*Rumors Spin-off* 360 & Blu Ray

[BoardBonobo]

I don't see why MS would bother now. They've kind of missed the boat with this one and it would be in direct opposition to their stance on DD. Also as pointed out above the additional requirements for profile 2.0 and beyond exceed the abilities of the current 360 design.

Sadly DD is something that won't be around in a form to challenge the quality of BD for some time yet, it requires a large change in the infrastructure (in the UK at least) of web delivery.

Besides paying money to Sony would be something of a bitter pill for MS to swallow, but then again pride before a fall and all that!

 

[expletive]

Sadly DD is something that won't be around in a form to challenge the quality of BD for some time yet, it requires a large change in the infrastructure (in the UK at least) of web delivery.

The problem for Sony is if anyone cares if it matches the quality. Even now they need to put split screen displays side by side in BestBuy to make the point. I assume its because theyve determined people cant tell the difference unless a direct comparison is made. The MS answer to this is Netflix movies in HD for NA. If Sony feels 480i vs 1080p24 requires a direct comparison, how are they going to sell 1080p24 vs 720p?

Is the infrastructure in the UK such that it wouldnt support a netflix-like solution?

I personally want to see bluray succeed as Ive made an investment in gear that takes advantage but I can see where the masses will have a tough time making any relevant distinction.

EDIT:I do wonder, though, how much the 'blu ray player' aspect of the PS3 has buoyed its sales over the last few months. It will be interesting to see how the advent of feasible, low cost, players affects the PS3 market.

 

[patsu]

It is not just about Blu-ray spec comparison anymore. At this stage, it is about the attractiveness of individual Blu-ray players, and the channel marketing.

Beyond certain point, the industry would flood the market with more and more Blu-ray products ($150 - $10,000). Combo products like LG and Samsung's Netflix + Blu-ray players, HD TV + built-in Blu-ray and of course PS3 will help to boost the sales too. In consumers' mind, DVD may feel increasingly dated. This process will take a few years though.

Along the way, the studios will need to lower the movie price accordingly (Some have started to do so). I do hope to see more useful BD-Live apps sometime next year.

As for PS3 sales due to Blu-ray, it's hard to measure because they may not be the typical Blu-ray consumers. It will likely capture gamers, ex-gamers and gadget people. But it depends on Sony's pricing scheme too.

 

[Rangers]

I don't see why MS would bother now. They've kind of missed the boat with this one and it would be in direct opposition to their stance on DD. Also as pointed out above the additional requirements for profile 2.0 and beyond exceed the abilities of the current 360 design.

Sadly DD is something that won't be around in a form to challenge the quality of BD for some time yet, it requires a large change in the infrastructure (in the UK at least) of web delivery.

Besides paying money to Sony would be something of a bitter pill for MS to swallow, but then again pride before a fall and all that!

I am not sure but I think a large part of PS3 sales may still be due to Blu Ray. Of course it would behoove MS to remove this reason to purchase a PS3.

I read for example that Iron Man Blu Ray sold 1 million. I imagine most of those are on PS3 since stand alone Blu Ray player sales are low. That would show lots of PS3 owners are using it for Blu Ray. Which means "casuals" probably notice this reason to buy a PS3.

 

[grandmaster]

I'm more worried about decoding performance - I've seen the 360 struggle with some h.264 1080p movies. Then again, the video playback code hasn't been updated for over a year, maybe they have managed to wring out more out of it...

The dashboard media decoder hasn't had a lot of love - but it's significantly different to the one that is used in the HD DVD software. For a start, the VC1 decoder for HD DVD uses both GPU and CPU. The initial dash WMV decoder only used one core of the CPU and couldn't even decode 720p60, but was eventually threaded and now runs HD content reasonably. The dash WMV decoder can run any kind of WMV file whereas the HD DVD one is optimised specifically for VC1 HD DVD encodes - it's not the same code.

Similarly the h264 decoder on the dashboard doesn't support high level h264 on HD content and its throughput is limited to 12mbps - nowhere near as good/powerful as the h264 decoder needed for HD DVD. I believe that's using ATI libraries and again most likely taps into Xenos.

I was hoping that NXE would benefit from enhanced media players bearing in mind I can run 1080p60 VC1 and h264 files on the PS3 XMB, but then I realised that the development effort probably isn't worth it just to make me and a couple of other people happy

 

[Vic]

The problem for Sony is if anyone cares if it matches the quality. Even now they need to put split screen displays side by side in BestBuy to make the point. I assume its because theyve determined people cant tell the difference unless a direct comparison is made. The MS answer to this is Netflix movies in HD for NA. If Sony feels 480i vs 1080p24 requires a direct comparison, how are they going to sell 1080p24 vs 720p?

Is the infrastructure in the UK such that it wouldnt support a netflix-like solution?

I personally want to see bluray succeed as Ive made an investment in gear that takes advantage but I can see where the masses will have a tough time making any relevant distinction.

EDIT:I do wonder, though, how much the 'blu ray player' aspect of the PS3 has buoyed its sales over the last few months. It will be interesting to see how the advent of feasible, low cost, players affects the PS3 market.

Its not just the resolution, its the bitrate. The bitarte on BD's is 40mps. The bitrates of digital content on Live! and Apple tv is more like 4-6mps. Hence there is a large disparity in picture quality. Furthermore, the vast majority of people prefer physical media to digital media.

 

[eastmen]

Its not just the resolution, its the bitrate. The bitarte on BD's is 40mps. The bitrates of digital content on Live! and Apple tv is more like 4-6mps. Hence there is a large disparity in picture quality. Furthermore, the vast majority of people prefer physical media to digital media.

And what was the bit rate on hd dvds . Wasn't it in the low 30s . So if it can run hd dvds it can surely run blurays.

 

[specwarGP2]

And what was the bit rate on hd dvds . Wasn't it in the low 30s . So if it can run hd dvds it can surely run blurays.

HDDVD used low bitrate VC1 encodes which are easier to decode than the 40mb+ bitrates you see on really high quality AVC encodings. AFAIK:smile:

 

[eastmen]

HDDVD used low bitrate VC1 encodes which are easier to decode than the 40mb+ bitrates you see on really high quality AVC encodings. AFAIK:smile:

No

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1070650

The Hulk (2003)

hd dvd is 19.53mbps for the video
bluray is 24.00mbps for video.

Do you think that small bitrate diffrence is suddenly going to destroy the 360. The audio doesn't make much of a diffrence since the 360 doesn't do True hd or lpcm so it would use a secondary track or down convert it.

 

[obonicus]

And what was the bit rate on hd dvds . Wasn't it in the low 30s . So if it can run hd dvds it can surely run blurays.

Check grandmaster's post a few posts back, he talks about the dashboard decoder in comparison to the HD-DVD one.

 

[eastmen]

Check grandmaster's post a few posts back, he talks about the dashboard decoder in comparison to the HD-DVD one.

Yes and whats to stop them from making a decoder for the bluray drive using the waternoose and xenos

 

[patsu]

No

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1070650

The Hulk (2003)

hd dvd is 19.53mbps for the video
bluray is 24.00mbps for video.

It changes from title to title. Some Blu-ray movies do indeed hit the spec limit @ 40mbps.

Do you think that small bitrate diffrence is suddenly going to destroy the 360. The audio doesn't make much of a diffrence since the 360 doesn't do True hd or lpcm so it would use a secondary track or down convert it.

MS could probably optimize the decoder to hit 40mbps. If they want to do it, they will also find a way to run the Java VM.

I think PS3 cops out at 2 parallel 40mbps streams and a "reasonable" (and non-trivial) Java program at the same time. Should be able to find the interview on the net somewhere.

 

[Rockster]

It changes from title to title. Some Blu-ray movies do indeed hit the spec limit @ 40mbps.

I think that was the case for some mpeg2 encodes but haven't seen any avc encodes hit that bit rate. That said though, if MS did create a BR add-on, there's no question they would have to support it up to 40mbps because its in the spec.

I would imagine that Microsoft has performed numerous cost / benefit analysis of developing and supporting such a device. I'm still skeptical despite all the rumors because it in effect competes against their video marketplace offerings, as does broader and more competent codec/container support. But, Microsoft has taken a very pro-consumer stance over the last several years, so I can't completely rule it out. Let's hope.

 

[patsu]

I think that was the case for some mpeg2 encodes but haven't seen any avc encodes hit that bit rate.

Quick search...
http://www.highdefdiscnews.com/?p=419

Video Quality on this release is 1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte Dual-Layered Blu-ray Disc). Wow folks I have to tell you there is honestly NOTHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT in this video transfer I find in the slightest bit! The overall average bitrate is 37Mbps and I cannot believe how amazing this looks. My god, seriously I’ve never seen a title hit 40Mbps so many times on Blu-ray like this.

There should be others but they probably hit 40mbps less often.

 

[eastmen]

It changes from title to title. Some Blu-ray movies do indeed hit the spec limit @ 40mbps.



MS could probably optimize the decoder to hit 40mbps. If they want to do it, they will also find a way to run the Java VM.

I think PS3 cops out at 2 parallel 40mbps streams and a "reasonable" (and non-trivial) Java program at the same time. Should be able to find the interview on the net somewhere.

Do you have a link to actual bitrates.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=3338

You can go through here and look . Mpeg 2 transfers go up to about 35 while the new codecs are al under 36 and none are close to 40. You guys are seariously bying into the sony hype if you think that the 360 can't decode bluray releases .

The spec for hd dvd is 30.24 and the maximum for bluray is 48.0 for video + audio + sub titles. I don't see it a breaking point for the 360 to be able to cover the extra 18Mbit/s thats in the maximum part of the spec.

 

[patsu]

Those are probably average bitrate. Read the reviews for more info.

EDIT: In the short list you provided, there are a few 35-ish Mbps AVC movies. When the action gets hot, they may (or may not) hit 40Mbps.

 

[bkilian]

Not this BR add on shit again. I swear, there are more anti MS/Sony fans out there wanting to see this happen just so they can say "told you so!" than people actually interested.

With standalone prices coming down this holiday season and the BR drive having no use for games, nothing good will come of this.

Bkilian,

MS is smarter than releasing this, right?!

I'd hope so. I've given my opinion on why I think it doesn't make commercial sense to do this a number of times. HD DVD was very much strategic for us, which BD isn't, it's not worth losing money on an addon to try balance a check mark that most people don't give a damn about, especially when, no matter what you do, it'll be considered an inferior product (not integrated, movies only - no games, etc)

But MS Management often does things that I can't follow the logic for, so it's possible they could have found a compelling reason to do something like this. I doubt it though.

Are you sure ? I thought there was additional storage along with a chunk of it used for system updates. Hd dvd did have hd-i also.

We had a 256MB flash chip, 192MB available as storage, and the rest used to store the actual HD DVD executables.

The dashboard media decoder hasn't had a lot of love - but it's significantly different to the one that is used in the HD DVD software. For a start, the VC1 decoder for HD DVD uses both GPU and CPU. The initial dash WMV decoder only used one core of the CPU and couldn't even decode 720p60, but was eventually threaded and now runs HD content reasonably. The dash WMV decoder can run any kind of WMV file whereas the HD DVD one is optimised specifically for VC1 HD DVD encodes - it's not the same code.

Similarly the h264 decoder on the dashboard doesn't support high level h264 on HD content and its throughput is limited to 12mbps - nowhere near as good/powerful as the h264 decoder needed for HD DVD. I believe that's using ATI libraries and again most likely taps into Xenos.

I was hoping that NXE would benefit from enhanced media players bearing in mind I can run 1080p60 VC1 and h264 files on the PS3 XMB, but then I realised that the development effort probably isn't worth it just to make me and a couple of other people happy

You're correct. The decoders do have the same parents, but they have been modified by each group seperately. Our decoder was a savant, it performed amazingly, well enough that we could decode two AVC streams, remix a Dolby True HD soundtrack, and run HDi at the same time, not to mention all the other stuff the system is doing at the same time to keep the buffers fed, and AACS decoding etc. But it was very limited in the subset oh H.264 it allowed. We did our AVC decoding on 3 hardware threads and the GPU, and it could comfortably handle a 30Mb stream.

MS could probably optimize the decoder to hit 40mbps. If they want to do it, they will also find a way to run the Java VM.

I think PS3 cops out at 2 parallel 40mbps streams and a "reasonable" (and non-trivial) Java program at the same time. Should be able to find the interview on the net somewhere.

I don't doubt we could do it, the question is if it's worth the effort. Every time I see anything in the news about BD, it's another story about the horrible compatibility issues they're having with the latest release. I really don't think you want to be anything that _isn't_ the PS3 in the Blu-ray camp, since it appears that all the content development time and effort is spent there.

 

[patsu]

I don't doubt we could do it, the question is if it's worth the effort. Every time I see anything in the news about BD, it's another story about the horrible compatibility issues they're having with the latest release. I really don't think you want to be anything that _isn't_ the PS3 in the Blu-ray camp, since it appears that all the content development time and effort is spent there.

Yes, I read about the incompatibility issues in Bond movies (More firmware patches !). It is something BDA and its members need to work out.

But not every BR news is bad. There have been good progress so far with Blu-ray as far as I know (e.g., Ironman Blu-ray sales).

 

[eastmen]

Yes, I read about the incompatibility issues in Bond movies. It is something BDA and its members need to work out.

But not every BR news is bad. There have been good progress so far with Blu-ray as far as I know (e.g., Ironman Blu-ray sales).

Same iron-man that some philps users are reporting to be incompatible with their players ?

 

[patsu]

I have no idea. Depends on their firmware version ?