One-and-Only PS3 as Blu-Ray Player Thread - Page 10

Tell me about it, a CC employee directed me to this video on google and said it would blow my mind about the war!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...17066028236099

WTF is that crap!

My Circuit City in NE Wisconsin has never carried HD-DVD at all and they claim they don't know if they ever will. They have a huge Blu-Ray display though.

Threads merged!

http://www.gamesradar.com/gb/ps3/gam...sectionId=1006

Dev Kits, aka, not real Ps3s.

Jeez, that's old news which they've denied this lots of times, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the thread topic.

Why do you even post to this thread if you're going to post misinformation?

I dont understand what your trying to do here, either your just trying to make a fuss, generate ******** and cause trouble. Or your really just not reading what i post?


This is from the link i posted, do you think that they somehow really "cheated" on that?

The guy from PSI NEXT, even posted a video where he followed each and every cord from the PS3 to the controller, and Screen. And just fyi, a dev kit with the same cpu and gpu is essentially the same machine as the PS3 you see in the pictures. This story got started by the inquirer that posted a random picture from a Dev kit at E3 and claimed "that will never fit in a PS3 casing". I guess to many people are just believing every lie there is as long as it fits with their opinion.

If I can nudge the thread a bit back OT, I'm curious if any solid specs or insights into the blu-ray drive that will be used in the PS3 have emerged, and how the particular components differ from the set-top player Sony will release soon? No doubt the $1K standalone player will be superior in build quality and have some nice signal processing circuitry and such, but how different will the drive itself be, and how significantly different in PQ will the video output be...?

As for all the moaning about the PS3s price--I think it comes from folks who are insistent on looking at it as simply a game machine. And those who think $1K is just OUTRAGEOUS for a first-gen Blu-Ray player must be 15 years old or at the least were incognizant/out-of-the-loop when DVD launched in '97...that's what the first-gen DVD players cost, in '97 dollars (that'd be what in today's dollars, I wonder--$1300+?). It was several months later when Sony's $500 standalone player made its way to market (an S300, which I myself bought in the Fall of '08 and used until last Summer)--so, about an 8-mo delay before a solid and less expensive alternative was available. Some positing that a $300 Blu-Ray player will emerge on the heels of the PS3 are way off the mark. The Blu-Ray/HD-DVD ramp up will take a year at least to drop production costs enough to usher in a truly cheaper next gen series of product--THEY'RE ALL LOSING MONEY ON THE HARDWARE PRICED AS THEY ARE, FOLKS! I mean, are you familiar with Plasma HD sets and HDMI-equipped A/V receivers? These are still expensive and they're using technology years old...

The XBox 360 was built around existing, cheaper technology. Very solid, but essentially the HD-DVD add-on is just that, a window-dressing for an old-gen rather than truly next-gen box (the PowerPC main procs custom support sets notwithstanding). It does nothing a good Windows laptop can't do w/ Media Center 2005, as far as I can tell...they just bundle it at a loss because the vid game business model is to make the bank on the software and licensing.

Sony's gambit is to lauch the Blu-Ray format as the substrate/platform for a whole range of home entertainment products--initially at a rather large loss on the hardware (as is typical in the biz, see above). The PS3 is their trojan horse, a computer/player labelled a 'game machine' that has WiFi and broadband capabilities for content deliverables in HD to complement/augment the Blu-Ray format as the hub for HD entertainment of many types. So, if you think of the PS3 as a HTPC w/ extreme interactive features rather than a super-GameBoy then the price-point is obviously low-balling, not doomingly sky high as the clueless like to portend. This isn't PR spin--its a read on the features and intentions of the device. You want a game machine only--buy a Wii (I might, that controller looks fantastic). You want a bevy of HD entertainment...save up and get a PS3.

Anyways, back to my question--what do we know about the PS3s Blu-Ray drive and how it compares to the standalone?

"The PS3 is their trojan horse, a computer/player labelled a 'game machine' "

if you've been following what the Sony exec's have been saying.. "game machine" isn't what they've been using to describe the PS3. Hasn't been that way for quite some time if ever in terms of the PS3. Though for the average consumer I still think it will be seen as a game machine and I'm sure they know that.

"Kutaragi pointedly commented of the next-gen console, which is due to launch this November at dual price points of $499 and $599 in North America: "We don't say it's a game console (*laugh*) - PlayStation 3 is clearly a computer, unlike the PlayStations [released] so far."

He went on to outline a scenario where many parts of the PS3 were upgradable, much more like a PC, noting: "Since PS3 is a computer, there are no "models" but "configurations"", and continuing (though talking in the theoretical): "I think it's okay to release a [extended PS3] configuration every year". It's clear from the comments that Sony is indicating that it will be possible to upgrade hard drives and perhaps even other components easily.
"
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...php?story=9642

""SCE president says his company is aiming for iPod-like iconic status for its next-gen console and will focus on hardware and PC-like functionality."

"He also expressed Sony's wish to make "PlayStation" a byword for "entertainment computer."
"

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6152519.html

I have mix feelings about that PS3 Blu Ray. Someone made a comment that I agree with. They said that the PS3 has the cell processor inside that development spent years on just for that reason. The current HD-DVD/Blu Ray players don't have the processor inside so we believe that the PQ would be much better. Especially when Blu Ray is on dual layered discs (Probably in Nov.). HD-DVD is already using dual-layer. But some will say that why would Sony do that to the same people that are supporting their Blu-Ray format my introducing a player that uncuts the price and is much better interms of PQ. It confuses me. I'm gonna buy it one way or another.

Depends on how good the PS3 software video decoder is. Since it won't have a hardware chip to do VC1 or MPEG4/AVC, it will have to do it in software, and depending on how much work went into the decoder, it could be really good, or spectacularly awful. The drive itself is essentially irrelevant, as long as it's at least 2x, which it will be.


Well, i'd be careful about saying things about "existing" technology. When you get right down to it, the 360 GPU is _still_ ahead of what ATI has released to date. The CPU is a lot more powerful than a mobile processor. The laptops released to date that play HDDVD's do an awful job, dropping frames and slow performance. It has also not been proved that the PS3 will have any better real world performance. All the games we've seen so far have looked pretty much on a par.

It's amazing the lengths a company will go to to get it's games machine classified as a computer even though it appears it no longer needs to.

yup, they tried for quite a long time with the PS2. The PS3 is a whole new ballgame and will be able to quite a bit more tasks than the PS2 from what Sony has said. Of course like I said I still think the general public will view it strictly as a gaming machine.

I'm with you, but I guess I was asking whether we knew what sorts of auxilary processing was built into the PS3. I'd be surprised if it didn't have any decoding chipsets (at least, for MPEG4), actually. If it is all software, its a big hmmm roll of the dice as you say... Why do you state flatly there will be no hardware based decoding in the PS3? I mean, they have inexpensive custom chipsets in iPods for music decoding/playback, right--I assumed the Cell processors would handle CGI/3D graphics, not video playback, and it would be off-loaded to some auxilary chips...am I crazy?

To cut costs they might cut more than you would think. It might have some creative classifications, but first and foremost it is a gaming rig and has to prduce it's best results filling that roll. Everything else is secondary, including BD playback.

I look at the PS3 as a way to jam BD down our throats, even if we really don't want it. For two generations the name Play Station was synonomous with "affordable gaming." This time around the average household will not be able to afford it for quite some time. I'm not talking about most of us at this forum that can afford it. I know some people who waited a couple years to buy a PS2 because they thought it was too expensive at first.

Price is always relative. If you really love gaming and Sony, $600+ isn't that hard to swallow. It's easy to justify something if you really want it. But if you are a casual gamer and a casual movie watcher, then that price tag looks a lot bigger. The same goes for the current BD player(s). $1000 is difficult for me to swallow for very limited and from what I have seen, sub-par performance.

I took a step back last year and took a look at how I might like to spend my hard earned cash as we were looking forward to some great products coming out this year. I drew a line in the sand and asked myself, "what am I looking to get out all this?" I realized that the 360 had accomplished exactly what I was looking for and at a price I (and my wife...don't forget that) could live with.

As for a new HD optical format, I am waiting. I am not yet compelled by either camp. So far BD is lacking in software quality and size and the Toshiba seems a bit too "prototype" for me. I do hand it to Toshiba for perfomance, but again, I can wait.

I will not, however, allow Sony to muscle it's way into my home theater by making me pay a premium price for BD player in a console that would be half the price without it. That should be my choice and I choose to not buy a PS for the first time since 1995. It is a console...leave the home theater to quality, dedicated components...not a jack of all trades.

I hear your arguments, but the days of one box doing one thing (however well) are almost gone. From cell phones w/ PDA/camera/MP3 features to combo cable/sat-dvr receivers to the aforementioned "game systems", folks are expecting more functionality out of each hardware investment they make. Hell, even in the bastions of pure home theater, devices like DVDO's VP30 are enticing because they are not just scalers, not just deinterlacers, but HDMI/etc switchers as well. I think folks looking at the PS3 simply as a $600 'game system' miss it's true nature/point entirely...thus my post above. It's actually an attempt at several devices merged into one for multi-function in your home entertainment setup...and the 'bang for the buck' of that $600 versus paying for each component seperately is where a real assessment of the PS3s "value" need take place.

I understand your concerns and opinions, however (I'm truly not acting as an apologist for Sony, I just feel the pundits/public may be misunderstanding their product positioning)--in short, just wanted to clarify where I'm coming from here.

Combining functionality is nothing new - industrial design is litterred with such examples - just see all the functionality that clocks had along with showing time.

While I like my cell phone to have a camera, I won't be using it as my primary camera on a vacation.

So, the question is what kind of functionalities go well as a group. Sat / cable receiver with DVR is an obvious good combination.

It doesn't need it. If its doing video decoding its not doing games, so it can use the CELL to do that. And its plenty powerful enough - they were demoing it a year or so back doing software decoding of MPEG2 HD streams, and I think it was doing 12 streams simultaneously.

Its possible some of the decoding may be handed off to the GPU as well - dont' forget it has an Nvidia chip in, so possibly they are working with them on that.

But power isn't the issue - its how good the software is. And both MS and Sony's track record of software DVD players are very poor.

Points well taken--I've suffered through software players on the PS2 and on both Mac and PC platforms. Beyond the player itself, would there be need of chipsets for adaptive deinterlacing and other video processing, I wonder, or is this less pertinent w/ the source material on a blu-ray disc? I mean, the video on a DVD is progressive, but the 3:2 of film-based material and need for interlace conversion demanded good image processing algorithms that seem to call for hardware-based solutions...or REALLY fast procs w/ software based ones (for example: Algolith has a software solution that is the same as their Dragonfly component/processor, but it involves long renders as an After Effects plug-in, even on the latest computer hardware).

Perhaps the Cell/nVidia combo can handle the processing speeds needed--I'm wondering about how well the video gets treated overall, and how differently between the dedicated set-top and the PS3. You might be able to make arguments that the custom hardware as in the PS3 might be more advanced than that which is in these first-gen set-top players, and the fact that these set-top players have been reviewed as more mini-computers (linux or windows-based) than traditional A/V components anyways, might bode well for the PS3's Blu-Ray performance. I'd love to see the specs on both, though...

IMO, the potential of the PS3 hardware is such that it should be able to produce as good results as the best standalone player.

But I doubt it'll reach that potential because of software limitations. It all depends how good the engineers are, and how high up the priority list Sony have the player quality. i.e. will 'good enough' be enough for them?


One limiting factor may be that the PS3 might not have analogue audio out, so you may need to invest in a HDMI receiver to get the full benefit of the sound.

It'll have toslink, though, so you're good for what most folks will be using...you'd need to have a spanking new receiver for the new Dolby/DTS 7+ channel surrounds that are part of the HD/Blu-Ray specs anyways, right? HDMI 1.3, notwithstanding.

PS3 will have HDMI 1.3. What exactly can HDMI 1.3 pass? I know deeper coloer, 1080p etc.. but what on the audio side, anything else important?

HDMI 1.3 allows the raw audio bitstreams of ALL new audio formats to travel to an outboard surround decoder with DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, and Dolby Digital Plus built in.

Most players do not have all of these formats onboard to output them as PCM. You'll need a new receiver or pre-amp and HDMI 1.3 to do the trick.

Dan

cool, thanks for the info I really wasn't sure if analog was needed or not.. Good to hear it isn't. I sold my Yamaha 6.1 component HD passing receiver and I'm hold for now for a new one so I'll keep an eye out for HDMI 1.3 compatibility. I've still got a decent Denon to use in the mean time so I'm in no rush.

I really want to have it confirmed that the PS3 will actually pass ALL the new formats through the HDMI 1.3 port... Is it just a question of lifting it off the disc and passing it on, no matter what format, or do you need some sort of processing?

I thought on Blu Ray players the were supposed to process the signal and pass it so that it would be backwards compatible with other versions of HDMI? Its getting crazy the knowledge you need to know to get a TV, PS3 and a receiver all doing what they are advertised to do.

Its like we have this great new audio format but nobody can actually use it nor are we telling people what you need to play it at its full potential.

That is why all this may fail, forget the cost, its just too complicated for most.

sure, but then I won't get dolby trueHD decoding. I thought the player decodes, and then outputs the analog sound over 5.1/6.1 phonos? If PS3 doesn't have that, then we're left with it recoding that into DTS/DD5.1 which won't sound as good.

I'm sure it'll be fine for my average speakers, but its still something to keep an eye on.

If Microsoft hadn´t been so desperate in getting the 360 to market before the PS3 they would have included a HD-DVD drive. With a DVD they are actually putting a limit on the developers. What right now seems like a major hurdle for the PS3 with it´s Blu-Ray drive cost will most likely be one of it´s biggest advantages in 3 years when games need every last bit of storage.

On the 360 side, they have painted themselves into a corner by not having a HD and providing limited disc space. We wont see the results of this just now, but multiformat games will look better on the PS3 thanks to more space for textures.

IMO and Probably Microsoft's too they probably would redo the same strategy (launching earlier without an HDDVD) to get an headsttart on the PS3.

Do you believe they would have sold the same number of units had they launched with an HDDVD and on the same date as the PS3?

I personally don't but I still would have preferred waiting for my 360 if it meant HD-DVD inclusion at $100 more. Obviously they thought they needed to get a jump on Sony, which is why they did what they did.