DVD playback in consoles

[Capeta]

In the latest EGM issue there's an article on Xbox 360 HD-DVD playback Vs PS3 Blu-ray playback. They stated the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on had the worst HD-playback of any HD-DVD player on the market. And that PS3 had the best playback of any Blu-ray player on the market.

The problem with that logic is the fact all of the standalone HD DVD players are made by Toshiba and they're all based on a single design and they all output a VERY good image. So even if the 360 addon is the worst it doesn't say much. If the Toshiba gets an A and the X360 gets a B that still puts the 360 as worse HD DVD player but in reality it isn't really all that bad.

On the Bluray side I think the PS3 has the advantage of HDMI 1.3 over the other BD players so technically it would make it the best BR player, however, I haven't read of any actual tests that state the video quality is the best of all the BR players.

 

[kyleb]

The problem with that logic is the fact all of the standalone HD DVD players are made by Toshiba and they're all based on a single design and they all output a VERY good image. So even if the 360 addon is the worst it doesn't say much. If the Toshiba gets an A and the X360 gets a B that still puts the 360 as worse HD DVD player but in reality it isn't really all that bad.

It is dissapointing though as it is a matter of software, and especially with standard DVD the 360 could be doing a much better job if MS would devote a little effort to the software.

 

[-tkf-]

HQV focuses on video based material and poorly authored film content, not the normal discs people play.

The problem with that statement is that normal discs have all kind of problems, depending on the authoring of course. Some are flawless some aren´t a good dvd player can cope with it.

 

[-tkf-]

It is dissapointing though as it is a matter of software, and especially with standard DVD the 360 could be doing a much better job if MS would devote a little effort to the software.

To be fair, i think they made an effort:

What takes 4.7 million lines of code, partner teams from all over Microsoft, and millions of dollars to create? The Xbox 360 system software? Nope. This is just the HD DVD player.

http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2006/11/03/emergence-day.aspx

Some hard questions in those comments

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

I would rate the Xbox 360 DVD Playback as satisfactory. It looks (to my eyes) slightly better than my £120 Toshiba progressive scan dvd player. The £800 Denon player will likely be using vector steered de-interlacing whilst the 360 will probably be using ATI's per-pixel de-interlacing which will not be able to do as good a job, so comparing those images side by side is not very fair. Most PC's and a fair number of players would produce exactly the same image as the 360.

In terms of video quality on HD-DVD / Blu-ray there should be almost no difference in the quality of the actual decode. You may get degredation due to the DAC components outputing on component, but the decoded data should be the same for every player on the market as the codecs specify the decode process exactly, so each player should produce the same resulting video data. (Actually I think mpeg2 allows some leeway in it's IDCT, but only on the order of 1 or two bits).

There is no de-interlacing required (at least all the titles I have seen so far are 1080p) so there are no issues there.

I am quite happy with my HD-DVD drive for the 360, image quality is good. Menus are a little sluggish, but that was true of the stand alone HD-DVD players I have seen. My biggest gripe with the HD-DVD for the xbox 360 is that it is treated as an add-on to the 360, rather than the 360 being the HD-DVD drives decode platform. So if you want to play a HD-DVD disc you have to choose to in the Xbox Dashboard, and the supplied media remote only ejects the Xbox DVD drive, not the HD-DVD drive.


CC

 

[kyleb]

To be fair, i think they made an effort:



http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2006/11/03/emergence-day.aspx

Some hard questions in those comments

I wasn't commenting on the HD DVD playback.

 

[TheChefO]

But the PS3 (another game console) got 120 points in that same benchmark which is comparable to the high end DVD players (thanks for the link inefficient). And once again the article wasn't comparing the 360 to a high end DVD player, just showing that it's score of 20 is well below even average players. I'd love to see scores for PS2 and the original Xbox.

The PS3 is banking on this performance. It is integral to the value proposition that Sony is trying to sell to Joe Public. If it had crap playback quality I don't imagine they'd have too much luck in selling it as a premium product in that field in addition to being the latest game console from Sony. Or wait, that's right, it's not a game console - my bad Kutaragi. Kudos to them for apparantly also providing standard DVD playback performance that is superior* to a $1500msrp hi-end player.

http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/DenonDVD3910Review4.php
*Denon DVD-3910 Benchmark total score: 75/130

For some reason though I doubt the ps3 would produce a better picture than this player. But all that matters is the score at the end.

fyi:
Samsung BD-P1000 Benchmark total score: 73/130 msrp $1000
Helios HVD2085 Benchmark total score: 30/130 msrp $200
Oppo DV-970HD Benchmark total score: 53/130 msrp $149
Helios X5000 Benchmark Score: 20/130 msrp $579 (networked media player)
Marantz DV-9500 Benchmark total score: 72/130 HDMI 57/130 COMPONENT msrp $2099
Yamaha DVD-C750 Benchmark total score: 66/130 msrp $329

 

[rounin]

CELL flexing its muscle probably. Since everything is decoded by CELL and outputted digitally, is it not true the quality performance the PS3 has over standalones and Xbox360 can only get bigger?

 

[Capeta]

CELL flexing its muscle probably. Since everything is decoded by CELL and outputted digitally, is it not true the quality performance the PS3 has over standalones and Xbox360 can only get bigger?

From what I've read at AVSForum the best BD player in terms of PQ is the Pioneer not the PS3.

As far as decoding, doesn't X360 also decode through software via XCPU and GPU? Also it is a myth that because you decode in software your player will eventually end up beating hardware players unless you have some magic decoding engine with magic algorithms. If that were the case we'd be seeing PCs disguised as standalone players beating standalone "hardware" players.

 

[TheChefO]

If that were the case we'd be seeing PCs disguised as standalone players beating standalone "hardware" players.

Toshiba HD-A1?

 

[rounin]

Costs associated with PC hardware would be one factor preventing that (see debates on specialized chips vs general processors in various CELL vs standalone debates). As well, when dealing with a digital process (At least for the PS3, which outputs through HDMI), I'm quite certain software can do most if, not everything a standalone can do in terms of quality. I think your point is valid for DVD standalones and Xbox360 which output through analogue though because then the analogue conversion hardware would make a difference.

I don't claim to be a hardware guru though so I think thats about all I can really contribute. As for your comment on Pioneer, I was under the impression its just the same as a SONY model. That said, I would argue the point that eventually PS3 would offer a better experience through Linux or by firmware upgrade due to the logic in the above paragraph.

 

[Zaphod]

Same HQV benchmark applied to the PS3. Total Score:120 out of a possible 130.

Since the HQV benchmark is highly subjective, you can't compare scores between different tests, done by different people, under different conditions like that.

My guess is that ExtremeTech has done the same faux pas in that they've taken the "[e]ven a typical $50 DVD player usually has a score of 35 or better" from third party tests and then applied that number as a baseline to their results for the 360 without testing a "typical $50 player" themselves. Such a comparison is not valid.

Personally, I've seen scores - for the same player - range from the 40s and up to 120 points in the HQV tests, depending on the publication.

 

[swanlee]

Did they even bother testing VGA out and upscaling ability of the 360 on SD-DVD's? The 360 looks very nice upscaling over VGA to 1080P and HD-DVD's look amazing over VGA at 1080P. The 360 add-on was the first 1080P HD-DVD player out on the market. VGA is a common and very useable interface.

 

[-tkf-]

Toshiba HD-A1?

To be fair it had Custom chips, and plenty of them, to handle the actual Video and Audio decoding.

 

[AlNom]

Did they even bother testing VGA out and upscaling ability of the 360 on SD-DVD's? The 360 looks very nice upscaling over VGA to 1080P and HD-DVD's look amazing over VGA at 1080P. The 360 add-on was the first 1080P HD-DVD player out on the market. VGA is a common and very useable interface.

This is what they said (my bold):

We chose to use component cables to hook up the Xbox 360, since that is by far the most common connection for it. Because Microsoft values compliance with the DVD Forum's rules, component cable output of DVDs is limited to 480p resolution. If you buy the VGA cable, you can upscale DVDs to HD resolutions; we've tried this before, and it absolutely does not fix any of the problems we'll highlight here. To make sure we have a fair comparison, we set our Denon DVD player to output 480p as well.

Too bad they don't provide the (VGA) evidence...

Either way, if Microsoft is hell-bent on making the 360 the media centric device, they should probably fix these sorts of issues. It's important to me because I'd rather have the fewest number of devices connected.

 

[TheChefO]

1)
Helios X5000 Network Media Player Benchmark Score: 20/130 msrp $579
Microsoft Xbox360 Network Media Player Benchmark Score: 20/130 msrp $299

2)
My HD-A1 comment was a joke

3)
Zaphod is spot on.

My guess is that ExtremeTech has done the same faux pas in that they've taken the "[e]ven a typical $50 DVD player usually has a score of 35 or better" from third party tests and then applied that number as a baseline to their results for the 360 without testing a "typical $50 player" themselves. Such a comparison is not valid.

 

[AntShaw]

This is what they said:

"...If you buy the VGA cable, you can upscale DVDs to HD resolutions; we've tried this before, and it absolutely does not fix any of the problems we'll highlight here...

Comments like that, almost make me think they never even tried it themselves to see the difference. Mind boggling.

 

[swanlee]

I have my 360 connected to my 42 inch 1080P LCD through VGA, everything either is native 1080P like HD-DVD's or upscaled to 1080P and I'm more than happy with the PQ on all formats. I have an 800$ Pioneer Eltie DVD player and it has been regulated to cd audio and DVD-A/SACD only because of the good PQ the 360 outputs on all formats.

I honestly don't think they put the 360 through it pases with the latest updates through VGA on a native 1080P monitor.

 

[kyleb]

Comments like that, almost make me think they never even tried it themselves to see the difference. Mind boggling.

The difference is just upscaling, and that doesn't do anything to fix the deinterlacing problems adressed in the article.

 

[Capeta]

As for your comment on Pioneer, I was under the impression its just the same as a SONY model. That said, I would argue the point that eventually PS3 would offer a better experience through Linux or by firmware upgrade due to the logic in the above paragraph.

I was comparing the Pioneer with the PS3 not the standalone SONY player which is made by Pioneer. As far as firmware upgrades well the standalones can be firmware upgraded too so that doesn't really mean much. Like I said software decoder =! best PQ since PQ depends on a variety of factors including what happens after the decode. I've yet to see any scaling algorithm from SONY that can compete with a hardware HQV solution and I don't see one coming in the near future. If SONY was so good at upscaling algorithms they'd be designingtheir own upscaling chips that compete with HQV and other similar chips.