Widescreen HDTV making my PS2, Xbox, etc games look horrible

[jdc]

I just fired it up in 720p instead of 1080i.....and 720p appears to be less "grainy". Is that correct?

[jonjandran]

I just fired it up in 720p instead of 1080i.....and 720p appears to be less "grainy". Is that correct?

Yes a lot of times that is how it will look. Like I said most sets are only 1280x720 so they run 720p better.

[GregLee]

There isn't anything that can fix the OAR situation. OAR = Original Aspect Ratio. Games prior to Xbox were pretty much designed with 4:3 TV's in mind. Even a ton of Xbox 1 games have a 4:3 OAR. The vast majority of PS2 games have a 4:3 OAR as well. Same thing with GameCube. However, on all those systems, make sure that you go into the settings and check for a 16:9 mode because some of the games require you to select it in the options.

Many Gamecube games have a widescreen option -- about 59 of them (using the database at hdgames.net to count). Of those, 46 also have a progressive scan option. Altogether, 137 GC games have progressive scan.

For progressive scan widescreen games, I think the GC produces a very nice picture on my HD widescreen TV, using component cables. (Much better than S-Video, and much, much better than composite.)

[Anthony1]

There isn't anything that can fix the OAR situation. OAR = Original Aspect Ratio. Games prior to Xbox were pretty much designed with 4:3 TV's in mind. Even a ton of Xbox 1 games have a 4:3 OAR. The vast majority of PS2 games have a 4:3 OAR as well. Same thing with GameCube. However, on all those systems, make sure that you go into the settings and check for a 16:9 mode because some of the games require you to select it in the options.

Many Gamecube games have a widescreen option -- about 59 of them (using the database at hdgames.net to count). Of those, 46 also have a progressive scan option. Altogether, 137 GC games have progressive scan.

For progressive scan widescreen games, I think the GC produces a very nice picture on my HD widescreen TV, using component cables. (Much better than S-Video, and much, much better than composite.)

Yeah, the GC does produce a very nice picture when it comes to the widescreen 480p GameCube games that are out there. Apparently all 46 of them. I'm just saying that for all the games that don't have a 480p option, and they don't have a 16:9 OAR, then it's best to play on a regular 4:3 TV rather than a HDTV. (preferably of course a analog 15kHz rgb monitor)