HD-DVD Really Pushing 360 Hardware

[Zeus]

An MS employee has revealed similar to how the Xbox 1 backwards compatibility works on the Xbox 360, the 'intensive' parts of the HD DVD playback are done on the Xbox 360's triple core CPU.


Other players on the market have specialized chips (called DSPs) that decode things like H.264, MPEG, VC1, DTS, Dolby Digital, and other codecs," explains Microsoft employee Shaheen Gandhi, who works on Xbox 360's HD-DVD team. "Much like how backwards compatibility for Xbox 1 works on Xbox 360, the heavy parts of HD DVD are all done on Xbox 360's triple-core CPU."

Who would've thought playing a movie took so much work? "All 6 of Xbox 360's hardware threads are hard at work while playing back an HD DVD. At the moment, the player software pushes Xbox 360 harder than any other (save, perhaps, Gears of War during some particularly busy parts of the game)."


News Source: <A href="http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3154930" target="_blank">1UP</a>

[Mr Doctor]

Sounds.... unreliable :/

[wigsplitta]

Anyways, the drive doesn't look that good but I don't care for HD-DVD right now. I just don't see how a movie can work the 360 that hard. I can encode/decode movies on a P2 processor all day long. It may not be fast but this is 3 cores. What about cut scenes in games? What about the decompression of the graphics etc? I don't really believe this. :rolleyes: Sounds like since there's no DSP they have to write a driver to decode the video. The same as a pc.

[somaXD]

An MS employee has revealed similar to how the Xbox 1 backwards compatibility works on the Xbox 360, the 'intensive' parts of the HD DVD playback are done on the Xbox 360's triple core CPU.



News Source: <A href="http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3154930" target="_blank">1UP</a>

soooo... only like 50% of the HD-DVD's will run on the 360?

[anhel77]

i think blu ray is MUCH better anyways!

[wigsplitta]

i think blu ray is MUCH better anyways!
Oh yeah, Why is that? because it's more expensive or it doesn't look as good?

[Mr Doctor]

Its because all of sonys own formats have been blinding sucsesses.

[Robotron]

Yeah I'm not jumping in the middle of this beta/vhs war.

Screw 'em both. I'll stick with my XBMC and streaming from my PC.

[{{909}}]

Anyways, the drive doesn't look that good but I don't care for HD-DVD right now. I just don't see how a movie can work the 360 that hard. I can encode/decode movies on a P2 processor all day long. It may not be fast but this is 3 cores. What about cut scenes in games? What about the decompression of the graphics etc? I don't really believe this. :rolleyes: Sounds like since there's no DSP they have to write a drive to decode the video. The same as a pc.

your not encoding/decoding movies at 1080p tho are you, playing them on a pc needs a 2ghz cpu in some situations.
I dont think the 360 was ever designed to run 1080p movies, so im not surprised is pushed.

Does this mean the fans go upto full speed when playing HD DVD then? if its as loud as when a game is playing, that would be a pain while watching a movie.

[wigsplitta]

A pc isnt designed to play movies either. It's all done through software on the pc and through firmware on the add on drive itself. That's why I dont think it is pushing the 360. Of course I don't know but those are my reasons.

[Trashcat]

ps3 will have a hard time playing betamax2 movies too because just like 360 it relies on the CPU to play them, from what I understand neither 360 CPU nor Cell were created with HD-DVD/betamax2 playback in mind so its kinda like using software DVD player on PC as opposed to specifically designed processors in stand-alone players.

[Havok154]

Anyways, the drive doesn't look that good but I don't care for HD-DVD right now. I just don't see how a movie can work the 360 that hard. I can encode/decode movies on a P2 processor all day long. It may not be fast but this is 3 cores. What about cut scenes in games? What about the decompression of the graphics etc? I don't really believe this. :rolleyes: Sounds like since there's no DSP they have to write a driver to decode the video. The same as a pc.

Have you ever seen the requirements for playing HD-DVD or Blu-Ray on a PC. It's insane. Basically you'll need a high end or dual core CPU, 1 GB of ram, a Geforce 7600GT or better, or a ATI X1600 or better. Along with the $700+ PC drive.

http://www.cyberlink.com/english/support/bdhd_support/system_requirement.jsp

[kronikdaddy]

Yeah I'm not jumping in the middle of this beta/vhs war.

Screw 'em both. I'll stick with my XBMC and streaming from my PC.


So true and such a good idea. That's my plan also Until a hybrid player is sub $150ish, Then i'll start considering upgrading.

[technosexual]

eh thats pretty depressing if the 360 doesnt have any sort of hardware to handle atleast some of the decoding.

[Trashcat]

eh thats pretty depressing if the 360 doesnt have any sort of hardware to handle atleast some of the decoding.
Why put some decoder in it and make it more expensive if the CPU can handle this? As long as it runs properly why should you care how its done?

[wigsplitta]

Have you ever seen the requirements for playing HD-DVD or Blu-Ray on a PC. It's insane. Basically you'll need a high end or dual core CPU, 1 GB of ram, a Geforce 7600GT or better, or a ATI X1600 or better. Along with the $700+ PC drive.

http://www.cyberlink.com/english/support/bdhd_support/system_requirement.jsp

Those aren't really insane specs. Dual cores are standard and HD-DVD will run on the 7600go. You're right about the specs but what I'm saying is that the 360 is way more powerful than what's needed for the HD-DVD. 3 cores running 2 threads at the same time. The ATI card is more powerful than a 7600go. I just can't see it from a hardware standpoint. How would it push the 360 that hard? I can see the XBOX emulation because a system has to be about 10 times more powerful than what it's emulating.

[Retroboy]

i like the way they mention 360 BC works, erm sure it does.


Most games are still not playable, so because 10% for example do play, the BC on the 360 works, sure it does.

Im just glad that sony have added the PS2 core to the PS3.

[MadonnaProject]

the xbox 360 cpu and gpus are MORE THAN SUFFICIENT to run hd dvd movies. even in 1080p. the problem lies with the connection the drive has to the console. which is basically a usb 2.0 port. and in theory a usb port should be able to handle high speeds of data, however you hould know when it comes to technologies theories dont mean nything. hence the 360 has to read data, the aquisition of which is dependant on how fast its read off of the drive, since it needs to be consistent and constant. there are buffers in the hd drive as well as the xbox 360, and the exchange between these can be very cpu intensive. also decoding of the images, which might get better through time, and if the 360 gets directx 10, it can really help drastically improve performance. that is in THEORY it can.

but since the 360 can handle very intensive geometry and calculations, it shouldnt have a lot of trouble handling hd dvd movie decoding. software or hardware. depends on how good their decoding software is. a future update should improve this. bu for the time being the usb connection and the data baud rates and decoding processes might be the reason for the machine being pushed so much.

who needs dvds and hd dvds anyways? anyone everheard of xvid and divx? i wonder whats going on in the next gen divx and xvid front tho....

[mhz]

the xbox 360 cpu and gpus are MORE THAN SUFFICIENT to run hd dvd movies. even in 1080p. the problem lies with the connection the drive has to the console. which is basically a usb 2.0 port. and in theory a usb port should be able to handle high speeds of data, however you hould know when it comes to technologies theories dont mean nything. hence the 360 has to read data, the aquisition of which is dependant on how fast its read off of the drive, since it needs to be consistent and constant. there are buffers in the hd drive as well as the xbox 360, and the exchange between these can be very cpu intensive. also decoding of the images, which might get better through time, and if the 360 gets directx 10, it can really help drastically improve performance. that is in THEORY it can.

but since the 360 can handle very intensive geometry and calculations, it shouldnt have a lot of trouble handling hd dvd movie decoding. software or hardware. depends on how good their decoding software is. a future update should improve this. bu for the time being the usb connection and the data baud rates and decoding processes might be the reason for the machine being pushed so much.

who needs dvds and hd dvds anyways? anyone everheard of xvid and divx? i wonder whats going on in the next gen divx and xvid front tho....
Xvid keeps rocking, I've got some hi-res HDTV tv-rips in Xvid format and the quality is simply amazing..
I've been wondering for a long time though if x264 will beat Xvid some time..
(http://www.xile.net/xvid_vs_x264/)

[wigsplitta]

i like the way they mention 360 BC works, erm sure it does.


Most games are still not playable, so because 10% for example do play, the BC on the 360 works, sure it does.

Im just glad that sony have added the PS2 core to the PS3.
In my case when I got my PS2 my PS library just prettmuch sat there and collected dust. I would pop in an old game here and there but it wasn't that important. I never had the first XBox and I haven't played and of those games on the 360. There's just too many good games coming out and I barely have time for them. Anyways, isn't the inclusion of the chip just for inital consoles and they will later remove them? Isn't it all just speculation? I don't know so I'm asking. BTW the PS2 used emulation for PS games as well.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibilitygameslist.htm I don't know if that's even 10% on the list but it looks like a bunch of games in any case.