Industry Insiders Master Q&A thread III: ONLY Questions to Insiders - Page 2  

Amirm.........Since it now appears Sony is really focusing on AV more with there latest Firmware that by accounts provides SD DVD upconversion on par with the best players out there, When can we expect the 360 guys to address SD DVD playback and upconversion through the 360? Will there be a response? I've often wondered why the 360 team hasn't tried to address this in the past, as the PS3 passes all benchmark tests now while the 360 still suffers in this area? Thanks for your time.

Adding to this:

Amir,

Extreme Tech http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2088533,00.asp ran a test on the DVD upscaling of the 360 using the HQV tests and the 360 did not perform well. However, they stated that the issues could be addressed by software. Are there any plans on such an update? and I'm really not looking for a "we always aim to improve our products" answer

1) The HD DVD group states there should be (conservatively) 600 titles for 2007. Is that cumulative, including the ~240 titles in 2006, or is the target that there may be over 800 HD DVD titles by the end of December 2007?

2) Which one takes up more space: DD+ 1.5 + TrueHD 5.1 16/48 or DTS 1.5 + DTS-HD MA? Are there bit-depth limitations to DTS-HD MA?

3) Can anyone better explain the specifics regarding the supposed negotiations around Managed Copy? This article is suggesting it is getting to close to reality.

4) Any updates on TL51 or DL34's progress? We were told a while back that the DVD Forum is actually formally investigating it now.

Thanks. I will pass on the good word to our "old friend" there .


The software part is certainly doable. Indeed, that is how dual format players are going to support both HD DVD and BD. That would of course give them software but they still lack the necessary hardware such as internet connection and secondary video decoder to make it do what it does for HD DVD today. So "current" players are a bit out of luck but the future ones certainly could play, pun intended .

One side note though. HD DVD interactivity is a work of DVD forum. So BDA could not use those specifications as is. They would need to come with their own version of it.

None of the IPTV/FIOS services use uncompressed video. I'm not sure what the particular specs are, but if anything they're using data rates lower than the peak rates of HD DVD.

To MS Insiders:

My question is about the HD movies available on Xbox Live Marketplace. They seem to all be around 6GB or so @ 720p resolution and 5.1 sound.

Do these use VC-1 compression? I assume that having them at 720p helps keep the file size down a lot, but how do these compare to the actual disc releases? And do the studios do the compression and provide these to MS for use on Marketplace?

Yes, they're all VC-1 Advanced Profile, with WMA Pro audio. Although the version of the codec they use is quite a bit different from that being used with HD DVD/BD (although we're working on unifying them as part of the SDK licensing efforts we announced at NAB). The XBLM content is also somewhat more efficient since it plays off the HD and doesn't need to worry about optical disc constraints for encoding, so we can use much longer GOPs and such.

The encoding is done in a variety of places - some by studios, some by facilities we contract with, and some in-house. This depends on how hard the content is and where the source content is (easier to have a tape in the LA area encoded in the LA area).

We really sweat the quality of the video encodes, especially in preprocessing (where most quality issues come into for all compressed media). Making the stuff look and sound great is an important competitive advantage for us as a download service. The guy who runs the preprocessing workflow is an incredible mad monk of video processing.

It's pretty gratifying to see how many customers choose to pay more for a HD verison of the content over a SD when HD is availble - that shows our hard work is worth it to consumers.

Awesome. Thanks, Ben!

hey paidgeek can pass on to your sony partners that there is a bug in the new fw 1.80? The bug is this, If you set rgb to full and launch a br or dvd or ps2 game the ps3 kicks back into limited range. I have tested this on many games and movies. Please patch this ASAP, because when you set rgb to full and launch a PS3 game WOAH!!!! It looks great. All the reviews comparing ports should be redone because with rgb set to full with PS3 games ROCKS... I am confident that you and sony are seeing when we post issues here because the FW update is proof of that. Please fix this so I can get full range on BD movies, DVD movies and PS2 games.
Once again thank you and to all you insiders thanks for listening to our constant B1tching.

To any insiders from either format:

Is there any word on actual plans for an HD Pan's Labryinth release? I'm holding off on picking it up for this reason, and soon I'll have access to either format. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Ben. Wasn't aware of that. Then it's time for me to begin looking at HD-DVD then.

See your response just won another person over to HD-DVD

Unfortunately, I'm going to end up also buying a PS3 just because of Casino Royale. I missed it in the movies. Otherwise, I would be perfectfly happy just with HD-DVD.

The ps3 also reverts to RGB limited range whenever you switch it off and then back on again. So if you want RGB full range, you have to re-select it manually everytime you turn the ps3 on.

Another guy on this forum noticed that as well:




So please paidgeek tell Sony to fix this. Thank you.

Is 1080p a requirement for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray? I noticed that Heroes was coming out on Hd-DVD in 1080p which makes sense because it was broadcast in 1080i. But what if 24 or any other Fox or ABC show was to come out on HD-DVD/Blue Ray? They are broadcast in 720p, but are they filmed at a higher resolution? Could these come out in an HD format in 720p or would they have to be scaled to 1080p?

Virtually all fictional entertainment content is shot 24p and posted as 24p these days. Reality and sports is still 60p or 60i.

The 60i broadcasting is mainly because broadcasters still think in 60i for everything . ATSC supports 24p, and I wish they'd use it for programming available in that, or at least do proper 3:2 flagging for 24p source!

There claims to be a picture of the HD DVD at http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?p=138317

To any HD DVD insider:

Is the Xbox 360 going to keep up with the recent PS3 firmware update and add support of 1080p24 output for HD DVD in the future?

Here in Europe the judder is killing us...

If the decision is made to release a movie in both - HD/BD and XBL - why not share at least the preprocessing results?
And if both a done in VC-1, why not use the optical disk version as source for XBL encode?

Is this a workflow issue?
I would understand if MS does the work for free, but if studious do both?

Diogen.

Typically different parts of a studio are involved in providing content in HD DVD and for VOD. The expensive stuff like remastering certainly helps both.

Also, preprocessing for movies and movie-like shows like CSI is pretty easy. It's the TV shows, especially with 24p source edited as 60i that's the killer. Stuff like South Park and Avatar. It can take a full 40 hours of work by a highly skilled (and compensated) operator to get the right preprocessing workflow set up for a new sesason of a TV show. Not many places are willing to put so much effort into making video look as good as possible. As someone who's spent better than a decade trying to convince customers to put in the effort for that last 10%, I felt really proud to be at Microsoft after seeing the XBLM worklfow.

Fortunately, the new Spring Update adds a lot of new features for decode, like native interlaced and anamorphic pixels, that will hopefully let us just leave the video weirdness as video weirdness more of the time. All my workstations have been busy burning CPU time on testing for this, which is why I've had a decent about of AVS time this week ).

Any insiders care to comment about the lawsuit against Sony for Bluray?

Any particular reason why HD-DVD isn't being targeted as well?

Amir, how are your kids enjoying their PS3? They do have one right? Anyway I sincerely hope their experience is much more fulfilling than their PSP one.

Was Microsoft responsible for QA approval for the Animatrix on the Marketplace, because you should really take a look at the free Animatrix you guys are giving away with the purchase of the Complete Matrix. It looks like a complete mess. It has macroblocking, posterization, mosquito noise, an insane amount of aliasing, massive amounts of edge enhancement and just plain bluriness. I suspect that you guys at Microsoft didn't handle this yourself, but it really doesn't make me want to spend money to download media if it can be allowed to be distributed in this condition.

Thanks for your comments. I was also glad to see so many new features made it into the latest firmware update.

The information I have is that DTS-HD-MA is still under study. I don't have any details as to when this feature might become available. If it happens, I expect it to be handled only by internal decoding to LPCM.

Please PM me with the Pioneer model display you are using and I will see what I can find out.

Hey paidgeek, can you please address the issue with the rgb full bug. My above post reveals the issue. Thanks.

To Amir, has Microsoft decided yet whether or not to pursue their own integrated HD DVD solution for Vista Media Center, specifically Vista x64?

Hey paidgeek, What would really help alot of us out is if sony would include a universal output option for both games and movies. the rgb full is nice for some people but, people who dont get great support with rgb full would rather have the PS3 output both games and br/dvd at digital component instead of just rgb. Is the Ps3 capable of doing this, or do the games have to be in rgb? I have to say the games on my 360 with component have much better blacks and color then my PS3 with hdmi. BTW the superwhite option was nice, thank you for that. Now digital component output does btb and wtw.

It will take a couple of days to respond to this. Please hang on...

Got a bass management question for any insider who genuinely understands this stuff. Please don't give me misinformation .

Given a 5.1 analog line signal, the normal LFE channel line reference level is 10dB below that of the 5.0. In the case of bass management, my understanding is that the redirected bass content from the selected 5.0 channels has to be attenuated by 10dB before summing with the LFE in order to maintain the correct relative levels.

Therefore, the final 0.1 channel ouput should exactly equal the normal LFE signal plus the 10dB attenuated redirected bass -- no other changes.

Is this correct? Or am I overlooking something?

TIA -- Trevor

PS. If an increase in headroom were made to allow for the larger summed signal -- say 5 or 10dB, then I would expect both the -10dB redirected bass and the original LFE to require this additional headroom allowance -- and so the summed signals would be attenuated to -15dB or -20dB total (as an example). Given processors/receivers typically only allow for a 10dB boost on the LFE input, adding such additional headroom at a source would seem to create another problem -- how to restore the levels.

If such a headroom increase were applied to only one part of the bass managed signals (say the original LFE only), then the redirected bass would be at -10dB and the LFE would be lower. What would the correct boost be if the two components are no longer in correct relationship with each other? This would seem like an undesirable practice to me.

No problem, Can you please pm when you know something?