Elite Only Passing Stereo PCM

[flec04]

It would seem MS's next gen HD-DVD player is nothing of the sort. What's alarming is the lack of disclosure from MS concerning the problem. As follows:

"Today's games and entertainment enthusiast has an insatiable appetite for digital high-definition content," said Peter Moore, corporate vice president for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. "Xbox 360 Elite's larger hard drive and premium accessories will allow our community to enjoy all that the next generation of entertainment has to offer."
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/news/2007/0327-
microsoftunveilsxbox360elite.htm

One would interpret that statement pertains to both next gen video (1080p) & next gen audio (surround sound lossless codecs). Unfortunately the Elite will only supply 2 channel pcm over HDMI.

The HDMI standard cites the following:

All HD DVD players are required to decode linear (uncompressed) PCM, Dolby Digital AC-3, Dolby Digital EX, DTS, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD.

From what I understand the Elite is able to decode lossless audio but is unable to output LPCM and therefore either passes it as 2 channel pcm or dumbs it down to DD 5.1 640 Kbps. The culprit appears to be an internal bottleneck which restricts bandwidth to HDMI.

I would consider this a royal stuffup considering MS's next gen HD-DVD player is therefore incapable of delivering next gen requirements of HD-DVD. It must be noted this is a hardware restriction & won't be resolved via updates. Whats more alarming is the lack of any official response from MS - BUYER BEWARE.

Are MS shafting consumers?

 

[infinity4]

its limit of HDMI 1.2 i think. the reason why they are using 1.2 instead of 1.3 is because they started working on this SKU before 1.3 was announced. (therefore before may/june/july 2006!)

but they clearly said that the hdmi 1.2 was there just to give gamers "digital video output"

and HD DVD player is a choice, not a compulsory purchase.

am i answering the question btw???

 

[willardjuice]

its limit of HDMI 1.2 i think. the reason why they are using 1.2 instead of 1.3 is because they started working on this SKU before 1.3 was announced. (therefore before may/june/july 2006!)

but they clearly said that the hdmi 1.2 was there just to give gamers "digital video output"

and HD DVD player is a choice, not a compulsory purchase.

am i answering the question btw???

Any version of HDMI is able to transport uncompressed 7.1 PCM audio (1.3 allows for DTS-HD and TrueHD pass through). Microsoft said they didn't want to change the inside components to allow uncompressed 7.1 PCM audio output.

From what I understand the Elite is able to decode lossless audio but is unable to output LPCM and therefore either passes it as 2 channel pcm or dumbs it down to DD 5.1 640 Kbps. The culprit appears to be an internal bottleneck which restricts bandwidth to HDMI.

Actually the HD DVD update for the 360 (which should be out any day) will also give the user the option to convert the uncompressed audio to DTS at 1500 Kbps or WMA Pro at 1500 Kbps (which is about the equivalent to DTS at 3000 Kpbs). So it's not nearly that bad (especially if you receiver can decode WMA Pro, I doubt anyone would be able to tell the difference at those bit rates).

 

[pegisys]

I don't think the people that care about lossless audio are the type to buy a HD-DVD add-on

AFAIK the 360 does do 5.1 over hdmi just not lossless, and any one with audio equipment good enough to really notice the difference would probably have no problem buying a stand-alone unit

 

[SugarCoat]

I don't think the people that care about lossless audio are the type to buy a HD-DVD add-on

AFAIK the 360 does do 5.1 over hdmi just not lossless, and any one with audio equipment good enough to really notice the difference would probably have no problem buying a stand-alone unit

think that shoots this thread down. you're playing media on a gaming console with an HD addon, its not a professional or specialty player. NOBODY that buys this needs lossless audio.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

lol, your asking if MS is shafting costumers because they don't support lossless audio with a $150 hd-dvd addon?

You would need a pretty serious sound system to be able to hear a difference, ($1000+++) at which point i think you could just buy a standalone player anyway. Just like i have never seen a A\V person using a video game console for dvd playback i reckon the same applies here.

 

[willardjuice]

think that shoots this thread down. you're playing media on a gaming console with an HD addon, its not a professional or specialty player. NOBODY that buys this needs lossless audio.

Yeah like I said, I doubt anyone blindfolded could tell the difference between lossless and WMA Pro at 1500 Kbps. I would even wager that most couldn't tell the difference between lossless and DTS at 1500 Kbps (because let's face it, most probably don't have a pioneer receiver with WMA Pro decode ). Though I do understand flec's concern, at the moment the Xbox 360 can only encode Dolby Digital at 640 Kbps, which is fairly weak. Of course that will be rectified soon enough.

 

[flec04]

its limit of HDMI 1.2 i think. the reason why they are using 1.2 instead of 1.3 is because they started working on this SKU before 1.3 was announced. (therefore before may/june/july 2006!)

but they clearly said that the hdmi 1.2 was there just to give gamers "digital video output"

and HD DVD player is a choice, not a compulsory purchase.

am i answering the question btw???

Thanks for the reply, partially.

ol, your asking if MS is shafting costumers because they don't support lossless audio with a $150 hd-dvd addon?

You would need a pretty serious sound system to be able to hear a difference, ($1000+++) at which point i think you could just buy a standalone player anyway. Just like i have never seen a A\V person using a video game console for dvd playback i reckon the same applies here.

The add-on drive without either the 360 or Elite is nothing more than a paperweight - the "real" price of the addon drive is actually much closer to what the competition offer & they do of course offer next gen video & audio - 5.1 pcm over HDMI 1.3.

Is it too much to expect that numerous consumers who have been enjoying the best audio that DVD has to offer on their existing equipment have bought into the 360 & its add-on drive hoping to enjoy next gen formats. Especially considering MS's PR campaign:

"Xbox 360 Elite's larger hard drive and premium accessories will allow our community to enjoy all that the next generation of entertainment has to offer."

Would it not be considered a slight injustice to learn that the Elite actually won't deliver what was promised?

Initially MS were aggressively promoting lossless codecs on HD-DVD but now suddenly DTS & WMA-Pro are good enough?

 

[Rockster]

its limit of HDMI 1.2 i think. the reason why they are using 1.2 instead of 1.3 is because they started working on this SKU before 1.3 was announced. (therefore before may/june/july 2006!)

It has nothing to do with HDMI 1.2 as that is known and shown to support lossless PCM. The issue is an internal bandwidth problem to the 360 itself on which Amir did not elaborate. I would assume it is limited by the SouthBridge's external audio output, because while the Ana scaler chip was redesigned to support digital output and the HDMI transmitter added; I don't know that the SouthBridge has undergone any design changes from it's original spec for which there was no uncompressed 5.1 LPCM requirement. Perhaps next revision to the .65u chips will include an upgrade to that bus, perhaps not.

 

[willardjuice]

Initially MS were aggressively promoting lossless codecs on HD-DVD but now suddenly DTS & WMA-Pro are good enough?

I think for the Xbox360 WMA Pro support is more than enough.

 

[mrcorbo]

This was already discussed at great length in this thread almost a month and a half ago. It was not a secret even before the Elite came out and the Elite's capabilities in this area are exactly the same as every other 360 model.

 

[flec04]

This was already discussed at great length in this thread almost a month and a half ago. It was not a secret even before the Elite came out and the Elite's capabilities in this area are exactly the same as every other 360 model.

I wasn't aware of that, thanks for the link.

 

[-tkf-]

lol, your asking if MS is shafting costumers because they don't support lossless audio with a $150 hd-dvd addon?

You would need a pretty serious sound system to be able to hear a difference, ($1000+++) at which point i think you could just buy a standalone player anyway. Just like i have never seen a A\V person using a video game console for dvd playback i reckon the same applies here.

The PS3 is used by serious "A/V Persons" and can easily compete with stand alone players. And what´s with the lol? If Microsoft had thought ahead it wouldn´t be a problem and the price would have been the same.

Btw. 1000$ is hardly a serious sound system.

 

[rekator]

The PS3 is used by serious "A/V Persons" and can easily compete with stand alone players. And what´s with the lol? If Microsoft had thought ahead it wouldn´t be a problem and the price would have been the same.

Btw. 1000$ is hardly a serious sound system.

May be when they buyed it there no blu-ray player at 600$ who play 1080p…
The marketting of the PS3 was essentially based on her capacities of blu-ray player, more than her console capacities.
And for the moment no blu-ray player can fight PS3… I think it's a strategical Sony decision…

 

[Rainbow Man]

Will the 1500kbps DTS transmission speed be for HDMI only on 360 HDDVD addon or is that supported for SPDIF also? I don't know the limit of that interface..

Btw can all sound systems handle such a high DTS btrate? What's typical for a DVD DTS soundtrack?
Peace.

 

[-tkf-]

Will the 1500kbps DTS transmission speed be for HDMI only on 360 HDDVD addon or is that supported for SPDIF also? I don't know the limit of that interface..

Btw can all sound systems handle such a high DTS btrate? What's typical for a DVD DTS soundtrack?
Peace.

The DTS codec was originally made for that bitrate (1536kbit i think) and it´s supported by all decoders and SPDIF.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Thanks for the reply, partially.
The add-on drive without either the 360 or Elite is nothing more than a paperweight

Add-on can be hooked up to PC's as well. (It even works in linux!)

- the "real" price of the addon drive is actually much closer to what the competition offer....

Actually, the real price of the add on drive is $150-200 (or whatever it retails for) no matter how you twist and turn it.

You see, the X360 is a video game console. You buy it to play games, if you want to check out this HD-DVD doohickey, you pay the $199. Nobody is forcing you to buy a X360, you can even use the HD-DVD addon outside of X360's.

 

[Rockster]

The PS3 is used by serious "A/V Persons" and can easily compete with stand alone players...

If that's the case, the high-end BD player market is weak. While it's core BD performance is quite good. The PS3 can't be integrated into any home theater remote control setup, doesn't support selectable output resolutions for BD movies, can't decode any of the new lossless formats, and is terrible for DVD playback. If Sony had thought ahead it wouldn´t be a problem and the price would have been the same.

 

[function]

This has to be one of the most petty and insignifiacnt issues to try and wage a campaign of a console war over.

MS made a very impressive games console - it also happends to make a very good, but not perfect, HD-DVD player using a cheap add on. If you want a perfect HD-DVD player (if there even is such a thing yet), pay for one.

Why the hell would MS want to re-architect large parts of their system to support audio codecs that no-one will base purchasing decisions of their console over?

If it ever starts to matter, they can add it.

 

[function]

The PS3 is used by serious "A/V Persons" and can easily compete with stand alone players. And what´s with the lol? If Microsoft had thought ahead it wouldn´t be a problem and the price would have been the same.

Unfortunately though, the PS3 isn't being used by too many gamers at the moment, and isn't competing well with stand alone games consoles. If Sony had throught ahead, they wouldn't be getting left in the dust with console sales and be suffering from an increasing loss of exclusives and cancelled 360 ports.

Btw. 1000$ is hardly a serious sound system.

For people who are looking at a $150 HD-DVD add on as their entry into the world of "HD", it certainly bloody is! Most 360 (and even PS3) owners will never own a sound system that costs even a quarter of that.