Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[manux]

They're obviously similar in features, you can throw any modern codec meant for HD video and it'll probably be quite similar, but that doesn't meant they based on each other in any way

Also, VC-1 is WMV (based) codec.

WMV is just a container which has pretty much nothing to do with the actual VC-1 spec.(meaning you can implement vc-1 encode/decode without ever knowing what vmw container is)


I was just curious as the original claim from cal_guy was

VC-1 is not a subset of AVC, it's a separate codec standard with many signficant differences between them.

I agree it is separate specification and codec. The confusion part comes from differences between h264 and VC-1 and especially what are the many significant differences between the codecs.

I actually put considerable effort in finding what these significant differences are and couldn't figure it out. To me it looks just like some minor implementation details rather than significant differences in spec level. I would be curious to know what this significant difference is if someone is able to explain it.

To me it looks like ms hired the guy who did h264 spec and he did some further development on top of his existing stuff and it was then called vc-1(hence it could be argued VC-1 is somewhat based on h264).

To me it looks like the main point for VC-1 was to provide good quality with reasonable decoding requirement to make it more viable "back in the days". H264 diverged more and tries to cater from lowend to highend. h264 high profile contains much more functionality than VC-1 but also requires more from hardware doing the encode/decode. This deviation in goals allowed VC-1 to do optimizations that most likely are the significant difference(though to me it looks like minor implementation details)

 

[Kaotik]

Actually WMV is not just a container, it's name of a container, but also the name of a codec (or is if you add a number behind it anyway)

What comes to the differences, VC-1 and other WMV codecs are evolution of DCT[/b] based video codec design, just like h.xxx and MPEG video codecs are, so they're bound to be similar on many levels.

The actual implementations can be very different despite the common base under it all.
I also doubt very much that there would have been just one guy defining the h.264 spec
IMO you can't argue it's based on it anyway, since it's further developement of Microsofts WMV codecs. The bit of truth, however, is that the original WMV7 was Microsoft's implementation of MPEG4 Part 2, but h.264/MPEG4 AVC is MPEG4 Part 10.
So roots can be on the same base, but they're still different trees

 

[manux]

Actually WMV is not just a container, it's name of a container, but also the name of a codec (or is if you add a number behind it anyway)

What comes to the differences, VC-1 and other WMV codecs are evolution of DCT[/b] based video codec design, just like h.xxx and MPEG video codecs are, so they're bound to be similar on many levels.

The actual implementations can be very different despite the common base under it all.
I also doubt very much that there would have been just one guy defining the h.264 spec
IMO you can't argue it's based on it anyway, since it's further developement of Microsofts WMV codecs. The bit of truth, however, is that the original WMV7 was Microsoft's implementation of MPEG4 Part 2, but h.264/MPEG4 AVC is MPEG4 Part 10.
So roots can be on the same base, but they're still different trees

I'm not arguing it's not different. I'm just asking what the significant differences really are(if they are significant it should be fairly easy to describe differences). I wasn't able to figure differences out to the part that makes it significant. To me vc-1 and h264 looks very similar and differences are only in some implementation details(not really that significant differences).

In this case there really is one guy who is hugely involved... Just check the wikipage link below. That dude was the brains also behind vc-1 in addition to h264. Yes, he didn't do it all by himself but well... His achievements are still rather spectacular.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Sullivan_(engineer)]gary sullivan wikipage

Gary J. Sullivan is an American electrical engineer who led the development of the H.264/AVC video coding standard and created the DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) API/DDI video decoding feature of the Microsoft Windows operating system platform

Sullivan holds the position of Video Architect in the Core Media Processing Team of the Windows Division of Microsoft Corporation. At Microsoft he also designed and remains lead engineer for the DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) API/DDI video decoding feature of the Microsoft Windows operating system platform. His DXVA designs include decoding acceleration schemes for H.261, MPEG-1, H.262/MPEG-2, H.263, MPEG-4 Part 2, H.264/AVC, Windows Media Video versions 8 and 9, and VC-1.

Fellow of the IEEE for contributions to video coding and its standardization, 2006

edit. In very short, if the difference is: Transform block size, loop filtering and Interpolation filter size then I think the difference is just minor and implementation detail. If the differences is something else then it would be great to know what they exactly are.

 

[Rolf N]

I'm not sure I understand the tone of your post, anyway.

I was mostly reacting to phenix statement:
Actually I realize that I miss read his post he only speaks about bandwidth.
But anyway neither latency or bandwidth are to be solve in near future especially with this fucked up economics.

I think we're in agreement that internet connection bandwidth is still far too low to replace physical media. I was just adding my own example. My wording was poor insofar as I didn't mean to welcome specifically you to planet earth, but rather the proponents of downloads for everything. The infrastructure just doesn't exist yet, not outside of a handful of the biggest cities in the world.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Last night was getting a slower download speed on my ADSL than upload speed! 500kB/s down vs. 650 kB/s up. That was just an anomoly though; I've noticed my 8 Mb potential has crept up from aroun 3.5 MB/s to as much as 6 MB/s over the couple of years I've been with Tiscali. My mate a few miles away gets 2 Mb from his 8Mb potential, with being just up the road from the exchange. It's just a mess. And BT focuses on patchy rollout of fibres so places like here get ignored year after year.

I don't think any nation will really be up to DD only until their governments mandate a full infrastructure overhaul. If you rely on the private sector chansing dollars, they'll avoid low-density areas. If the future is DD only, it'll be super sucky to be one of those people who doesn't get fibre - no more gaming for you!

 

[eastmen]

Last night was getting a slower download speed on my ADSL than upload speed! 500kB/s down vs. 650 kB/s up. That was just an anomoly though; I've noticed my 8 Mb potential has crept up from aroun 3.5 MB/s to as much as 6 MB/s over the couple of years I've been with Tiscali. My mate a few miles away gets 2 Mb from his 8Mb potential, with being just up the road from the exchange. It's just a mess. And BT focuses on patchy rollout of fibres so places like here get ignored year after year.
h
I don't think any nation will really be up to DD only until their governments mandate a full infrastructure overhaul. If you rely on the private sector chansing dollars, they'll avoid low-density areas. If the future is DD only, it'll be super sucky to be one of those people who doesn't get fibre - no more gaming for you!

4g can do it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_kpkeYSy9k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Js5fEz2Xc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW8r52Ion3M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du4GcjFWgmU&feature=related

my friend uses it at his cabin as he can get 4 g speeds there but only dial up otherwise (he has no grid power , some solar and a generator)

Its actually faster than his dsl at his house and only $10 more a month so he is going to swith to it soon at home also

 

[ShadowRunner]

Does it not have a download cap / fair usage policy?

 

[eastmen]

Does it not have a download cap / fair usage policy?

clearwire does not , either does sprint 4g which is clearwire. Its $60 a month.

 

[ShadowRunner]

I guess its an option then, though looking at how terrible 3G reception is around here it doesnt fill me with confidence. I often get no reception at all, and this is in the centre of town not some remote location.

In the end requiring a $60 per month internet connection to use a DD only console kind of negates one of the main reasons for going DD only besides smaller form factor, cost. You are increasing the cost of ownership in order to sell to less potential buyers. It seems a silly route to take in order to save £30 on a optical drive. In fact they wouldnt save £30 anyway because of the need for a huge HDD in a DD only console

 

[eastmen]

I guess its an option then, though looking at how terrible 3G reception is around here it doesnt fill me with confidence. I often get no reception at all, and this is in the centre of town not some remote location.

In the end requiring a $60 per month internet connection to use a DD only console kind of negates one of the main reasons for going DD only besides smaller form factor, cost. You are increasing the cost of ownership in order to sell to less potential buyers. It seems a silly route to take in order to save £30 on a optical drive. In fact they wouldnt save £30 anyway because of the need for a huge HDD in a DD only console

I'm simply pointing out an option for those who live in more rural area's. Clearwire is going to start pushing it in area's with limited broadband and AT&T and Verizon will have LTE which will offer similar speeds.

I think this is the way high speeds will make it to the 10% of the country that is to far out of the way and it will also help drive speeds up for those in other area's.

For my friend its paying $50 a month for DSL which is limited to his house or paying $60 for 4G which he can then take with him to any house or on a ar ride with his laptop or to the park etc. Once these networks get up and running cable , dsl , fios will all start to offer faster speeds.

Also $60 seems in line to me with internet costs and all three of the companys have DD only games right now. nintendo has virtual console , MS has xbox live aracade and originals and sony has psn network games . Sony + MS have movie stores + rentals , music stores (sony's working on one) and other services requiring the internet already. To expect an expansion of this isn't foolish , its just looking at the trend of the last 5 years of this generation and its more internet services not less.

 

[corduroygt]

4G/clearwire is in so few places that it's a joke, and 3G has atrocious latency to begin with. I used to get 1.5Mbit down but with 300ms ping on my iphone.
Fiber finally came here by the way, and it's fantastic for $50/month, although most people in the US (and around me) still use WEP for their wireless which is hackable in under 2 minutes, so that could be $0/month if I was happy with slower speeds

 

[I.S.T.]

4G/clearwire is in so few places that it's a joke, and 3G has atrocious latency to begin with. I used to get 1.5Mbit down but with 300ms ping on my iphone.
Fiber finally came here by the way, and it's fantastic for $50/month, although most people in the US (and around me) still use WEP for their wireless which is hackable in under 2 minutes, so that could be $0/month if I was happy with slower speeds

I actually have Clear as my ISP.

It is shit.

The signal will randomly drop, varies constantly, the ping is terrible. To make matters worse, speed varies even more than the signal itself. Used to, the speed was directly tied to signal strength, but now, I've gotten 20 KBs on a four light strength connection(out of five), 600 KBs on a one light strength connection.

I would seriously avoid it at all costs.

 

[liolio]

I got using this test (with no tv running and just deezer running);
download: 4.94mb/s
upload: 0.86mb/s

ping: 56ms while being less than 50 miles away from the test server they used.

Not too bad as I'm <2.5km away from the DSLAM servicing me.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I guess its an option then, though looking at how terrible 3G reception is around here it doesnt fill me with confidence. I often get no reception at all, and this is in the centre of town not some remote location.

Exactly. 4G doesn't exist yet in the UK, and I imagine it'll cost an arm and leg when it's available. We'll talking 10+ GBs of game content to download per title. It'd be a mightily optimistic console company who designs a DD only console expecting DD to be available and affordable to everyone in a couple of years!

 

[MrSpiggott]

And lets also consider the problems associated with recovering data for a replaced faulty system. Just about every ISP in the UK has a fair usage policy, in the case of BT it's 100GB a month. If you go over your allowance then, during peek times, your download speeds are throttled back to a point when services like iplayer no longer work. If my launch PS3 failed and was replaced, which is not so unusual after more than 3 years of use, and all my games were download only then it would take about 3 months, a quarter of a year, before I could play my entire games collection without effecting other services.

 

[ShadowRunner]

Also $60 seems in line to me with internet costs and all three of the companys have DD only games right now. nintendo has virtual console , MS has xbox live aracade and originals and sony has psn network games . Sony + MS have movie stores + rentals , music stores (sony's working on one) and other services requiring the internet already. To expect an expansion of this isn't foolish , its just looking at the trend of the last 5 years of this generation and its more internet services not less.

All this says is that DD is a viable option and obviously expansion of online offerings is going to happen. Extrapolating this and coming to the conclusion that optical media is worthless is wrong though IMO, i cant see why having both options could be considered a bad thing.

 

[corduroygt]

Speaking of how wildly variable 3G internet is, here are two tests I did within a minute of each other through my iPhone. I must add, there's a 2GB data cap here for that, which is laughable if you want to use it as your main internet connection. It's early morning here so these are the best results you're going to see out of it. During the day its 0.5Mbit or less.

I ran the test a bunch of times at different times and the ping is never less than ~250ms.

 

[Gubbi]

Just about every ISP in the UK has a fair usage policy, in the case of BT it's 100GB a month.

The only reason it is so low is because 99.5% of users never hit the limit. There is zero incentive to market a product with a 500GB/month cap or higher.

The second movies on demand and DD games see significant pickup, demand for a higher cap product will be there, and you can bet ISPs will be ready with products to match.

Your scenario with recovering a faulty system is similar to whenever a PC gamer reinstalls or gets a new PC, and downloads all games purchased on Steam, something that happens *all* the time.

Cheers

 

[MrSpiggott]

The only reason it is so low is because 99.5% of users never hit the limit. There is zero incentive to market a product with a 500GB/month cap or higher.

The second movies on demand and DD games see significant pickup, demand for a higher cap product will be there, and you can bet ISPs will be ready with products to match.

Your scenario with recovering a faulty system is similar to whenever a PC gamer reinstalls or gets a new PC, and downloads all games purchased on Steam, something that happens *all* the time.

Cheers

But movies on demand can't be introduced until the infrastructure is in place, and in the timescale of any next gen consoles likely introduction, wont be in place, at least in the UK.

Just because the PC potentialy suffers from the same problem with steam doesn't make it acceptable. It would be very difficult explaining to your kids that thay wont be able to play the games that they like, and that you have paid for, for another 3 months. Sticking with physical media is still the sensible option for next gen IMO.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Just because the PC potentialy suffers from the same problem with steam doesn't make it acceptable. It would be very difficult explaining to your kids that thay wont be able to play the games that they like, and that you have paid for, for another 3 months.

Your describing a scenario where people play all their games all the time, constantly changing between them. I don't think many people work that way at all. I think it's far more typical for someone to buy a game and play it until they've had enough, and then they buy a new game. In your example, after losing all your games, you'd only need to download the latest couple that you were playing when it died to pick up where you left off. Or if four people share a PS4 and play completely different games, maybe as many as 8 games would need to be downloaded which'd be a few days, typically in a household of normal internet usage.

I frequently delete my old PSN titles from my PS3. They are always on PSN to download again should I want, while I also know I'm not actually going to play them again, in all probability.