Multi-tasking Blu-Ray drives.

E

!eVo!-X Ant UK

Banned
Could be helpful in terms of loading or streaming, or is it just a feature that is useless for games ?? You know like loading one part of a game while still playing the other??

""Out-of-mux" reading
Unlike DVD-Video, the Blu-ray Disc format allows for data to be read from a different location on the disc, while uninterruptedly decoding and playing back video. This allows the system to call up menus, overlay graphics, pictures, button sounds, etc. at user request without stopping playback. Some examples of possibilities will be explained later."


"Multi-page Menus
In DVD-Video, playback was interrupted each time a new menu screen is called. Due to Blu-ray Disc's ability to read data from the disc without interrupting the current audio/video stream, a menu can consist of several pages. Users will be able to browse through the menu pages or select different menu paths, while the audio and video remain to be playing in the background."
Click to expand...

All info from website: http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Section-13470/Section-13627/Index.html
 
!eVo!-X Ant UK said:
Could be helpful in terms of loading or streaming, or is it just a feature that is useless for games ?? You know like loading one part of a game while still playing the other??



All info from website: http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Section-13470/Section-13627/Index.html
Click to expand...

It sounds like quite a trivial thing to me ?
I mean provided the BD-Player has enough cache and enough speed to seek back and forth between menues and video while sustaining enough transfer for both...

It prolly has to do with the encryption, maybe DVD-Players have trouble switching between encrypted streams. I can only guess, but I doubt it has relevance for DVD-ROM and BD-ROM as Computer/Console-Drives (apart from playback of encrypted Movies of course)
 
seismologist said:
I thought this feature could be used to playback hi def FMV while the game is loading.
Click to expand...

It's more a feature of the software than the hardware.
A Blu-Ray drive is still a spinny disc with a single read/write head, it fundamentally has to do the same work to split tasks like this that a DVD or HDDVD drive would.

My guess as to why DVD players can't do this is the limited memory thay have available, all DVD compatible streams are designed to be able to move forwards or backwards through the stream in (from memory) a 512KB buffer.
 
seismologist said:
anyone know how the seek time of Blu Ray compares to DVD?
Click to expand...

All the figures I've seen and I've seen no official figures, seek times are worse than comparable throughput DVD drives.
 
I'd have thought seek would be faster as a sought track is potentially nearer the current track, unless the head has to move slower for the sake of accuracy.
 
oh yeah your right ERP. I just saw it in the white paper. It looks like this is a result of the memory configuration along with some hardware overlay capability.

------

4.1.1 Out-of-Mux stream Framework
HDMV provides a framework for individual stream handling. An Out-of-Mux stream is an additional stream which is decoded while the main MPEG stream is decoding. The Out-of-Mux framework provides support for new applications such as Pop-Up Menus, Browsable Slideshow with background music, Button click sound and Text subtitle display.
Decoder model
The HDMV decoder model is equipped with two read buffers, two preloading buffers and two switches. The second read buffer enables the supply of an Out-of-Mux audio stream to the decoder even while the main MPEG stream is being decoded. The preloading buffers cache Text subtitles, Interactive Graphics and sounds effects (which are presented at Button selection or activation). The preloading buffer stores data before movie playback begins and supplies data for presentation even while the main MPEG stream is being decoded.
This switch between the ECC decoder and buffers selects the appropriate buffer to receive demodulated packet data from any one of read buffers or preloading buffers. Before starting the main movie presentation, effect sounds data (if it exists), text subtitle data (if it exists) and Interactive Graphics (if preloaded Interactive Graphics exist) are preloaded and sent to each buffer respectively through the switch. The main MPEG stream is sent to the primary read buffer (RB1) and the Out-of-Mux stream is sent to the secondary read buffer (RB2) by the switch.
The audio decoder also has a switch to select a read buffer for source audio data. In the case of a Browsable Slideshow with background music, the switch selects the secondary read buffer (RB2) to store an Out-of-Mux audio stream and continue supplying the audio stream to the decoder. In all other cases the switch selects the primary read buffer (RB1).
 
I'd have thought seek would be faster as a sought track is potentially nearer the current track, unless the head has to move slower for the sake of accuracy.
Click to expand...
"Comparable throughput" DVD drives would also have a higher spindle speed, I'd imagine... also I'm not entirely sure if current Bluray drives are CAV or CLV. If they're CLV or even Zone-CLV, that would certainly account for some seek time slowdown as speeding up or slowing down the spindle according to radius is not instant.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
I'd have thought seek would be faster as a sought track is potentially nearer the current track, unless the head has to move slower for the sake of accuracy.
Click to expand...

Not an issue of the head moving slower, it is more of the head stablizing after moving. Most CD drives seek faster than the fast DVD drives, the same will likely be true of BRD. A quick look through newegg has the fastest CD acces speed at 75 msec, though back in the day I could of sworn that there was one with 55-60 msec acces time. Most DVD drives are in the 120-150 msec range with the really fast ones in the 90-100 msec range.

The basic problem is that unlike disk drives that as they increase the density the weight of the arm decreases, the weigh of the laser/pickup element for an optical drive remains pretty much constant.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.
 
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Here is some info related to the topic.

http://ps3forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=13397
I work at CircuitCity aka CC a large electronics retail store and if u really wanna kno how much somethin is gonna cost to us,the consumers or when it comes out,i would kno. I hav 2 trainned to sell these various products ya'll r consistently talkin about.

KNOW AS FAR AS BLU RAY GOES...
We received 2 medium sized pamplets that gave us detail info on blu ray players and the PS3.Now 1st YES BLU RAY & HD DVD ARE BOTH GOING 2 BE EXPENSIVE! thats how ever new product/technology is,deal with it!
Yes its going to be big/bulky til the technology advances like everthing.
Now here are some of features that stood out were:

You can stream live info via Ethernet about the movie,like new bonus material/deleted scenes while the movie is playing.

No more pauses between scenes or at the main menu.Its all seamless due to the thinner data pockets.

The ability to go and or play scenes from the menu.

The ability to play games, YES GAMES, directly on the player via disc or ethernet/internet.

The ability to with stand a wool brush scratching over the surface and play perfectly due to TDK's new tuffcoat disc tech.So no more finger prints and or dust preventing you from enjoying your movie/game.
Click to expand...
Dunno how true this info is, but a few of those things have been talked about by companies, for example TDK's coating on blu-ray discs, ethernet compatibility, faster loading due to smaller "data pockets." So it sounds legit.
 
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Durabis

Bad_Boy said:
The ability to with stand a wool brush scratching over the surface and play perfectly due to TDK's new tuffcoat disc tech.So no more finger prints and or dust preventing you from enjoying your movie/game.
Click to expand...

I wonder what is chemical "formulation" for Durabis. Is very hard but very transparent no? So maybe Aluminum Oxide crystal? Only Diamond has more "hardness" and aluminum oxide is not so expensive. Aluminum Oxide crystal has much use for semi-conductor industries. I do not know but it is insteresting subject.
 
ShootMyMonkey said:
Comparable throughput" DVD drives would also have a higher spindle speed, I'd imagine... also I'm not entirely sure if current Bluray drives are CAV or CLV.
Click to expand...
The only semblance of a seek time figure related to BRD that I've ever seen has been the review of Sony's BW-RU101 professional drive. Mind you - it's not "bluray" - but the technology is clearly very similar (identical disc capacity, similar transfer rates, blue-laser tech, rewritable).
Wish I could find the review :p Anyway the drive also supports both CLV and CAV mode, and from what I remember the seek times listed in that test were in line with standard optical disc stuff (100-200ms, pretty much in line with DVDs I've tested).

Of course, that still doesn't guarantee anythiny about the real BRD - but with complete lack of official info, it's the closest I've seen.
 
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Review

Fafalada said:
The only semblance of a seek time figure related to BRD that I've ever seen has been the review of Sony's BW-RU101 professional drive. Mind you - it's not "bluray" - but the technology is clearly very similar (identical disc capacity, similar transfer rates, blue-laser tech, rewritable).
Wish I could find the review :p Anyway the drive also supports both CLV and CAV mode, and from what I remember the seek times listed in that test were in line with standard optical disc stuff (100-200ms, pretty much in line with DVDs I've tested).

Of course, that still doesn't guarantee anythiny about the real BRD - but with complete lack of official info, it's the closest I've seen.
Click to expand...

Review of Sony almost "blu ray" drive of June 25, 2004.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1617189,00.asp
 
Yea I saw that one too but that article is just fluff.
There was a proper review of the drive where the writers did a full battery of benchmarks - but I can no longer find that one :(
 
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