720p hdtv supporting 1080p with ps3?

Question

I just bought a Sony bravia 32" 720p a few days ago and i thought it would only display 720p but i selected 1080p only in the display settings on ps3. Then when i hit the display button on remote it says 1080p in game. so i guess its upscaling to 1080p so its not true 1080p but it still looks a little better. This wouldnt do any harm to the tv or anything would it? if it doesnt im going to keep playing in the upscaled 1080p.

Answer 1

What is happening is the PS3 is keeping the signal 1080p but your TV is downscaling the image to 720p.  You are noticing a better picture because the built in scaler in the TV may be a better one than the scaler in the PS3 player.  But no if the TV's native resolution is 720p then you will not get 1080p out of it, otherwise the TV would be called a 1080p.

I would just select either 720p or 1080p resolution in the PS3 and do hard look at the picture quality for a few minutes and just decide which scaler is doing the better job.  If you set the PS3 to 1080p then the TV's scaler is working, if you set the PS3 to 720p then the PS3 is doing the scaling.

Answer 2

Same thing happened to me.. It wont harm your tv at all.  Although i now have a 1080p HD tv, the one before 720p never messed up or anything with my dish HD on 1080p. The guy who installed it told me to leave it 1080 even though at the time my tv displayed 720.  There is no reason for your tv to mess up.