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[MrparisSM]

If you've been paying attention to the whole Blu-ray Vs. HD-DVD event, you'll notice that Microsoft hasn't made any commitments yet if they are going to choose either one or not. Even the unofficial specs site a regular DVD drive. I would have thought a HD-DVD drive would have been a natural choice until I stumbled upon this. I think I may have discovered Microsoft's plans on HD content with the Xbox Next!

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/AboutHDVideo.aspx

Windows Media Audio and Video 9 Series is a breakthrough set of codecs that enables multichannel audio and high definition (HD) video at resolutions up to 1080p on current DVD-9 DVDs.

Terminator 2:Judgement Day(Extreme Edition) is the first commercially released film to release with this new Technology. A full 1080p movie that fit on current DVD technology.

You can also download clips that are using the new codec and try them on your PC. I've got my PC hooked to my HDTV and these look amazing.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

Also Divx, not to be left out, has gotten in on the act.

http://www.divxnetworks.com/solutions/hd/index.php

DivX® technology lets you create and watch movies in stunning high definition (HD) video. High definition video uses more visible lines of detail to create a far more true-to-life picture that looks sharper and clearer. It also typically includes higher quality sound. By creating high definition video that works with current generation hardware, DivX video technology is enabling movie lovers everywhere to enjoy HD content today.

DivX® HD: One Fifth the Size of Broadcast HD

Commercial high definition (HD) DVDs won’t be available for some time, yet DivX HD technology is enabling filmmakers everywhere to create stunning, full quality HD video content right now. With the free DivX codec, which includes the DivX® Certified HD Profile, anyone can produce HD movies for convenient playback on an HDTV with any one of the growing line of DivX Certified HD DVD players. Additionally, the remarkably efficient compression of DivX HD makes DivX HD files approximately one fifth the size of broadcast HD, enabling easy and fast Internet distribution of DivX HD videos.

Low Cost DivX® HD Consumer Electronics Solutions

DivX provides low cost high definition (HD) solutions for the consumer electronics (CE) industry, enabling manufacturers to create HD capable devices with significantly lower overhead. The explosive growth of HDTVs is creating a vast market for devices that support playback of on-demand HD content. Yet current generation DVDs lack the storage space to fit HD movie titles and next generation fixed media technology won’t be available for years.

Give Consumers a True HD Experience Today


The DivX HD solution:


Fits feature-length HD movies, a standard definition encode, multiple audio tracks and bonus features on one red laser DVD
Leverages DivX video’s deep market penetration and existing install base
Uses cheap, currently available hardware components
Supports the home theater standard, six channel, 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound

They have samples of their codec here, with current movie trailers and everything. Like Microsoft's, they all look amazing on my TV.

http://www.divxnetworks.com/solutions/hd/content.php

Now my question is, what do you think about this new technology? With movie trailers and everything already using them. And Terminator 2:Judgement Day already having seen a commercial release as the first "HD-DVD", do you think it could catch on to the other major Movie studios? Could this be an alternative for the Xbox Next without having to resort to costly HD-DVD or Blu-Ray drives?? Pretty interesting possibilities here. And it seems a lot more inexpensive and practicle for the consumer.

 

[Jonnyram]

Not using HD-DVD, or some other new format with high capacity, would be a bad move IMO. Some devs are already pushed for space on DVD format, and people like Tetsuya Nomura are dying for something bigger. If MS don't use something better than DVD, Sony may well have an instant pool of support by default.

 

[MrparisSM]

Not using HD-DVD, or some other new format with high capacity, would be a bad move IMO. Some devs are already pushed for space on DVD format, and people like Tetsuya Nomura are dying for something bigger. If MS don't use something better than DVD, Sony may well have an instant pool of support by default.

The only thing that fills up DVD gaming currently is FMV and music. If they are allowed the use the new codecs for their FMV it shoule be plenty of space left for the game wouldn't you think? Just pointing out that this could be a low-cost way for Microsoft to get HD content on the Xbox Next. And also make a TON of royalties if this catches on and Movie studio's start using it...

 

[luxsol]

Wouldn't supporting HD-DVD be more expensive to use in the console? Plus, from what i hear it's more likely that Sony's (and the rest of companies) Blu-ray will be the new standard. Why use HD-DVD if few movies support it? Anyone remember Nuon and Divx?

Oh, and I'm not saying the Xenon will go the way of the Nuon... just talking about using an obsolete format in a console.

 

[Rhindle]

There really wouldn't be much point in doing that. None of the studios seem terribly interested in supporting an enhanced compression standard for DVDs, so it wouldn't do much good as an enhanced video player. Compression really doesn't work for game data, so it would not increase disk capacity for games.

 

[duderon]

The only thing that fills up DVD gaming currently is FMV and music. If they are allowed the use the new codecs for their FMV it shoule be plenty of space left for the game wouldn't you think? Just pointing out that this could be a low-cost way for Microsoft to get HD content on the Xbox Next. And also make a TON of royalties if this catches on and Movie studio's start using it...

Never underestimate the size of games going from generation to generation. I thought that was GAF 101?

 

[DopeyFish]

Wouldn't supporting HD-DVD be more expensive to use in the console? Plus, from what i hear it's more likely that Sony's (and the rest of companies) Blu-ray will be the new standard. Why use HD-DVD if few movies support it? Anyone remember Nuon and Divx?

Oh, and I'm not saying the Xenon will go the way of the Nuon... just talking about using an obsolete format in a console.

HD-DVD currently has more support than blu-ray

 

[MrparisSM]

There really wouldn't be much point in doing that. None of the studios seem terribly interested in supporting an enhanced compression standard for DVDs, so it wouldn't do much good as an enhanced video player. Compression really doesn't work for game data, so it would not increase disk capacity for games.

DVD-9's shoudl be plenty for game data. FMV's take up the most space on DVD's currently, and what I was trying to say is that developers could even use this codec to reduce the space of their FMVs, thus creating even more space for the game data...

 

[luxsol]

HD-DVD currently has more support than blu-ray

That's only because HD-DVDs actually has a way to be played right now. Are there even any blu-ray players out?

 

[Jonnyram]

I think a lot of storage is used for sound, in particular voice acting. I don't know how far compression can really go with audio, but I imagine more and more games will feature surround sound instead of regular stereo, which means more data. Do Microsoft's codecs address audio or are they all video-oriented?

 

[Rhindle]

DVD-9's shoudl be plenty for game data. FMV's take up the most space on DVD's currently, and what I was trying to say is that developers could even use this codec to reduce the space of their FMVs, thus creating even more space for the game data...

I understand what you are saying, but your assumption that you can get a lot of space saving by compressing FMVs isn't really valid. Most games these days generate FMVs in-game, and game code isn't really compressible. You could turn the FMVs into pre-rendered video and then compress them down (that's essentially what stuff like Bink does now), but it degrades picture quality and increases load times.

 

[MrparisSM]

I think a lot of storage is used for sound, in particular voice acting. I don't know how far compression can really go with audio, but I imagine more and more games will feature surround sound instead of regular stereo, which means more data. Do Microsoft's codecs address audio or are they all video-oriented?

Windows Media Audio and Video 9 Series is a breakthrough set of codecs that enables multichannel audio and high definition (HD) video at resolutions up to 1080p on current DVD-9 DVDs.

Yep. Both the WMV codecs and the DivX codecs address 5.1 surround sound.

 

[DopeyFish]

That's only because HD-DVDs actually has a way to be played right now. Are there even any blu-ray players out?

AFAIK there is only Blu-ray out there (is it recorders only? not sure)

I'm talking about movie studio support

 

[MrparisSM]

That's only because HD-DVDs actually has a way to be played right now. Are there even any blu-ray players out?

I'm not talking about an actual HD-DVD disc, I'm really refering to the enhanced codecs that Microsoft and DivX have developed that allow for REGULAR DVD's to hold a full films worth of HD content with no need to upgrade to a HD-DVD drive or Blu-Ray Drive.

 

[Fafalada]

Now my question is, what do you think about this new technology? With movie trailers and everything already using them. And Terminator 2:Judgement Day already having seen a commercial release as the first "HD-DVD", do you think it could catch on to the other major Movie studios?

The technology is pretty much equivalent to the codecs used by HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, so it's not like this is some kind of great equalizer or anything. Sticking with DVD9 will just mean you'll get crappier quality(lower bitrate) HD content as well as degraded audio quality.

On the subject of game media though - there are definately a number of Pro-DVD arguments, such as costs, likely faster data transfers, etc.

I think a lot of storage is used for sound, in particular voice acting. I don't know how far compression can really go with audio, but I imagine more and more games will feature surround sound instead of regular stereo, which means more data. Do Microsoft's codecs address audio or are they all video-oriented?

They have sound compression too (the codecs will be in Xenon hw also) but then again HD media can allow for actual lossless codecs to be used for audio (the movies on HD Media will use them at any rate).

 

[luxsol]

oops

 

[FightyF]

A lot of games need to stream audio (uncompressed). This of course takes a lot of space.

If you compress it, then the game needs to decompress it, which takes away valuable CPU clock cycles.

Now, we know that Xenon will not have dedicated sound hardware...so I can see this as a possibility.

But it does hurt some games that require it, such as sports games that feature commentary.

 

[Jonnyram]

Well I expected that they would have audio compression - what I meant to say is do they have something which is vastly superior to MPEG 3 in terms of quality:size ratio?

 

[kaching]

I'm not talking about an actual HD-DVD disc, I'm really refering to the enhanced codecs that Microsoft and DivX have developed that allow for REGULAR DVD's to hold a full films worth of HD content with no need to upgrade to a HD-DVD drive or Blu-Ray Drive.

You still need to buy new hardware that can at least decode one of these codecs for prerecorded content. And that prerecorded content wouldn't exactly be a regular DVD since it won't play in your regular DVD player. So the consumer still needs to buy new hardware and still needs to re-buy his/her DVD collection if they want to upgrade their library to HD. The hardware may cost less than a true HD-DVD/BRD box but I doubt the movies would and since no one's advocating a standard right now it'd be a crapshoot how compatible HD movies on this alternate path would be. Did you mistakenly buy a Divx HD movie for your Xbox2 that only supports VC-1? Ooops...

 

[MrparisSM]

You still need to buy new hardware that can at least decode one of these codecs for prerecorded content. And that prerecorded content wouldn't exactly be a regular DVD since it won't play in your regular DVD player. So the consumer still needs to buy new hardware and still needs to re-buy his/her DVD collection if they want to upgrade their library to HD. The hardware may cost less than a true HD-DVD/BRD box but I doubt the movies would and since no one's advocating a standard right now it'd be a crapshoot how compatible HD movies on this alternate path would be. Did you mistakenly buy a Divx HD movie for your Xbox2 that only supports VC-1? Ooops...

Very true. If they did go this route, the codec used would have to be the standard and there be no variations/versions of it to confuse the market. Secondly I was bringing this up mainly as a cheap way for Xbox Next to have HD-content. But you are right anybody with a current DVD player would have to upgrade. But if this caught on, they could incorporate the feature in all future DVD players sort of like how they adopted "Progressive scan"... people that want it would opt for the DVD player with that particular feature until it became standard in all DVD players(which probably wouldn't take long.)

 

[neptunes]

Let's go back to laser discs!!!

 

[aaaaa0]

Last I heard, the HD DVD proposed standard includes both a blue and red laser option. Red HD DVD would use blue HD DVD's logical format, authoring environment, and codecs, just with less capacity and lower bitrate.

Advantage being uber-cheap implementation and manufacturing.

Disadvantage being lower quality than a true blue laser solution.

Frankly I see a pretty decent market for dual issue DVD + red HD DVD packages.

Stick in the first disk, get the regular version.

Stick in the second disk in a regular DVD player and get the extras. Put the second disk in a red HD DVD compatible player or PC, and get a HiDef version of the movie.

Something like this would sell for $5-10 over the regular DVD version of a movie, and be marketed as the high-end collector's version.

This kind of thing has already been done with the Terminator 2 Extreme Edition disc (just for PCs), and it seems like a good idea to me.

 

[kaching]

One way or another, I'm sure Xbox will support HD content...for games. No doubt it will support VC-1 for video and WMA for audio. Beyond that, attempting to establish a THIRD prerecorded HD video format in direct contest with the two that are already vying intensely for industry favor, while also attempting to grow the Xbox marketshare next gen seems a bit more than they'd want to bite off. Besides, if MS is to be believed, their interest in the prerecorded HD formats ended when both BRD and HD DVD agreed to include VC-1 as part of the spec.

So, if anything, I'd expect MS to adopt one of those two in a rumored 2nd or 3rd tier Xenon console.

 

[tetsuoxb]

If you think DVD-9 is enough for game data for next gen, you are quite simply crazy.

Im not sure how much made it to air but gamer.tv's interviews during TGS asked each developer (Inaba, Itagaki, Nagoshi) whether they could fill a blu-ray disc since the Blu-Ray PS3 announcemtn was only days before. They all answered Yes, without question. Most common cited reasons were HD FMV, Super high res textures, much larger model data sizes. They all also made light of the fact everyone thought DVD was overkill during the previous generational transistion and now we have games on DVD-9.

 

[Jr.]

So who is gonna be first in line to B!tch about the price of the machine if they do use one of these blue laser drives? It is totaly insane IMHO that anyone would need MORE space than a current DVD! If they can compress a movie down enough to fit it on the current media at 1080p, and Gamecube games can hold nearly as much content on a disc almost an 1/8th in size as current DVD's, then HD/Blue Ray should not be needed!

 

[Fafalada]

So who is gonna be first in line to B!tch about the price of the machine if they do use one of these blue laser drives? It is totaly insane IMHO that anyone would need MORE space than a current DVD!

Larger media makes things easier for developers. It's interesting that a lot of people that often bring up ease of development aren't supportive of larger media at all.

Anyway - personally, I think machine costs are something that the companies will have to worry about, and it really won't affect the consumers. There are practical issues that could affect ME, such as drive speed, and that part does concern me as we're yet to see feasibility of faster blue laser devices.
On the other hand, I also find DVD9 restrictive as well, so I would still prefer larger media if speeds are reasonably close.

 

[Fantasmo]

Not for nothin but most games are not even coming close to using the second layer on a DVD9.

A quick check on suprnova yields that most games hit around 2-3 gigs.

We've already got audio codecs that can put DD5.1 quality audio into really small files. Pre-recorded 5.1 audio is fairly tiny and mixing to 5.1 in realtime is done on-chip (nVidia's MCP-T chip handles this for XBox I believe). If next-gen can hit Unreal 3 Engine level at 1080p then we've just about nullified any reason to upgrade the drive. Anyone who has seen Unreal Engine 3 in motion can attest that FMV has become close to unnecessary at this point. Hell, REmake didn't use much FMV and that game is still one of the prettiest this gen. And as the MS WMV9 codecs prove, codecs increase in quality as time passes due to increased CPU/GPU ability meaning that a higher compression can be achieved with minimal impact.

Current gen PC games are somewhat indicative of next-gen storage requirements. We're already using extremely high-res texture maps on our PC games and most of the rest of the graphical glory is handled by the CPU and GPU -- and most of these games still come out on CD. HL2 and UT2004 both come on 6 discs and if you use a high capacity CD (700MB x 6 = 4200MB), you're still at less than a single layer's DVD worth of data.

However, I'll be the first to admit that'll restrict developers in a GC sense where "above and beyond" content just won't fit. Still, for absolutely huge games, 2 discs ain't a bad idea to shave $100 off the price of a console.

I think they'll all use HD or Blue-Ray though, except Nintendo, who might defect to 8-track or something.

 

[COCKLES]

I expect Nintendo to launch HD-C.

Hi-Def Cartridges for Revolution. :lol

 

[Fafalada]

Current gen PC games are somewhat indicative of next-gen storage requirements.

Not really - they are still designed for a market where majority of drives is CD, and outside few exceptions, the content is scaled accordingly to take as little space as possible.

Anyway, exactly as it has been done with some early PS2 games sticking to CD - the games that don't need BRD can keep using DVD. It didn't take long until pretty much every new release was moved to DVD though - and you can expect the same to happen with HD media.

 

[Fantasmo]

Current gen PC games are somewhat indicative of next-gen storage requirements.

Not really - they are still designed for a market where majority of drives is CD, and outside few exceptions, the content is scaled accordingly to take as little space as possible.

Yes, really. Example? Unreal Engine 2 has a max texture size of 2048x2048 and guess what? So does Unreal Engine 3. Check out the Unreal Engine site if you want verification.

UT2004 was designed to be the pinnacle of Unreal Engine 2. If you've ever seen the textures at the highest setting, they are something to behold. The only reason that game doesn't look exponentially better is because it's not doing normal maps or any major pixel shading and other next-gen techniques. Also, note the "somewhat" there. Storage requirements will undoubtedly go up and not down, but at next-gen's processing level, it's hardly necessary to upgrade the drive yet. Although, it probably will.

You're not even taking into account that most televisions don't even HAVE 1080p.

 

[Culex]

1080p is pretty much out of my league. I only have 1080i for my highest resolution on my HDTV.

I can't even think of any TV's that support 1080p below 4,000 dollars.

 

[maskrider]

Well I expected that they would have audio compression - what I meant to say is do they have something which is vastly superior to MPEG 3 in terms of quality:size ratio?

Do you mean MP3 (which is MPEG-1 audio Layer-3) ?

WMA is better then MP3 at similar bit-rates. MP3 Pro is another issue.

 

[Fafalada]

Yes, really. Example? Unreal Engine 2 has a max texture size of 2048x2048

Heh, it'd be really lovely if measuring size of content was as simple as that.

Anyway, the scale of data for something based off U3 tech is on a different level from current UT game. Not to mention UT games are fairly lightweight in terms of content to begin with. Scale up to really large games and things build up quickly.

As for HDTV - general conzenzus at the moment is that future consoles will target 720P as default.

 

[Agent X]

Wouldn't supporting HD-DVD be more expensive to use in the console? Plus, from what i hear it's more likely that Sony's (and the rest of companies) Blu-ray will be the new standard. Why use HD-DVD if few movies support it? Anyone remember Nuon and Divx?

Sure, I remember NUON. I have one in my living room right now.

NUON-enhanced DVD players were standard DVD players, and they played DVD Video discs in the same way that any other DVD player would play them. The only difference was that the chipset had a few extra tricks in it, that you could do to the video stream, such as zooming in, or showing several "thumbnails" of a sequence of frames on the screen simultaneously in order to compare the frames.

There were also NUON-enhanced DVD movies, of which exactly four were released: Bedazzled, Dr. Dolittle 2, Planet of the Apes, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. Click here for more information. These are standard DVD Video discs with extra content that can only be played on a NUON-enhanced DVD player. A standard DVD player can still play the standard content--it just can't access the extra NUON features. This is no different than having DVD-ROM content on a movie disc, that can only be utilized on a personal computer.

There were also NUON video games, which can only be played on a NUON-enhanced DVD player, in the same way that PlayStation 2 video games can only be played on a PlayStation 2, and X-Box video games can only be played on an X-Box.

The folks behind NUON didn't have any problem adhering to the standards that the DVD industry already laid out. Their problems were related to:

1. Paucity of compelling NUON-exclusive content (for those of you in Rio Linda, that means there wasn't a whole lot of it out there).
2. NUON technology was released too late (just a few months before PS2 appeared in the US).
3. Most NUON games weren't noticeably better than PS1/N64 quality.
4. NUON content in movie discs wasn't terribly compelling. While they were nice extras, they were hardly worth getting a whole new DVD player over. The idea was that they would save space on the disc by utilizing different parts of the video stream to make montages and comparisons, rather than authoring and encoding a whole new segment of video. (See this Bedazzled review for a description.) It was a misguided effort, since studios would be better off authoring new video segments that all DVD players (rather than just the small fraction that were NUON-enhanced) could utilize, and discs were cheap enough that they could include a second disc if space was running low.
5. Marketing was rather lousy, to say the least.
6. Most of the exciting hardware/software products were delayed repeatedly, and often became cancelled altogether. In many cases, these were vaporware that never got anywhere in development or ever had a realistic chance of making it to market.
7. Quality control in the few months before VM Labs' bankruptcy went spiralling down the toilet. Some notorious examples included miscalibrated Logitech joypads which couldn't do the full analog range, fatal crash bugs in the game Iron Soldier 3, and NUON content on Planet of the Apes was (ironically) unplayable in the majority of NUON-enabled DVD players. This (and #6 above) led to a large number of the few loyal NUON owners quickly losing faith and satisfaction.

It's too bad they never got these issues ironed out before the company tanked, but thankfully the machines are still pretty dandy DVD players.

 

[Phoenix]

HD-DVD currently has more support than blu-ray

From whom? When I visit the HD-DVD site I see considerably more hardware partners for Bluray than I do HD-DVD.

 

[DopeyFish]

From whom? When I visit the HD-DVD site I see considerably more hardware partners for Bluray than I do HD-DVD.

http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=25367

Blu-ray really only has Sony, Columbia/TriStar and MGM. (all of them sony)

20th Century Fox has said that it's still not sure what format it's going to use, they are just on the blu-ray board for the sake of.

 

[teh_pwn]

"The only thing that fills up DVD gaming currently is FMV and music. If they are allowed the use the new codecs for their FMV it shoule be plenty of space left for the game wouldn't you think?"

Next generation consoles will support 720p resolution, meaning that prerendered video will need three times the space. Texture sizes will be increased, polygon models increased at least ten fold. With games already filling up Dual Layer DVDs this gen, there damn well better be more space for the next consoles.