DVD only on XB2 says inquirer

[Phil]

What I find alerting is that transfer speeds is very slow relative to the jump new generation mediums bring with them.

In Example: While it's possible to read an entire CD in less than 3 minutes (52x), it takes considerably longer to do the same on a DVD. How long will it take to get all the data off a Blu-Ray with even more space, when a single speed drive doesn't even match the current fastest speeds of DVD drives?

While the space demands are definately rising, so is the demand for faster transfer speeds. The only problem is that size of mediums is growing faster than the transfer speeds... I hope PS3 won't be limited to a single speed BR-drive. 4x would be extremely nice, but what are the chances of this, if PS3 is already to launch march 2006? :?

 

[Shogmaster]

BR in the PS3, assuming it supports movie playback, will increase the value proposition.

However, how likely is it that in the next 5 years, games will require more than DVD9 storage?

Last month, EA and Universal Interactive joined the BDA and made a noise about Blu-Ray being a better storage format than HD-DVD. Disney also said BR was better for some interactive content but they're not talking about graphics-intensive games.

Are games going to go from fitting under 4 GB mostly to over 15 GB (greater than a single layer of HD-DVD)?

I believe you're missing the point here. Storage capacity and better looking movies is one thing, exclusives is another. I noticed that many seemed to have payed very little attention to this, but it's important.

Blu Ray disc, and I'm assuming HD-DVD as well, will cost less than what we pay for DVDs now, which means trimming the price at the cost of TWO current gen DVD disc. If a developer has to limit themselves to what they can sqeeze on a disc (due to poor capacity issues) as well as paying more to get their titles running on other platforms becuase of the two separte formats, they may be forced to go exclusive to the platform that accommodates them most.

If Microsoft is going the way of a dated format, they may be setting themselves up for failure. It has been proven that every new console released, it consumes a lot more storage than the recent ones. We have gone from CDs to dual layer DVDs since the very first PlayStation. There is not doubt that next-gen titles will, too, will follow this same road for the dual layer disc.

I guess I can underrstand it, though. As I said before, Microsoft is a software company limited to many licenses in the hardware industry. Which means costs could double and even sometimes triple for them compared to a firm like Sony.

Some pertinent things to consider:

1. DVD over HD-DVD will never effect the gaming experience outside of a disc switch. Everyone has a bladder. No one finishes a game in one sitting (unless it's a really crappy short game). Switching discs in a middle of a game is a none issue.

2. A fast DVD drive will be faster in data transfer speed than the BR that Sony will likely end up putting in the PS3, and the HD-DVD that MS could have put in the Xenon by end of this year. Better for streaming data to RAM. So HD-DVD or BR will actually negatively effect the gaming experience for Xenon and PS3.

3. BR or HD-DVD drive will drive up (pun intended) the cost of the machine over a DVD drive. I'd much rather have the same $$ that might go into a HD-DVD go into Xenon having more RAM (or something else more meaningful to the gaming experience). Thus choice of DVD drive is again possibley better for the gaming experience.

4. BR and HD-DVD will not bolster PS3 or Xenon sales in 2005~2006 like DVD did for PS2 back in 2000. First of all, the HDTV penetration in the market is still very low. Even by 2006, it will still be a small portion of the whole market. BR and HD-DVD needs the benefit of a proper HDTV to show it's full potential to the consumer. DVD did not need anything beyond the strandard definition TV that's found in just about everyone's home to show it's full potential to the consumer.

Also keep in mind that DVD format was introduced to the market a full 4~5 years prior to PS2's arrival. HD-DVD and BR will be introduced barely by early 2006. It's just too soon to incorporate such technology into a gaming console and have it make a significant impact on it's market appeal (a.k.a. Joe Schmoe).

So in closing, I think if the rumor turns out to be true, MS definitely has made the right decision.

 

[wco81]

I've read that for movies, Blu-Ray is capable of 54 or even 73 Mbps throughput.

 

[Inane_Dork]

If the X2 really does launch in 2005, it doesn't matter how advantageous either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray would be. Neither will be ready for inclusion in a $300 device.

If you want to get a sense of where game size will be, examine recent PC games as baselines. All or nearly all of them fit on one DVD, so a lot of the hand-wringing is unfounded.

If MS goes with HD-DVD, they stand to make far less profit as well as promote a format with no guarantee of popularity. In return, they gain the ability to put some number of games on one disc instead of 2-4 discs. Does it really make any sense to go with HD-DVD at that point?

 

[London Geezer]

Not saying we "need" Blueray, but to whoever said a fast DVD drive will be faster than a Blueray drive is smoking something really wrong...

Nothing is stopping Sony creating a drive that reads CDs at 52X, DVDs at whatever speed is considered "fast" today, and Blueray discs at 2 or 4x.

 

[akira888]

The only system I know of that was rampant with games based upon FMV is the 3DO.

PC-Engine FX (Japan only) was probably worse, every game it seems is an FMV title of some sort.

 

[Shogmaster]

Not saying we "need" Blueray, but to whoever said a fast DVD drive will be faster than a Blueray drive is smoking something really wrong...

Nothing is stopping Sony creating a drive that reads CDs at 52X, DVDs at whatever speed is considered "fast" today, and Blueray discs at 2 or 4x.

It takes 4X BR drive to exceed 16X DVD drive's transfer speed. Only 2X BR is planned for early 2006 AFAIK.

 

[London Geezer]

Not saying we "need" Blueray, but to whoever said a fast DVD drive will be faster than a Blueray drive is smoking something really wrong...

Nothing is stopping Sony creating a drive that reads CDs at 52X, DVDs at whatever speed is considered "fast" today, and Blueray discs at 2 or 4x.

It takes 4X BR drive to exceed 16X DVD drive's transfer speed. Only 2X BR is planned for early 2006 AFAIK.

YES!
And the point is, the drive could very well be a 52XCD/16XDVD/2XBDROM drive.

 

[Shogmaster]

Not saying we "need" Blueray, but to whoever said a fast DVD drive will be faster than a Blueray drive is smoking something really wrong...

Nothing is stopping Sony creating a drive that reads CDs at 52X, DVDs at whatever speed is considered "fast" today, and Blueray discs at 2 or 4x.

It takes 4X BR drive to exceed 16X DVD drive's transfer speed. Only 2X BR is planned for early 2006 AFAIK.

YES!
And the point is, the drive could very well be a 52XCD/16XDVD/2XBDROM drive.

At that point, the BR part of the drive is purely for HD movie playback. A waste of cost on a gaming console, no?

 

[Phil]

hum, I think the point is that in the timeframe PS3 is launching, 2x Blu-Ray may be the best available compared to 16x DVD drives.

And that still doesn't solve the problem that with increasing size demands for more content, demand for higher transfer speeds is increasing as well.

With 3 to 4 times more space on BluRay per Layer than DVD, you'll be ultimately with 50% less bandwidth off the medium. :? That's not good...

 

[akira888]

Not if the movie player feature sells consoles. Many of the early Japanese PS2 sales were sold just for this reason...

 

[Phil]

Oh I think Blu-Ray advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages from a consumer point of view... even if technical, DVD might yield better performance. I do think however that the extra size will eventually be quite a nice thing as game content gets bigger and bigger. It will also allow for more duplicate static blocks of data to be stored on the BR for faster load transitions while DVDs may be at their limit already due to memory constraints....

 

[Shogmaster]

Not if the movie player feature sells consoles. Many of the early Japanese PS2 sales were sold just for this reason...

4. BR and HD-DVD will not bolster PS3 or Xenon sales in 2005~2006 like DVD did for PS2 back in 2000. First of all, the HDTV penetration in the market is still very low. Even by 2006, it will still be a small portion of the whole market. BR and HD-DVD needs the benefit of a proper HDTV to show it's full potential to the consumer. DVD did not need anything beyond the strandard definition TV that's found in just about everyone's home to show it's full potential to the consumer.

Also keep in mind that DVD format was introduced to the market a full 4~5 years prior to PS2's arrival. HD-DVD and BR will be introduced barely by early 2006. It's just too soon to incorporate such technology into a gaming console and have it make a significant impact on it's market appeal (a.k.a. Joe Schmoe).

 

[Phil]

4. BR and HD-DVD will not bolster PS3 or Xenon sales in 2005~2006 like DVD did for PS2 back in 2000. First of all, the HDTV penetration in the market is still very low. Even by 2006, it will still be a small portion of the whole market. BR and HD-DVD needs the benefit of a proper HDTV to show it's full potential to the consumer. DVD did not need anything beyond the strandard definition TV that's found in just about everyone's home to show it's full potential to the consumer.

Also keep in mind that DVD format was introduced to the market a full 4~5 years prior to PS2's arrival. HD-DVD and BR will be introduced barely by early 2006. It's just too soon to incorporate such technology into a gaming console and have it make a significant impact on it's market appeal (a.k.a. Joe Schmoe).

No, but a successful PS3 console with BR movie capability could bolster Blu-Ray as a next generation medium for HD content over others. While this is certainly not in Microsofts interest (hence them probably going with DVD), it sure is to Sony.

 

[Shogmaster]

No, but a successful PS3 console with BR movie capability could bolster Blu-Ray as a next generation medium for HD content over others. While this is certainly not in Microsofts interest (hence them probably going with DVD), it sure is to Sony.

Even though I agree that that's what they are hoping for, kind of ass-backwards philosophy IMO. For Sony, I'd think profitting from PS3 quicker is more important than getting BR adapted faster since most of profits for Sony now comes from their gaming effort. The butter is clearly on the gaming side of the Sony toast, not the consumer electronics side...

But then again, BR is one of the biggest things Sony is betting their farm on this decade, so....

 

[Phil]

actually, the other profitable divisions in the last quarter report was the movie division which is closely tied in with Blu-Ray.

I'm not entirely sure how Blu-Ray fits in with the future CELL strategy (putting it into various SONY consumer electronics) - but I'm sure they have their reasons for pursuing it... At the end of the day, better Blu-Ray than HD-DVD (from Sony's perspective of course).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sony's bread is buttered on the Gaming side, but it's consumer electronics division is HUGE!!! If they could turn it around, promote that and push up the profit margins, they'd make far more money than they do with their gaming division. PS3 is part of a package deal for the overall Sony strategy, with the Sony CEO even attending Cell meetings. There will be bits to PS3 such as streamed media, downloadable content, etc., tied in with portable media/entertainments systems and interchangeable media devices (TV and set-top boxes with interchangeable functionality) which fits into Sony's future CE ideal, and inclusion of BR to promote these standards will take place over any technical advantages of sticking to DVD.

When you've got an HDTV film format sitting under your TV, won't you want to get an HDTV set to see it on? And how's about one with MemStick support to show the digital photos or videos you took on holiday?

 

[Spidermate]

BR in the PS3, assuming it supports movie playback, will increase the value proposition.

However, how likely is it that in the next 5 years, games will require more than DVD9 storage?

Last month, EA and Universal Interactive joined the BDA and made a noise about Blu-Ray being a better storage format than HD-DVD. Disney also said BR was better for some interactive content but they're not talking about graphics-intensive games.

Are games going to go from fitting under 4 GB mostly to over 15 GB (greater than a single layer of HD-DVD)?

I believe you're missing the point here. Storage capacity and better looking movies is one thing, exclusives is another. I noticed that many seemed to have payed very little attention to this, but it's important.

Blu Ray disc, and I'm assuming HD-DVD as well, will cost less than what we pay for DVDs now, which means trimming the price at the cost of TWO current gen DVD disc. If a developer has to limit themselves to what they can sqeeze on a disc (due to poor capacity issues) as well as paying more to get their titles running on other platforms becuase of the two separte formats, they may be forced to go exclusive to the platform that accommodates them most.

If Microsoft is going the way of a dated format, they may be setting themselves up for failure. It has been proven that every new console released, it consumes a lot more storage than the recent ones. We have gone from CDs to dual layer DVDs since the very first PlayStation. There is not doubt that next-gen titles will, too, will follow this same road for the dual layer disc.

I guess I can underrstand it, though. As I said before, Microsoft is a software company limited to many licenses in the hardware industry. Which means costs could double and even sometimes triple for them compared to a firm like Sony.

Some pertinent things to consider:

1. DVD over HD-DVD will never effect the gaming experience outside of a disc switch. Everyone has a bladder. No one finishes a game in one sitting (unless it's a really crappy short game). Switching discs in a middle of a game is a none issue.

2. A fast DVD drive will be faster in data transfer speed than the BR that Sony will likely end up putting in the PS3, and the HD-DVD that MS could have put in the Xenon by end of this year. Better for streaming data to RAM. So HD-DVD or BR will actually negatively effect the gaming experience for Xenon and PS3.

3. BR or HD-DVD drive will drive up (pun intended) the cost of the machine over a DVD drive. I'd much rather have the same $$ that might go into a HD-DVD go into Xenon having more RAM (or something else more meaningful to the gaming experience). Thus choice of DVD drive is again possibley better for the gaming experience.

4. BR and HD-DVD will not bolster PS3 or Xenon sales in 2005~2006 like DVD did for PS2 back in 2000. First of all, the HDTV penetration in the market is still very low. Even by 2006, it will still be a small portion of the whole market. BR and HD-DVD needs the benefit of a proper HDTV to show it's full potential to the consumer. DVD did not need anything beyond the strandard definition TV that's found in just about everyone's home to show it's full potential to the consumer.

Also keep in mind that DVD format was introduced to the market a full 4~5 years prior to PS2's arrival. HD-DVD and BR will be introduced barely by early 2006. It's just too soon to incorporate such technology into a gaming console and have it make a significant impact on it's market appeal (a.k.a. Joe Schmoe).

So in closing, I think if the rumor turns out to be true, MS definitely has made the right decision.

I believe you may be mistaking here.

1. This is not about us; it's about the developers. COST is the issue I am stressing here. At the cost of one Blu Ray disc (and probably HD-DVD disc as well) with a much higher capacity rate will cost less than what we would pay for a single DVD disc for this generation, meaning double the cost of a single DVD just to get slightly better if not inferior results than what you would normally get for a newer format by itself. This does affects the developers, y'know.

2. It's true that more capacity requires a higher transfer rate. What you don't understand is that Blu Ray is touted to have this. So, it can be assumed that HD-DVD must, too, have this as well.

3. First of all, Blu Ray, in relation to Sony, is very old technology.It has been out for years now. The difference is it has been modified to suit not just it's own maket, but the entire market as well, which is the reason we are hearing so much about it now.

Secondly, the Blu Ray technology going into the PS3 will only be at its bare minimum. In other words, it will not come bundled with a burner which was mentioned of the Blu Ray format in one of the press releases. Not only that, but Sony is one of the main backers behind Blu Ray. This by itself will knock the price down tremendously.

BTW, do anyone remember when Sony first announced their PS2 supporting DVD just after a fews months before they found a way of making the format backwards compatible with CDs? It's no different here.

4. It's true that the DVD was a huge impact on the sales for the second console, but as I said, it goes beyond that now. We are looking at developer support. You must not also forget that these consoles were the reason for the surge in sales for the DVD format to begin with. It's the reason for DVD taking this long before it finally penetrated the market. The same could most possibly happen for any one of the other formats if it was implemented into a gaming machine.

Futhermore, you don't need an HDTV to experience HD-DVD or Blu Ray quality. These formats expand in a wide range of quality options: sound, capacity, and above normal visualization. Adding this format will not handicap these systems, as far as quality goes; it would only strengthen their position in the market.

 

[wco81]

We'll see if MS touts the advantages in transfer speeds of the DVD drive int he Xenon over the BR drive in the PS3.

 

[Shogmaster]

When you've got an HDTV film format sitting under your TV, won't you want to get an HDTV set to see it on? And how's about one with MemStick support to show the digital photos or videos you took on holiday?

IMHO, selling of HD media entirely depends on whether the person owns a HDTV set and not the other way around. A few factors:

1. DVD sales are hot hot hot, and it will be a hard hard sell to convice Joe Blow consumers that does not own a HDTV and just bought a bunch of new DVDs to rebuy them for a format that requires an expensive set that he wasn't compelled to buy yet anyways to see the benefit from.

2. Outside of Sony, other movie publishers will not be so eager to churn out HD content since the money is still clearly mostly to be made from SD content sales. There are kazillions of DVD players out there, and new ones are selling for only $60 and up, while the BR v HD-DVD mega format battle hasn't even gone into real blows yet.

3. It will take at least couple of years to see who comes out on top between HD-DVD and BR. Until the winner is clearly declaired, consumers will shy away from making a purchase. Only the early adapters will buy into either format.