Everything while playing would appear perfectly normal on a widescreen TV, only the menus would change. I've noticed this on the Toyota demo, simply because it defaults to 16:9 mode (and I only have a normal 4:3 TV). The menus look normal (except for car selection, I believe that's widescreen), and the game itself is of course "squished". The menu doesn't change at all when you change modes, so that would indeed be stretched horizontally on a widescreen TV.
Might help a bit if I threw out some basic widescreen info.
Both 16:9 and 4:3 both play at the exact same resolution. 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). The only difference is the Pixel Aspect Ratio. I'll be using NTSC numbers here, since that's what I'm most familiar with. TV pixels are not actually square.. they're slightly taller than they are wide. The aspect ratio is 0.9. Which is why a 720x480 is actually exactly the same as a 640x480 image on a computer monitor. They're both "4:3", but the monitor uses perfectly square pixels instead of the stretched ones a TV uses. So when viewed on a TV, it still appears to have the same overall image ratio (4:3). Conversely, if you watch raw 720x480 footage on a computer, it appears stretched ever-so-slightly horizontally. Basically, the people all look a little fatter than in real life.. hehe.
Now, widescreen takes this a step further, by introducing a pixel ratio of 1.2. The pixels are now wider than they are tall. But the resolution itself is still the same, 720x480. The result is that when a widescreen image is displayed on a standard TV, the image appears stretched vertically. It's actually not stretched vertically, though, it's squished horizontally. Widescreen video and games are designed to play "full screen" when viewed on a widescreen TV. The television will automatically stretch the image horizontally to fill the entire widescreen TV. This is why things designed for 4:3 (like GT's menus) look stretched on a widescreen TV.. because they ARE stretched. So is the main image itself (movie, game, whatever), but since the pixel ratio is adjusted to compensate for that stretching, the resulting image is perfect. And visually, there's no loss of quality.. unlike a computer monitor, a television's "resolution" is based primarily on the vertical channel. And the vertical still has 480 lines of resolution, so there's no visible loss of quality on a "stretched" widescreen image.
If you want to see an example of a widescreen image on a normal TV, just pop in any DVD that says "Enhanced for Widescreen" or something involving 16:9. That means that the film itself is encoded in widescreen, the "squished" image. 99% of DVDs produced today are encoded like this. And 99% of DVD players can recognize this, and compensate if you don't have a widescreen TV. The DVD player will see it as 16:9, sees that the player is set to 4:3 (like mine), and automatically squishes the image down and adds the black bars on the top and bottom. DVDs actually gives the distinct advantage to users with a widescreen TV, because they actually get to see the film at it's full resolution (480) instead of the "squished" version that I myself see on most of the DVDs I own (which is equivelant to about 405.. that's seventy-five lines of resolution that I never see). Which is why DVDs on a widescreen TV appear to be sharper and more detailed than when viewed on a 4:3 TV, they get a higher resolution.
Video games don't work quite that way, since everything you see is generated real-time by the machine, it's not just playing back a pre-recorded video. So a PS2, for example, will simply add the extra elements to the side of a screen (i.e. more track), and then display the image at a widescreen ratio, which is then "stretched" by a widescreen TV to fill the entire wide screen.
And this is turning into a book.. lol.
As for 480p, I can understand why PD says the game won't support it. Shall I go on about interlacing? Sure, why not?
To start off, I'll shatter some beliefs... most video games do not actually run at sixty frames per second. They run interlaced, 60i. The system, and the TV, draws only one half of the screen at a time, every other line, from top to bottom. Then it goes back and draws the other half (even, odd, even, odd, etc). This sequence only happens thirty times per second on a standard television. BUT, since TWO interlaced fields are drawn in that time, it's actually drawing top-to-bottom sixty times per second (even, odd). When displayed in the proper order, this can lead to a visual perception of sixty frames per second, which is what most games use to create "60fps". If the fields were reversed, it'd get all shades of funky, and the interlacing would be painfully obvious. Easily fixed in the software, so it's something you rarely see (except in the occasional pause-screen and such).
What does this mean for games? Simple.. the PS2 only has to draw half the screen at 60fps. In effect, it's drawing a full frame at 30fps, but since each field is slightly different (pending the motion on-screen), it gives the appearance of smoother motion.
Now we need a quick definition of progressive.. quite simple, really. Just like a computer monitor, a digital TV (plasma, HD, whatever) draws full frames at a time, top to bottom, without skipping evey other field.. it draws the entire screen in one shot, and can do so at a full sixty frames per second. This is "60p" (if based on frame rate) or "480p" if based on resolution.
What does this mean for GT4? Quite simple.. The PS2 would have to effectively DOUBLE the resolution at which it displays the game in order to accomodate sixty FULL frames per second. As you can imagine, this would need a lot of power from the system, and GT is sucking up every ounce of power it can get. A switch to 60p would require a severe reduction in the visual quality of the image in order for the PS2 to be able to do it. With many games, this isn't such a big deal, but with GT4 pushing the PS2 as hard as it is.. it can't do both. You get either 60p OR beautiful graphics, but not at the same time.
PS3 should be able to do this, however.. and by that time, I should have a digital TV.. hehe. I'm thinking of getting one of those picture-tube types myself, because the cost is lower. But I'll be going name-brand rather than bottom of the barrel, so it'll have all the bells and whistles I'll need.
Now, onto the last part of the discussion... 5.1 sound. This is where I stop babbling and ASK a question.. hehe.
What would be the best way to hook this up to my sound system? I currently have the PS2 running into the "Video2" inputs on my reciever (FYI, the reciever is full 5.1, Dolby Digital, Pro Logic, DTS, da woiks). And I do have an optical input free (my DVD player uses the Coax input). Does anyone know how easy it would be to use Video2 for video and Optical1 for audio? Or does it vary from system to system (and maybe I should just call Sony.. hehe). Just thought I'd ask.
Anyway, I hope you found today's lesson enjoyable. We now return you to your regularly scheduled.. um.. whatever you were doing.
Oh, and before you ask, I'm not really much of an electronics wizard. Sure, I can wire up my entertainment center in my sleep, but I don't know much about the internal workings. The only reason I know so much about interlacing/progressive/widescreen is because of all the work I do in CGI, visual effects, things like that, creating images for display on a TV. So you have to know how the visual modes work in order to make sure everything looks the way it needs to.
