Gamescom 2011 : Sony conference discussion

[function]

You could buy a VGA cable for the PS3 too, though.

I'm fairly sure that the PS3 doesn't natively support VGA, and that the only VGA cables for the PS3 include a cheap converter. User reviews of the VGA cables I've found don't paint a pretty picture for these converter cables (although users reviews do tend to have a negative slant).

A large range of output resolutions through VGA straight from the 360 (using its very nice scaler) is great to have. You can use the VGA input for the 360 and DVI for the PC. I know I'm in a tiny minority of VGA users though.

 

[function]

Support what ? ^_^

I think he means support only turning on HDCP for things that mandate it (i.e. leave it off for games, web, etc and only turn it on for DVD, Bluray, movie streaming).

 

[-tkf-]

Meh. Analog to HDMI conversion has worked it's way down to even budget receivers. Your advantages really boil down to decreased cable clutter.

Not that that's a bad thing. Nobody was happier than me when HDMI finally delivered on the promise I had hoped FireWire would deliver on.

What is with the "Meh"?

HDMI is so much nicer and easier to work with and the lip sync and audio capabilities just takes the cake.

And for example my TV (a sony) only takes one component but 4 HDMI inputs. But "meh" just add a component selector box.. right?

 

[mrcorbo]

I'm fairly sure that the PS3 doesn't natively support VGA, and that the only VGA cables for the PS3 include a cheap converter. User reviews of the VGA cables I've found don't paint a pretty picture for these converter cables (although users reviews do tend to have a negative slant).

I had read that the PS2 VGA cable worked. May not support HD, though.

 

[-tkf-]

PS3 requires HDCP for all digital outputs. I remember lots of people complaining when they tried to connect the PS3 to (non-HDCP) DVI monitors using an HDMI->DVI cable and it wouldn't work. You could buy a VGA cable for the PS3 too, though.

Got it, HDMI is build that way afaik, so every HDMI display should support it, give or take the classic "implementation" issue. I thought it was for component.

 

[bkilian]

Although I don't understand what you mean regards 1080i being better for movies. At 24fps, 1080p60 is 5 refreshes per frame. There shouldn't be any juddering at all. Whereas 1080i60 should have interleaved frames every 5th refresh which is technically incorrect even if imperceptible.

You do know that a 1080i60 stream is equivalent to a 1080p30 stream right?

On the HD formats, movies are stored at 24fps. (this is a bit of a simplification, but it'll do in a pinch). When outputting at an interlaced resolution (1080i60), the player uses 3:2 pulldown (telecine) to convert those 24 frames to 60 interlaced fields. Your television then displays the fields at 60i. On higher end televisions (Pioneer Kuro for instance, and most newer models of the big brands), they have a 24p multiple display mode that, when it detects 24p content in a 60i container, does a reverse telecine to extract the 24p source, and then displays it in a multiple of 24 (72fps in the kuro, 48fps in the Sony Pearl, 120fps in some newer TVs). This allows you to remove the dreaded NTSC judder (See the opening sequence of "Sahara"). When displaying 24p material at 60p (what happens when you use 1080p60 output out of your player), it uses a 3:2 multipler for the frames, so every second frame is on the screen 50% longer than the previous frame. No television I know of will detect this and correct it to a 24p multiple, so Sony's magical 1080p60 baked in the judder in a way that it was not removable.

Of course, it became moot pretty quickly when the players started supporting a direct 1080p24 output.

As an aside, most americans don't see judder, since they have been acclimated to it. All europeans will see it easily since the PAL and SECAM system just displays the 24fps source at 25fps with no extra frames. A side effect of this is that audio on a pal system has a 4% higher tone when playing movies, and the movies are 4% shorter in duration. Europeans (and South Africans, where I'm from) have a hard time recognising a 4% tone change in an audio signal, as a result.

 

[mrcorbo]

In terms of the modern style, HDMI a Plenty --> Reciever --> TV nothing but advantages

What is with the "Meh"?

HDMI is so much nicer and easier to work with and the lip sync and audio capabilities just takes the cake.

And for example my TV (a sony) only takes one component but 4 HDMI inputs. But "meh" just add a component selector box.. right?

In the context of a 360 with HDMI vs a 360 w/o HDMI going through a reasonable capable receiver (which, as I specifically quoted in my original response, was the scenario I was addressing) the only difference is likely to be fewer cables from the 360 to the receiver. So, "Meh".

Otherwise, yeah, HDMI is awesome now that the pace of new revisions seems to have slowed.

 

[mrcorbo]

Got it, HDMI is build that way afaik, so every HDMI display should support it, give or take the classic "implementation" issue. I thought it was for component.

They should, since the typical applications HDMI was designed for involve protected content. Designing a TV with HDMI ports that didn't support HDCP would be pretty dumb. It is not required, though, for a source device to enforce HDCP and Sony could have made the HDCP requirement only apply in use cases where it was necessary for content protection if they chose.

 

[temesgen]

That's marketing for you. And the greatest irony is not only the lack of true HD games on PS3, but the fact many games struggle at lower resolutions and Sony didn't even support decent upscaling. I'll grant MS were a little bit off launching a new-wave HD console without HDMI, but claiming Sony had some HD gaming highground is definitely reaching.

Although I don't understand what you mean regards 1080i being better for movies. At 24fps, 1080p60 is 5 refreshes per frame. There shouldn't be any juddering at all. Whereas 1080i60 should have interleaved frames every 5th refresh which is technically incorrect even if imperceptible.

I think the PS3 HDMI 1.3 spec at launch had more to do with the Blu Ray movie playback than gaming, certainly Sony knew internally that we were not going to be playing too many games in 1080P.

 

[patsu]

They should, since the typical applications HDMI was designed for involve protected content. Designing a TV with HDMI ports that didn't support HDCP would be pretty dumb. It is not required, though, for a source device to enforce HDCP and Sony could have made the HDCP requirement only apply in use cases where it was necessary for content protection if they chose.

Pirates will likely find a way to channel "protected" content over unsecured links, defeating the purpose. Perhaps it's more secure and cleaner to enforce HDCP throughout given the industrywide investment. I think the content providers were pretty wary of HD at the beginning. I remember Steve Jobs (wearing Pixar hat) talked about the risk of high quality piracy a few years back.

 

[function]

Pirates will likely find a way to channel protected content over unsecured links, defeating the purpose. Perhaps it's more secure and cleaner to just enforce HDCP throughout given the industrywide investment.

Does preventing the PS3 from outputting non-HDCP HD images from games really prevent piracy, given that hundreds of millions or billions of totally unsecured PCs can do this without issue (and were always going to be able to)?

I don't think that it's ended up hurting the PS3 much (given that HDMI is so popular now, and that the PS3 was late and overpriced at the start of its life anyway) but not considering that HDCP may possibly be best activated only on a controlled basis (along with things like not supporting VGA and not including half-decent scaler) is kind of ... moronic.

MS were thinking "how can we make the awesomeness of this device as accessible as possible" with the 360, while Sony were thinking ... I don't know what Sony were thinking. Maybe they were really pleased with themselves for making PAL PS2's DVD output broken (green) when using RGB scart (unless you bought an unlicensed RGB scart cable that bypassed the Sony awesomeness) .

 

[patsu]

If there is a way to play over non-HDCP connection, it is possible that someone unauthorized can find a way to play protected HD videos through that unprotected path.

The contents industry will have to deal with the PC world separately. The consoles are typically connected to the big screen TVs. Naturally, they also have to tackle HDCP hacks and strippers.

From Sony's perspective, I suspect they are using the PS3 to accelerate the industry's control over digital distribution (i.e. buy HDCP monitors and TVs, instead of cheap ones). At this moment, I think the studios feel comfortable and viable to stream HD movies to HDCP devices, but not over component video devices. It will probably be a changing picture as we all evolve.

 

[mrcorbo]

If there is a way to play over non-HDCP connection, it is possible that someone unauthorized can find a way to play protected HD videos through that unprotected path.

The contents industry will have to deal with the PC world separately. The consoles are typically connected to the big screen TVs. Naturally, they also have to tackle HDCP hacks and strippers.

From Sony's perspective, I suspect they are using the PS3 to accelerate the industry's control over digital distribution (i.e. buy HDCP monitors and TVs, instead of cheap ones). At this moment, I think the studios feel comfortable and viable to stream HD movies to HDCP devices, but not over component video devices. It will probably be a changing picture as we all evolve.

No. Seriously. It had nothing to do with a risk of piracy.

Now that I give it more thought, if anything it may indeed have been to discourage people from using the PS3 with a non HDCP-capable display device. But that's because that device would not be able to watch BluRays and Sony REALLY wanted people to watch BluRays on the PS3.

 

[patsu]

HDCP is for protecting HD content delivery via Blu-ray _and_ network. I vaguely remember there is some grand timeline stipulated by the movie industry to move towards the digital future. The more HDCP devices in homes, the better/safer for digital HD playback. UltraViolet and Keychest would be the next step.

 

[-tkf-]

Does preventing the PS3 from outputting non-HDCP HD images from games really prevent piracy, given that hundreds of millions or billions of totally unsecured PCs can do this without issue (and were always going to be able to)?

I don't think that it's ended up hurting the PS3 much (given that HDMI is so popular now, and that the PS3 was late and overpriced at the start of its life anyway) but not considering that HDCP may possibly be best activated only on a controlled basis (along with things like not supporting VGA and not including half-decent scaler) is kind of ... moronic.

MS were thinking "how can we make the awesomeness of this device as accessible as possible" with the 360, while Sony were thinking ... I don't know what Sony were thinking. Maybe they were really pleased with themselves for making PAL PS2's DVD output broken (green) when using RGB scart (unless you bought an unlicensed RGB scart cable that bypassed the Sony awesomeness) .

Function by name, surely not by nature..

The PS3 has this thing we call Component cables, that functions exactly like the 360, unless i really missed something that the 360 can do with it´s cables.

So in the case of the PS3 it´s pick whatever you want. But i guess you knew that, you just wanted to point out that the PS2 lacked Macrovision?

 

[Brad Grenz]

They should, since the typical applications HDMI was designed for involve protected content. Designing a TV with HDMI ports that didn't support HDCP would be pretty dumb. It is not required, though, for a source device to enforce HDCP and Sony could have made the HDCP requirement only apply in use cases where it was necessary for content protection if they chose.

HDCP is a required part of the HDMI spec. If you want to build and sell a display with HDMI ports, it must support HDCP. It's a bit silly to expect Sony to worry about extreme corner cases like, "I have a DVI monitor that doesn't support HDCP but I want to buy an HDMI to DVI adapter and plug in my PS3 that was never intended for that use scenario." HDCP and HDMI were becoming pretty common on new hardware by 2005 and they certainly figured anyone without HDMI was best served by Component. That's a much smaller oversight than the year MS spent pretending HDMI wasn't important.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But HDCP is moot considering BRD's are ripped and torrented etc. It does't prevent piracy whatsoever. It was a stupid standard that the movie companies never properly considered, that only hurts legitimate users, like pretty much all DRM.

 

[Brad Grenz]

But since HDCP adoption is effectively universal, it doesn't really benefit anyone to roll it back. Except the four guys on the internet who have never stopped complaining that they can't connect a PS3 to their 8 year old, 19 inch LCD monitor...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No it doesn't, save simplicity (aren't handshaking issues still with us?), but inclusion of HDCP doesn't much contribute to PS3's value as an HD device. it's one of those stupid things that shouldn't have happened. MS didn't support it when they released their console before HDCP was a standard, while Sony did and released an HD console that didn't play on a number of HDTVs people already owned. That hardly places Sony as the champion of HD!

 

[-tkf-]

But HDCP is moot considering BRD's are ripped and torrented etc. It does't prevent piracy whatsoever. It was a stupid standard that the movie companies never properly considered, that only hurts legitimate users, like pretty much all DRM.

Copy protection on games, dvd´s everything is useless, but it´s still there. Doesn´t make HDMI/BRD worse or better.. just adds them to the stupid school of harrasing people that pay for their stuff...

And HDCP is SO hard to remove...
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