(no subject)

[unbibium]

I wish I'd read about latency before buying an HDTV.  Apparently just about all HDTV's have latency issues which cause problems for video games where reflexes count.

My Samsung has a "game mode" which supposedly cuts down the lag, but I can't quite tell whether it works well enough.

In the coming days, I plan to get some kind of audio recorder, and record myself pressing a button loudly, and measure the time between when I press the button, and when the sound effect happens. I'll do this on my big TV as well as my old TV.

The good news is, the new TV is all kinds of awesome when watching TV or movies.

Comments

[davetheinverted]

From reading the comment thread, it looks like it's mostly a function of upconverting...if your TV can handle whatever resolution your source is throwing at it natively, then the problem goes away. I don't recall that any of the hard-core DDR folks have complained about lag with our set, and that's a game that *would* produce complaints....

Dav2.718

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

well, supposedly no sets support native 480p, and any system I buy in the future is probably going to be 480p maximum...

I wonder if my living room is big enough to support keeping my 27-inch TV just for the purpose of games... which I might need anyway if I run out of inputs on this one, and replace the PS2 with a decent DVD player.

[vyus.livejournal.com]

so is this an issue just with older consoles and possibly wii? the 360 shoots out 768 and 1080.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I noticed the problem when trying to play Super Mario Bros on my pirate NES. I kept hitting the wrong block if I was running too fast.

[underwhelm.livejournal.com]

DDR on linux and Karaoke Revolution on the PS2 work fine on my HDTV. I've never noticed a lag on my Animal Crossing NES games—there may be one but I've never perceived it. All my systems are connected via component inputs. I've never tried to plug the SNES into it.

Either my TV supports the necessary modes, or I didn't get an HDTV?

[underwhelm.livejournal.com]

The article says it affects CRT HDTVs, but CRT HDTVs don't have a single native resolution the way LCD and DLP TVs do. Chances that you'll have an upconversion issue are reduced with a CRT HDTV, which mine is.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

what kind is it? CRT, LCD, DLP?

[underwhelm.livejournal.com]

Mine's a CRT, which probably has something to do with it. I guess that's something to put in the advantage column that maybe compensates for the fact that it weighs over 100 lbs.

[halfabee.livejournal.com]

I find it very strange that there would be a 1/4 second lag - that's 15 frames/fields. In HD, that's a lot of data (~40MB) to be storing for no good reason.

The biggest source of latency in AV is decoding and transcoding (i.e. HD-DVD transcodes can hi-def audio to AC-3). But the only time that should be a problem on a HD display is is the source is compressed (i.e. using the TV's internal tuner/decoder for OTA or cable, or a firewire input.) Consoles should be coming through uncompressed.

Upconversion should only add a couple of frames of delay max for the de-interlacing. Hmm... inverse-telecine (60i->24p->60p) might take 5 fields/frames, which is getting closer to the observed problem. The other possibility is a built-in DVR where there is no input->display bypass.

Back in the early 90's I did some co-op terms at a division of Scientific Atlanta working on a new set-top box (which never came to market 'cause MPEG compression became a de-facto standard). Anyway, one thing to remember with AV is you can only buffer data for a short time 'cause the input and output have to keep flowing at a steady rate.

[piehead.livejournal.com]

I recently got an HDTV (http://piehead.livejournal.com/715018.html) and haven't noticed any appreciable latency; by which I mean, my wife and I seem no worse at DDR on this set than on a crappy CRT.

It could just be that in DDR the timing is as much driven by listening to the audio as the actual arrows hitting the top.

As far as I know (which isn't much), it's not the "upscaling" that causes delay so much as the de-interlacing. Some sets that try to do a good job deinterlacing standard TV (for "display in Best Buy" purposes) end up adding a lot of delay; "gaming mode" tells the chip to use a faster deinterlacing mode at the expense of quality.

Maybe I'll try some SNES Mario tonight, though I never was very good at it.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

The game mode doesn't seem to do deinterlacing. This does mean that the 240p signal put out by most oldschool consoles vibrates as if it were 480i.