Is it true NTSC model PS3 systems will under no circumstances output 50hz video? By this I mean specifically the console. Was it a hardware change or just some kind of lockout? Did Linux allow selecting these modes which aren't exposed by GameOS? Game and/or TV compatibility is not relevant, because they don't matter if the console refuses to do it.
I'd rather know why PAL consoles don't output 480i/p for PS3 games, even though you can force it to do so in home brew applications. 576i is a horrible resolution which causes motion blur with 60hz games, I tried to find a way to mod the console through various settings to make it selectable via XMB but failed misserably. It is not a hardware choice, fundamentally the consoles are the same and are capable of displaying both resolutions, it's just locked out from the XMB. The funny thing is the software is the same also, so from all the people I spoke to in the PS3 scene none of them had a solution. That might have changed now though, been a while since I messed around with it.
Yeah I'm not sure who to believe. I think I've heard weird mixed things. Something like 50hz encoded video files get upconverted to 60hz, while 50hz DVD or bluray content cannot play. I don't have any to find out myself. No PAL PS1 or PS2 classics from PSN on hand either.
All I can really say is that my PS3 CAN run 480p even though the XMB won't allow it. I tried modifying settings in the "text" files (can't remember the proper file name) for both XMB and game OS by copying the settings from an NTSC machine and even though those settings were changed the system still reverted back to a PAL format when Game OS booted. However if I use an emulator and go into the display settings I can change the display to 480p and it will run at 60hz with no problems. So it's not a hardware problem, the system can do it Sony just don't want you to. The motion blur caused by playing 60hz content in 576i is horrible though, it ruins the multi region function of the system for SDTV users such as my self, 480p fixes it. The confusing thing is though updates are multi region, so we could install the same update but because my system is PAL and your system is NTSC it would dictate which resolutions we could use even though the hardware can output them all. Last time I cared nobody could figure it out.
Suppose it's retribution for all the wrongs PAL caused gamers. When 60hz became a long-wished-for widespread option there, we weren't given similar treatment in return by console makers finally letting us choose 50hz.
