films are either stretched further or horribly cropped. 4:3 content is even worse. Purely because the portables don't know how to fill a 720 or 1080 screen.
Its a shame that +300$ portables (archos and cowon) can't output as well as a cheap DVD. I'm hoping Pandora's drivers will take HDTV output into account.
Chip said:It is not a matter of "power". The Pandora is limited to composite and s-video because that is what the SoC can handle natively. To get other video formats out (component, VGA, etc) they would have had to add additional components. That would have increased the price and complicated the design - possible pushing the ship date out even further.TylerAW said:
The line had to be drawn somewhere.
If the PSP is doing emulation or you're watching a movie than it can make the signal higher, I think DOOM runs much higher than 272 but yes if you're running commercial games ya gotta use the Zoom button
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Chip
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I hope so too. The good thing about an open, community driven project like this is that even if the software or driver doesn't give you the options you need, there is a pretty good chance that somebody else will pick it up and make it work. We are not beholden to a large, unresponsive corporation to fix the stuff that doesn't work. There is no technical reason that I am aware of that between software, driver and TV settings we shouldn't be able to get properly formatted video from any source.PolloLoco said:
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crazedover
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That's why I said it depends on what you're doing on the PSP.PolloLoco said:
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