Quoted from CDFreaks
PS3 needs HDMI 1.3 enabled TVs for HD resolution?
Posted by Dan Bell on 27 March 2006 - 18:28 - Source: TG Daily
shimman used our news submit to tell us "Hmmm...PS3 + a newer HD TV set would really cost arms & legs; perhaps Sony should consider to enable analog HD outputs or even VGA."
Last week, TG Daily made the trek to the Game Developers Conference or (GDC) over in California, in order to get the latest on the delayed PS3. Sony Computer Entertainment President, Worldwide Studios, Phil Harrison would be there to give a keynote address entitled "PlayStation 3: Beyond the Box" In fact, he was there and Sony had some consoles to demonstrate, but not at 1080p.
Of course, we were interested in why Sony did not run the units with HDMI. There may be an obvious explanation, but we received some surprising answers from Sony"s staff.
First, we were told that it isn"t easy to get a hold of HDMI-equipped TVs. We found this to be very strange, because after all we were at the Sony booth and all the television sets had HDMI inputs. On the second try, we were told that the reason for not using HDMI was that Sony did not have any HDMI cables and that "they are difficult to find".
Matt Butrovich, a former intern with Tom"s Hardware and who walked the show floor with us, offered the staff to use one of the HDMI cables he actually had in his car and connect the PS3 with the TVs.
Sony officials turned down the offer and we were left without seeing the demos in HD. In the end, we do not know the real reason of avoiding HDMI in the GDC demonstrations. But it certainly highlighted that Sony has still work to do - not only to finalize the AACS spec, but also to accelerate the availability to HDMI 1.3 and to educate customers that they only can run HD video and audio if they have a HDMI 1.3 capable TV.
Most curious indeed. Of course, it would have been embarrassing if they hooked up the donated cable and there were glitches. Maybe they were playing it safe. But, it seems odd that even Sony cannot get the components necessary to use the PlayStation! Maybe they should try the Internet.
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