FVD Moving Ahead...

[expletive]

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7088.cfm

Just thought i would post this because of its potential implications to optical storage on DVD-9 based consoles and the (highly unlikely) impact to HD movie formats globally. Seems like they are serious about this and going ahead with the format full steam. If any deveoper wishes to publish a game on a dual layer FVD disc (up to 11GB) seems like they could do it, with triple layered discs (15GB) coming later.

 

[BlueTsunami]

I heard a rumor that Revolution may be usng this technology to use the 11GB disks

 

[dantruon]

why would someone use that when you have Blur-ray and HD-DVD, both of which exceed FVD in term of technology and developers support.?

 

[Magnum PI]

because it can help to choose an unusual media if you want to avoid the games being copied.

 

[EndR]

So these dics will not work on a ordinary DVD-player? You have to have a FVD-player?

IIRC, MS was involved in the development of the FVD... could it be possible that the 360 also could read FVD disc (for game storage)?

 

[expletive]

So these dics will not work on a ordinary DVD-player? You have to have a FVD-player?

IIRC, MS was involved in the development of the FVD... could it be possible that the 360 also could read FVD disc (for game storage)?

The way i understand it is that from a data standpoint current DVD drives can read FVD discs now or with a firmware upgrade.

The reason why you would need an 'fvd dvd player' is becuase current dvd players dont have the ability to decode WMV-HD, which is the codec for FVD HD video. These FVD Movie players will have a chip (similar to todays mpg2 decoders) that will decode WMV-HD .

Given that MS has been plugged into the progress of this format for some time, i think its likely the 360 already can read it (or will with a firmware upgrade).

why would someone use that when you have Blur-ray and HD-DVD, both of which exceed FVD in term of technology and developers support.?

You would use it becuase the drives are going to be cheaper for at least the first half of the next gen consoles life, as will the media be compared to BR.

Not sure what you mean by 'developer support'?

 

[one]

Wrong forum, may I say...

 

[pc999]

I heard a rumor that Revolution may be usng this technology to use the 11GB disks

Me too, it should be great to avoid piracy.

 

[Mmmkay]

The way i understand it is that from a data standpoint current DVD drives can read FVD discs now or with a firmware upgrade.

Err, based on what exactly?

The FVD specification relies on a different numerical aperture, error correction methods, data modulation, and encryption for the 11GB discs. It is highly unlikely that all of these features can be addressed in a firmware update alone. Not to mention that the DVD drive in the Xbox 360 is manufactured by Hitachi-LG, and neither company is part of the FVD consortium. FVD players also only just went into volume production a few days ago, so I wouldn't expect forwards compatibility from any current DVD drive.

 

[Deepak]

I heard a rumor that Revolution may be usng this technology to use the 11GB disks

Where? Link please.

 

[Farid]

Wrong forum, may I say...

That's correct.

 

[expletive]

Err, based on what exactly?

The FVD specification relies on a different numerical aperture, error correction methods, data modulation, and encryption for the 11GB discs. It is highly unlikely that all of these features can be addressed in a firmware update alone. Not to mention that the DVD drive in the Xbox 360 is manufactured by Hitachi-LG, and neither company is part of the FVD consortium. FVD players also only just went into volume production a few days ago, so I wouldn't expect forwards compatibility from any current DVD drive.

There was a link in one of the forums that stated this and we had an entire discussion based on it, i'm trying to track it down now.

I think its only the actualy movie players that went into production a few days ago. The movie discs will not be compatible with existing players because existing players dont have the ability to decode WMV-HD.

I see your point on the differences between the formats so while its certain existing movie players will not be compatible, the data side has lots of questions. However, if current drives can read the FVDs for data only, i dont the drive manufacturer will matter.

I would also be interested to see which movies are making it onto the format.

 

[Mmmkay]

There was a link in one of the forums that stated this and we had an entire discussion based on it, i'm trying to track it down now.

I think its only the actualy movie players that went into production a few days ago. The movie discs will not be compatible with existing players because existing players dont have the ability to decode WMV-HD.

I see your point on the differences between the formats so while its certain existing movie players will not be compatible, the data side has lots of questions. However, if current drives can read the FVDs for data only, i dont the drive manufacturer will matter.

I would also be interested to see which movies are making it onto the format.

Oh I see what you mean, solely for data storage a lot of those hurdles disappear. On a purely pragmatic level though, it would make sense that the FVD consortium have ensured that their discs can only be read on their players. They've purposely gone out of their way to differ the format from DVD to avoid royalty issues with Philips, including physical structure. Of course the real test will be with people getting their hands on the discs. I guess I obviously missed the discussion on FVD if you could find the link that'd be great, as I'd like to read up on it. If someone's got some good reasoning as to why it's not just speculation about compatibility then I'm all ears (or uhh eyes even).

My thoughts were that if FVD tech was going to be released before the official players (i.e. in the 360), it would have to be through an official committee member otherwise we would have known about it through a licensing agreement. That is of course assuming that the format is natively incompatible with DVD drives. In the end though I'm not sure this Microsoft involvement was more than merely courting their codec into the format. But as I said, I've not been following it too closely until recently.

Will Microsoft use it as a data format for the Xbox 360 if possible? Politically I can't see it happening without them signing a licensing agreement and allowing FVD playback. Isn't it technically reverse engineering (even though it happened by accident) a competing product and using it for your own purposes. That's if it even has a data format, since the FVD site lists FVD-Movie and not FVD-ROM. Perhaps it will be single purpose? It would be nice if they'd provide some white papers on it.

As for the success of the format? Personally I cannot see it leaving Taiwan.

 

[pcchen]

I don't understand why there should be a new media format. Anyway, it seems that there are two versions of FVD. The first version (FVD-1) is almost the same as DVD, only with a smaller track pitch (0.74um vs 0.64um). The second version (FVD-2) has more differences including different ECC scheme and modulation. If a game console wants to use an "incompatible" format, FVD-2's probably suitable.