Time article on Wii - some tidbits on a couple of games. including Zelda: TP..

DemoCoder said:
I'm glad Sony had the good sense to make the PS3 HDIP camera wireless.
Is it wireless? I haven't seen any pics yet of the new EyeToy, or any confirmation on it's technical data.
With your front projector, isn't there going to be a problem with the room being too dark for the camera to work properly (unless it's a high lumen), also even if the PS3 EyeToy was wireless, it could be problematic to position it facing a beaming projector.
Hope it'll work though, as I'm planning on buying a front projector this summer and PS3 (and maybe Wii) later. Have you tried the PS2 EyeToy on your setup?
 
My PJ is high lumen (2200), I can watch in ambient light. Also, my screen sits off the floor high, so the camera can sit about 4feet off the ground on the wall (below the bottom of the screen), I'm hoping it'll work.
 
DemoCoder said:
I'm glad Sony had the good sense to make the PS3 HDIP camera wireless.
Really?! If that's the case, why did Sony say out of the 3 Gigabit connectors one was for the camera?
 
Well, alot of the E3'2005 press reports at IGN and GameSpot and other sites say stuff like

Dr. Richard Marx, the inventor of EyeToy, was on hand to show off the PS3's wireless HD IP Camera. The demo recalled rumors that the machine will have Minority Report-esque motion-sensing capabilities. Marx held two small cup-like objects in his hands, which moved the cups on the screen in real time

Note, current HD cameras save video at a data rate similar to MiniDV cameras, <25MB/s, so you don't need gigabit ethernet, but you do need a wifi connection capable of 25MB sustained throughput. My 802.11g home network never gets that. Maybe an ad-hoc network with the PS3 using "turbo mode" 802.11g will achieve it.

On the other hand, mpeg compressed video probably isn't good for running image processing algorithms.
 
I think that's wrongful journalism myself. If HD, let's say 720p res, that's 1 million pixel, 3 MB per frame at 24 bpp colour. At 30 FPS capture that'd be 720 megabits sustained transfer rate. If the image is compressed you'll need something like 15:1 compression to get down to even the realm of Wifi G bandwidth, and far more compression to get to something useable. So unless there's a compression chip inside the camera, guzzling batteries and feeding compressed images to the PS3, it's unfeasible. With that info, and the announcement (from Phil Harrison at GI.biz, no link) that a port is for the camera...
"Also, we want to be able to have a Gigabit port for an IP camera," he revealed. "So one of the ports is an in, and two of them are through. It can be a server as well as a terminal."
...the idea the camera is wireless seems a mistake on the part of the journalists.
 
Just came across this little pic for Wii SSB

ssbmelee.jpg


http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2918&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=3
 
USB cameras with compression in them are ubiquitous now. Hell, there are plenty of Wifi security cams that return H.264 streams and have mini-web servers in them that let you stream compressed video thru browser and control camera remotely.

Compression isn't the issue. Low-power mpeg compression? It's a done deal. It's all over usb cams and mobile phones. The OEM chips are mature and out there.

I don't think that's the issue. The issue would be the effect compression has on being able to run the eyetoy algorithms.
 
Well, if the PSP actually can work as the EyeToy for PS3, it will work wirelessly.
I think there actually won't be a separate EyeToy for PS3, but the PSP will be it, and after the price comes closer to $150 it will make more sense too.
 
DemoCoder said:
Compression isn't the issue. Low-power mpeg compression? It's a done deal. It's all over usb cams and mobile phones. The OEM chips are mature and out there.
I don't know much about that tech, but bearing in mind Sony are presumably going to want to keep cost down, is there an effective system for compressing 30 fps 720p in realtime, with negligable lag as the interaction is time critical, unlike a webcam? A delay of a couple of frames is going to severely hamper that games. EyeToy suffers from this a bit, but that's likely the processing side on PS2 I imagine. Compressing the image at the camera, transmitting, decompressing and processing, is adding quite a chain of activites all adding delay. I guess there could be some workaround, like sending the image in small tiles that can be processed in a chain, rather than waiting for the whole picture to arrive before decompression and processing can start.
I don't think that's the issue. The issue would be the effect compression has on being able to run the eyetoy algorithms.
Yes, that's something I think they'd want to avoid. If the compression were moderate it shouldn't interfere too much. If it's high level compression, well, that begs the question why waste your time going HD!

rabidrabbit said:
Well, if the PSP actually can work as the EyeToy for PS3, it will work wirelessly.
I think there actually won't be a separate EyeToy for PS3, but the PSP will be it, and after the price comes closer to $150 it will make more sense too.
That's a crazily expensive EyeToy! Also how would the PSP connect to the Gigabit connection? Or in other words, why does everyone ignore the point by Harrison that one of the Gigabits is for the HD IP camera? ;)
 
Shifty Geezer said:
That's a crazily expensive EyeToy! Also how would the PSP connect to the Gigabit connection? Or in other words, why does everyone ignore the point by Harrison that one of the Gigabits is for the HD IP camera? ;)

What if the PS3 controller had gyros in it? How would that change things with the HD IP camera in mind?
 
It'd just give some more input methods, but wouldn't solve the issues of lag on the camera for things the camera would do. eg. If you have a virtual sword updated by the controller, overlaid onto an image of yourself on the TV through EyeToy, the sword would move accurately while yourself would lag behind a frame or two, or three (PS2 EyeToy has quite a prnounced lag) and it'd just look wrong. If you don't combine the EyeToy images, you could do something like use the controller from controlling the game while using facial recognition to read your mood and adapt accordingly, or other non-time-critical inputs.
 
DemoCoder said:
I'm glad Sony had the good sense to make the PS3 HDIP camera wireless.

If the sensors are wireless it will be because of practicality rather then sense. We're talking about two very small devices that probably need a good amount of power. If you put a small battery in each then that would mean removing them from your wall/TV every session.. In fact the more I think about it the more I'm sure they'll have to be wired.
 
DemoCoder said:
Huh? Does the PSP have an HD camera in it?
It's supposed to have a camera addon around the time of PS3 launch. Don't know if it'll be HD or not.
PSP has WiFi inbuilt, it wouldn't need to connect to the Gigabit Ethernet on the PS3 back.

Yeah, maybe it'll be a bit too expensive, but if you already have a PSP or are planning to buy one it won't matter, and the PSP will still work forgames, music, internet, videos... so it isn't just a camera you pay for. Besides, it won't be the primary means of control anyway.
OK, there likely will be a cheaper dedicated HD IP cam for the PS3, but instead of that, maybe you could use your PSP with HD cam addon.

Edit: Ok, enough. This is supposed to be about the Wii!!!!
 
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