Rumor: PS3 Firmware 2.80 Included Cinematic 21:9 TV Support?

[PS3 News]

According to TheSixthAxis.com (linked above), Sony's recent PS3 Firmware 2.80 Update may have included yet another 'hidden' feature that was not uncovered in the changelog compilation... specifically, Cinematic 21:9 TV support.

To quote: "The first http://www.cinema.philips.com/ was unveiled this year and is now available if you've got the cash to splash, and whilst the 2560 x 1080p resolution set sounds like a blessing for movie fans not happy with black bars on their 'regular' widescreen TVs, game developers surely won't pick up the better-than-HD resolution for some time.

That won't stop Sony pushing the actual XMB display out further than 1920 pixels, though - as far as we know HDMI 1.3 - the format used in the PS3 firmware at the moment - can support the resolution just fine and hopefully there's no reason why the PS3's OS can't too."

That being said, Sony has made no comment on this yet so it's essentially speculation until someone with a new ultra wide-screen 21:9 TV can confirm it.


More PlayStation 3 News...

[Arnie Pie]

There's a big difference between the HDMI controller supporting these resolutions, and the RSX supporting them. There's no additional support for extra resolutions in SDK280 for developers, and there's no manual HDMI configuration options for these resolutions in the XMB either.

IMO, TheSixthAxis' rumour has nothing to back it up. No unconfirmed source. No leaks. Just speculation by the author. I mean, he even says 'No evidence to support this at the moment'. And saying there's no reason why the PS3 OS can't do this just shows a lack of understanding.

Also, why on earth would Sony put in support for a resolution only handled by Philips TVs, but not add support for monitor resolutions (1600x1200, for example) that a lot more people would benefit from.

This is just crazy talk.

[PS3 News]

Originally Posted by Arnie Pie IMO, TheSixthAxis' rumour has nothing to back it up. No unconfirmed source. No leaks. Just speculation by the author. I mean, he even says 'No evidence to support this at the moment'. And saying there's no reason why the PS3 OS can't do this just shows a lack of understanding.

Agreed. Apparently this stemmed from a reputable guy at NeoGAF who dropped the hint, but from it TheSixthAxis just seemed to speculate so ya.. unless someone can confirm it I'd say "crazy talk" fits for the most part.

[CJPC]

Well, I may be able to do one better- confirming that there is no 21:9 support in 2.80.

Namely, look at the attached image. Every PS3 version has the layout of the XMB (with resolutions, alignment, etc), in the firmware. Needless to say, the largest is 1920x1080 (its inside the 1080 file), no reference to anything larger (and yes, I am running out of HDD space!)

I highly doubt that they scaled it up - its much more likely that they did some other upgrades, namely the PS2 emulator - from 2.76 to 2.80 it HAS been upgraded.

The main changes from 2.76 -> 2.80 are the XMB (vsh), and the emu's. An excerpt is posted below:



2.76:

vsh:69853
sys_jp:57
ps1emu:4792
ps1netemu:4793
ps1newemu:4693
ps2emu:4772
ps2gxemu:12819
ps2softemu:12820

2.80:

vsh:72044
sys_jp:59
ps1emu:4853
ps1netemu:4867
ps1newemu:4693
ps2emu:4854
ps2gxemu:12827
ps2softemu:12820

Now, the #'s next to the name are the revision numbers, as you can tell, the largest increases are in the XMB (vsh) as well as increases with the EMU's.

I suppose 3.0 may let us know of any suprise(s)!

Attached Images

ps3-res-ps3news.png (34.0 KB, 321 views)

[PS3 News]

Thanks for the detective work CJPC!

[dagnillo]

I'm more alarmed by the fact that there are now TV's with 21:9 aspect ratio (this is the first I've heard of it). While I certainly am tired of almost every movie having black bars (that's why I bought an HDTV after all), I think it's ridiculous to now arbitrarily start a new standard.

Isn't the electronics and HDTV market already confusing enough? Now it looks like when I finally upgrade to my next HDTV it will already be rendered obsolete by another random format change. I thought that we would be good for a while with the switch to HDTV but it looks like I was wrong.