*Rumors Spin-off* 360 & Blu Ray

[Neb]

Shouldn't cost to much. I bought a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD/DVD-burner combo drive for 100$. Its a fast reader for all the media types.

 

[patsu]

Yes, but should be more than commodity technologies like HDD and wireless.

 

[Vic]

Noise ? On the 360 its down to the drive noise and a bluray drive should be quieter as it spins slower. When playing arcade games my 360 makes no noise and is actually quieter than my ps3.

As for what digital foundry said. We know the 360 would playback 1080p 24fp hd dvd discs . So the performance you can get from it is obviously better than what digital foundry has said.

mabye but depending on how ms does it you could be looking at spending $200 less and many people wont care about pcm or lossless sound as they will be running it through their tv speakers.

But we also know based on independent reviews, that the standard of the HD DVD drive was OK, but not as good as the quality offered by standalones.

Most people offered with the choice would just go with a standalone or a PS3, which is why I dont think MS will make a Blu-ray drive.

 

[eastmen]

But we also know based on independent reviews, that the standard of the HD DVD drive was OK, but not as good as the quality offered by standalones.

Most people offered with the choice would just go with a standalone or a PS3, which is why I dont think MS will make a Blu-ray drive.

I've owned both and I can say the add on was the best hd dvd player I owned. I have an a2 and an a3 stand alone.

 

[-tkf-]

I've owned both and I can say the add on was the best hd dvd player I owned. I have an a2 and an a3 stand alone.

What made it the best player for you? For example compared to the mentioned standalones.

 

[eastmen]

What made it the best player for you? For example compared to the mentioned standalones.

THe load times were much improved for the discs. Discs that had problems on the a2 and a3 did not have problems on the add on . Firmware updates were automatic and I was promted about it. The internet features were downloaded faster and there seemed to be faster loading from that.

Over all it was just a more plesant experiance. Now mabye the higher end players were better than the 360 add on that I can't speak for

 

[-tkf-]

THe load times were much improved for the discs. Discs that had problems on the a2 and a3 did not have problems on the add on . Firmware updates were automatic and I was promted about it. The internet features were downloaded faster and there seemed to be faster loading from that.

Over all it was just a more plesant experiance. Now mabye the higher end players were better than the 360 add on that I can't speak for

The exact same strong points the PS3 Blu-Ray player has, i don´t really think anything can come close to console power, just yet, afaik standalones are still not as good as a PS3 , at least not on the mentioned points.

 

[eastmen]

What drive ? The Blu-ray drive ? But...



If 360 has a built-in Blu-ray drive, the perceived difference should only be the HDD and wireless where hardware is concerned. I don't see a $200 difference because, today, the price gap is already $200. With a Blu-ray drive, it should be much smaller.

Why is that ? Do you know how much sony and ms both eat on the system and what ms is willing to eat on the system. IT can very well be that the 360 continues to enjoy a $200 price advantage.

 

[eastmen]

The exact same strong points the PS3 Blu-Ray player has, i don´t really think anything can come close to console power, just yet, afaik standalones are still not as good as a PS3 , at least not on the mentioned points.

Oh i certianly agree , aside from the remote issue on the ps3 and of course its size. i think its one of the best disc based players i've owned. It far surpases anyting i've seen stand alone from the bluray group and also from the hd dvd camp.

I would expect the 360 blruay player if it exists to compare very well with the ps3 and most ikely only loosing out in the sound department.

 

[Vic]

I've owned both and I can say the add on was the best hd dvd player I owned. I have an a2 and an a3 stand alone.

Seems like every magazine was saying the opposite though (certainly when you look at PQ).

We know MS wouldnt subsidise any drive, so it realistically wouldnt make any sense for the consumer.

 

[eastmen]

Seems like every magazine was saying the opposite though (certainly when you look at PQ).

We know MS wouldnt subsidise any drive, so it realistically wouldnt make any sense for the consumer.

Beats me , I can say te image quality was never a problem on my end for the add on. I'm sure that the high end hd dvd players may have had better image quality. But on hte playes i had it wasn't true.

 

[Vic]

Aside from load-times, PQ is the thing that would be most noticeable though, and the thing that is most desired in terms of quality IMO.

As tkf says, to get it to match the quality of PS3 would take some work, and I'm sure that it would not be cost-effective for the Pro/Elite to compete with the PS3 on price with a Blu-ray optical drive.

 

[bkilian]

The 360 can play 1080p24 video files. It cannot play 1080p60 files (some content at 1440x1080, yes, full 1920x1080, no) whereas the PS3 can. It is a verifiable fact, but the point is that the decoder is not designed to do so whereas the PS3 decoder is parallelised quite substantially.

Nothing I've said is incorrect whatsoever.

Well, it depends. The 360 could easily handle 1080p60 files in VC1 format, although I've never seen a 1080p60 video file. I've never seen the PS3 or any other player play one either, since neither the Blu-ray or the HD DVD spec have the concept of 1080p60 content. (1080p24, 1080p30, and 1080i60 are the only options)

There's nothing that says the XBox team couldn't spend the resources we did to optimize the AVC decoder to do the same thing, but I suspect they haven't bothered, because there are so many things that will get them a better return on investment than trying to play a numbers game with the video decoder.

Seems like every magazine was saying the opposite though (certainly when you look at PQ).

We know MS wouldnt subsidise any drive, so it realistically wouldnt make any sense for the consumer.

Not sure where the magazines got the idea, but mathematically, our picture quality was actually slightly better than the Toshiba players, due to the way we decoded and processed the frames.

Sound quality, of course, was about as good if you were using optical, but not as good if you were using 5.1 analog out or HDMI. (Discounting our oopsie regarding DRC, which wasn't really our choice as it was a requirement of the Dolby spec until we created a way to turn it on and off)

Back to the rumor of a BD player for the XBox, this thing gets regurgitated every 3 months or so, and I suspect it will keep being brought up until the 360 eventually stops being produced, it's quite an impressive zombie rumor.

 

[Vic]

Sound quality, of course, was about as good if you were using optical, but not as good if you were using 5.1 analog out or HDMI. (Discounting our oopsie regarding DRC, which wasn't really our choice as it was a requirement of the Dolby spec until we created a way to turn it on and off)

Hang on, I thought optical was better than analogue?

 

[grandmaster]

Well, it depends. The 360 could easily handle 1080p60 files in VC1 format, although I've never seen a 1080p60 video file. I've never seen the PS3 or any other player play one either, since neither the Blu-ray or the HD DVD spec have the concept of 1080p60 content. (1080p24, 1080p30, and 1080i60 are the only options)

The 360 dash player cannot handle 1080p60 VC1 files in the WMV container whereas the PS3 can, albeit with selected content and a pretty rough encoding profile. I'll PM you a link to a test file. Maybe the VC1 decoder in the HD DVD player can play it back, but as you rightly point out, there is no such standard format in either HD DVD nor BD so we'll never know.

I've had limited success playing 1440x1080 60fps VC1 files from the dashboard, but 1920x1080 at 60fps is no go.

PS3's h.264 decoder can handle 1080p60, so long as you encode using eight slices and don't use CABAC.

 

[-tkf-]

Oh i certianly agree , aside from the remote issue on the ps3 and of course its size. i think its one of the best disc based players i've owned. It far surpases anyting i've seen stand alone from the bluray group and also from the hd dvd camp.

I would expect the 360 blruay player if it exists to compare very well with the ps3 and most ikely only loosing out in the sound department.

I think it would be a big challenge for Microsoft to be on par with the PS3, with the steady flow of updates it has moved in to the big league and kept on adding features and most importantly, quality enhancements. But who knows, if someone can pick up the challenge it´s certainly Microsoft.

I know the lack of IR remote was a big deal for many HT freaks, but afaik they have a solution:

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/03/2...luetooth-converter-now-on-sale-ps3-owners-re/

I bought the Bluetooth remote but hardly use it since i always have the controller handy anyway(doh). But for those that custom install it was a real issue.

 

[patsu]

Why is that ? Do you know how much sony and ms both eat on the system and what ms is willing to eat on the system. IT can very well be that the 360 continues to enjoy a $200 price advantage.

Or not ? It's pointless to claim anything without any official information from both parties.

 

[silhouette]

Honestly, I think PS3 is not a no-brainer Blu-ray player anymore. A few months ago, I was looking forward this thanksgiving to get a PS3, but with Panasonic DMP-BD35K sitting at 250$ and Sony BDP-S350S sitting at 220$, which will get even cheaper than this as thanksgiving approaches, now, I am not sure to shell out 400$ (I have already own a 360, so my gaming needs have been covered).

Given those facts, I think MS has very little motivation to release a Bluray add-on for 360. If they do not make the price very low (80-100$), it won't be attractive. If they do it, then the revenue + profit will be low. So, why bother?

I only see a Bluray equipped 360 in very far future, maybe in 3-4 years, especially when the price of the drives comes down to a very low level. And, this will be only for leveling the movie playing feature with Sony, especially when the price of the consoles will not be a differentiating factor anymore.

 

[holsty101]

Hang on, I thought optical was better than analogue?

Optical cables don't have the bandwidth to handle 5.1 lossless, whereas a set of analogue cables can be used for decoded lossless.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

I don't see why it can't be every bit as good as the ps3 at playback. The hd dvd add on for the 360 was the best hd dvd player on the market and a xbox 360 sku with bluray built in can very well be the best bluray player out there and at the very least tie for the ps3.

Actually if you think about it the ps3 has what a 2x or 4 x bluray drive ? The 360 could come with a faster drive and can reduce load times over the ps3 and other players just due to the fact that its newer.

I remember an article talking about how hard running HD DVD completely in software (over 4.7 million lines of code) was on the X360. With that in mind, would the X360 be able to handle the additional 33% increase in video bitrate for Blu-ray?