PS3 size versus Blu-Ray drive

[Richard]

I was reading up on the prototype (and production-level) HD-DVD and Blu-ray drives at CES and they were huge; they look bigger than my 20 year old VCR in fact. If the PS3 will double as a Blu-Ray movie content player how big will the console be? I understand technology will be refined and later players will be smaller but along with Cell and nVidia's graphics part and admiting the console will be out by August I don't forsee it will get that much smaller. As a japanese manufacturer Sony must be well aware of Japan's dislike for bulky consoles. Have they announced a blu-ray-less version or something?

Disclaimer: I'd like to avoid "my console is better than your console" discussions if at all possible.

 

[sumdumyunguy]

Those first gen players are big & huge becuase they are intended to be that way, not because they have to. Also, they will have things like lots of discrete components, heavy steel & etc becuase for those prices, that is what yo ushould expect. Also, I think I read somewhere that the BD in the PS3 will be primarily a software player & thus I would be surprised if it did things like 1080P & ouputted the new DD & DTS sound formats.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

The drive itself is not bigger than a dvd-drive, the reason why those early models are so big, is because they cost a lot of money and they are supposed to be high end stuff, look how big most top of the line av-receivers or cd-players are. I don't know whether the PS3 launch games are going to be on dvd or on Blu-RAy, but as time goes on, they will start to release them on Blu-Ray, so PS3 without Blu-Ray is not going to happen, there is ZERO probability for it.

 

[AlphaWolf]

The drive itself is not bigger than a dvd-drive, the reason why those early models are so big, is because they cost a lot of money and they are supposed to be high end stuff, look how big most top of the line av-receivers or cd-players are. I don't know whether the PS3 launch games are going to be on dvd or on Blu-RAy, but as time goes on, they will start to release them on Blu-Ray, so PS3 without Blu-Ray is not going to happen, there is ZERO probability for it.

for $1800 they should be the size of my fridge.

 

[nelg]

The players look big but the drives seem alright.
http://www.blu-ray.com/drives/

 

[DuckThor Evil]

for $1800 they should be the size of my fridge.

LoL, true, but High end audio and video equipment costs a lot of money like this Yamaha reveiver http://www.yamaha.com/yec/products/receivers/RXZ9.htm

 

[Titanio]

The players look big but the drives seem alright.
http://www.blu-ray.com/drives/

The slot loader on the left is probably closest to the PS3 drive right now:

http://www.blu-ray.com/images/drives/panasonic3.jpg

 

[BlueTsunami]

The PS3 will be using the Cell and RSX to decode BD. So as Titiano stated, it will probably be using a slimline (slot loaded) type of BD drive.

 

[Guden Oden]

Also, I think I read somewhere that the BD in the PS3 will be primarily a software player & thus I would be surprised if it did things like 1080P & ouputted the new DD & DTS sound formats.

You must be confused, because there's no reason a software player couldn't do these things, especially if it runs on a microprocessor with roughly 15-20x the raw performance of a high-end PC CPU. And indeed, according to Sony, it does do all of these things too and more. It supposedly even upsamples video to 1080P @ 60Hz.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

LoL, true, but High end audio and video equipment costs a lot of money like this Yamaha reveiver http://www.yamaha.com/yec/products/receivers/RXZ9.htm

Everything is relative. In the high-end A/V world, that receiver is cheap. In fact, it probably wouldn't even be considered to be a part of the "high-end" A/V world by many.

And expensive receivers are usually big because they have competent amplifier sections, and few are using ClassD technology to accomplish that. High end CD players tend to be big because they have grossly oversized PSU's and lots of space to keep the bad electron-gremlins from contaminating stuff (i.e., they don't need to be that big).

 

[Titanio]

And indeed, according to Sony, it does do all of these things too and more. It supposedly even upsamples video to 1080P @ 60Hz.

There's no confirmation of that it'll upconvert video to 1080p, but this would be trivially realisable on Cell if Sony so wished.

But it does support 1080p/60 playback, yes.

 

[Richard]

Ok, if done in software I can certainly see the addition of blu-ray not being a problem. Thanks guys.

 

[!eVo!-X Ant UK]

What you have you have to think about is, is that these stand alone Blu-Ray players are $1000+ and thus you get $1000+ worth of build quality. Look at the high end Denon DVD players, i for one have a Denon 3910 dvd player that cost £900 and you can tell just by looking at it, its built like a tank and weighs a tone.

The same logic will apply to the Blu-Ray machines.

 

[dukmahsik]

you'll get the same quality drive as the first ps2 dvd drives

 

[London Geezer]

you'll get the same quality drive as the first ps2 dvd drives

Which means absolutely nothing.
They're 2 different things, so how do you quantify the "quality of the PS2 DVD players" and then try to correlate that to the Bluray drives in PS3?

Besides, just because PS2 had sub-par DVD drive+playback, does it mean that every console Sony will ever make from 2000 to 2650 in the history of consoles will have sub-par drives and sub-par playback? Makes lots of sense!! NOT!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

i for one have a Denon 3910 dvd player that cost £900 and you can tell just by looking at it, its built like a tank and weighs a tone.

The same logic will apply to the Blu-Ray machines.

My point exactly...

I do however think that those expensive players are not very good value, they cost a lot more, but offers only little bit more, the biggest difference between Denon 1910(I have one BTW) and 3910 is that 3190 looks more expensive .

 

[Alpha_Spartan]

The PS3 will be using the Cell and RSX to decode BD. So as Titiano stated, it will probably be using a slimline (slot loaded) type of BD drive.

I don't get this argument. I'm not trying to be confrontational, so here me out. How big can these BD decoders be? I doubt they're larger and faster than Cell and RSX. I've never seen a AV system/media box with a heatsink and fan in it.

This argument just makes it seem as if the PS3 should be LARGER since it has chips that run hotter than stand-alone BD players. A better argument would be that they are larger to allow them to be stackable. Remember the old Dell Optiplex desktops that were oversized? They had steel-reinforced chassis so that you could put that heavy ass monitor on the top of it. So its size allowed for it to support a monitor. The same is true for these standalone BD players. They're large becasue they'll be sitting in AV racks with stuff stacked on them.

 

[London Geezer]

I don't get this argument. I'm not trying to be confrontational, so here me out. How big can these BD decoders be? I doubt they're larger and faster than Cell and RSX. I've never seen a AV system/media box with a heatsink and fan in it.

This argument just makes it seem as if the PS3 should be LARGER since it has chips that run hotter than stand-alone BD players. A better argument would be that they are larger to allow them to be stackable. Remember the old Dell Optiplex desktops that were oversized? They had steel-reinforced chassis so that you could put that heavy ass monitor on the top of it. So its size allowed for it to support a monitor. The same is true for these standalone BD players. They're large becasue they'll be sitting in AV racks with stuff stacked on them.

Well i don't know about BDROM players, but my Sony amp is quite big, almost as big as my desktop, and it's mostly empty. Obviously it's done for heating reasons, as there are no fans inside and the thing is constantly warm, even when it's not playing anything.

It's a big like early DVD players, for some reason they were very big, as big as VCRs, whereas today most models are very slim.

Passive cooling needs space. Not sure if BDROM players will have fans, but if they won't, then we have an explanation.

 

[Alpha_Spartan]

Well i don't know about BDROM players, but my Sony amp is quite big, almost as big as my desktop, and it's mostly empty. Obviously it's done for heating reasons, as there are no fans inside and the thing is constantly warm, even when it's not playing anything.

It's a big like early DVD players, for some reason they were very big, as big as VCRs, whereas today most models are very slim.

Passive cooling needs space. Not sure if BDROM players will have fans, but if they won't, then we have an explanation.

The larger size facilitates better heat diffusion. That's the disadvantage of passive cooling, you substitute for a fan with a larger chassis.

PS3 will have active cooling and it won't be stackable (convexity), so it can be small. But I do think it will be noisy because those fans will be working overtime to get the heat out of that small area.

 

[Guden Oden]

But I do think it will be noisy because those fans will be working overtime to get the heat out of that small area.

There's a big risk of that yeah, especially listening to the 360 and seeing it has two fairly large fans and lots of vent holes and still makes a feckin racket. I can only wish Sony remembers the flak they took for the original PS2 whirring so loudly, but seeing as MS promised a near-silent console and let us down badly on that one, I'm not particulary hopeful.

Companies don't HAVE to make these things quiet, people will buy them anyway either because they don't know about the noise or don't care (enough) about it. That's the annoying bit.