Re: EXPECT Blu-ray INSIDE the XBOX 360... just in time for the HOLIDAYS.

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no offence but the Xbox 360 is a pretty advanced piece of equipment - almost half advanced as a PS3!

Actually Xbox 360 is far far more powerful than PS3 for gaming. It is a pure(I really mean "pure" game machine playing movies as sidejob, not a movie player playing games as a sidejob like PS3 is.

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It's got a GPU that accelerates many of the functions required for AVC decoding

XGPU2(the GPU of Xbox 360) has no video decoding acceleration. Its sole purpose of creation was to play games. XGPU2 does handle CABAC(The last stage of H.264 decoding) stage in shader code, but the first three stages stay on CPU.

Without CABAC offloading, Xbox 360 is restricted to 15 Mbits/s H.264 stream.
With CABAC offloading, Xbox 360 can decode fast enough to meet 30 Mbits/s requirement. But 40 Mbits/s is out of question.

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If it can handle 30Mps H.264 on HD DVD, I'm sure it can handle 40Mbps without dropping frames.

Not according to Amir Majidimehr, retired Microsoft Vice President and former head of HD-DVD group. Xbox 360's inability to handle Blu-Ray's H.264 spec is an open-secret at avsforum.

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We bought one for our son, and I must admit it's pretty slick and probably more capable than the "facts" you make up.

I am a Wall Street finanical programmer holding an MS CS. I know what I am talking about when I discuss computing hardware.

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It's not as crappy as you believe.

Xbox 360 isn't that good for H.264 decoding relative to PS3, because it was never intended to handle this application.

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Besides, even if the Xbox 360 had a Celeron processor and was much less powerful than the Wii, the Blu-ray add-on could easily add a decoding chip and deliver the decoded stream to the console without any problems.

Then this Blu-Ray add-on drive you speak of cost as much as a stand alone player to build. What's the point of it then?

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But they don't have to do that. The XBox 360 is an OK console.

It's not an OK console, it is the most powerful and best-engineered game console ever put together, and it averages twice to four times performance advantage over PS3 on equivalent gaming code. You will be shocked how multiplatform developers struggle to hide this performance discrepancy between two. For example, GTA IV on Xbox 360 is pushing 2.5 times as many pixels per frame as it does on PS3. The result is that Xbox 360 version is presented in True HD, while PS3 version is rendered in SD and then "post-processed" to hide its low-resolution output.

Deadmeat,

The xbox 360 is not more powerfull than the PS3. Wait another year and you will see.

Getting back to this silly topic, Microsoft doesnt care about blu-ray. Microsoft doesnt care about hd-dvd. Microsoft cares about Digital Downloads. This is THEIR cash cow.

Gettin back to you deadmeat,
If this is the best console EVER put together...what in the hell is the "red ring of death?"

"BLU-RAY IS A NEW TECHNOLOGY. IT IS GOING TO TAKE TIME TO MASTER ITS BENEFITS."

[Post edited by bladerunner1 on May 2, 2008]

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The xbox 360 is not more powerfull than the PS3. Wait another year and you will see.

like we haven't been hearing that for the past 2 years.

As for blu ray in the 360, what would ms gain from doing something like this?
Its not like blu ray is booming over dvd sales.

Im not even sure they wanted to offer an hd dvd drive, was there some agreement between toshiba and ms on that issue.

From what I've read the PS3 is using an outdated Nviidia graphics card. All of the multiplats turn out worse on PS3. Hell even PS3 exclusives don't look as good as anything on 360. The best things the PS3 has is reliability and HDD standard. So this "PS3 has teh best grafix" crap is just FUD.

The 360 can handle Blu-ray with no problems. However MS needs to make the 360 quieter because it is one loud SOB.

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The 360 can handle Blu-ray with no problems.

Our daughter's relatively slow computer can decode AVC @ 40Mbps, I'm sure the XBox can also and have MIPS left over to calculate prime numbers and overlay them on the screen. It may not have the power to SUC though...

That being said, I doubt Microsoft will build a Blu-ray inside one anytime soon. I just don't see the motivation to do so. It's not like they have to sneak Blu-ray into homes in order to win a format war.

Ok Skyhawk,

before I smack your arrogance into the ground. I will just say that the XBOX 360 is probably the most powerful gaming machine on the planet. If you to actually study it's technolgy you will find that it excells in areas that the PS3. On paper, the PS3 is more powerful. In reality, it’s quite inferior to the 360. Without boring everyone here with the details, the triple core CPU that the XBOX 360 has are currently easier to take advantage of than the SPU’s on the PS3. If Sony actually spend billions on R&D they probably could map the potential of the SPU, but is it worth it? The GPU is more powerful. It has more powerful fillrate, and far more pixel and vertex processing horsepower. It all boils down to memory and the type of memory MS invested into the XBOX. The architecture of pixel and vertex procesing allow the XBOX to do things that the PS3 could only dream of. If you were to run that same vertex shader on the PS3 you would find that the PS3 could not adapt, were the XBOX 360 thrives!!! The 360 also has a clever new way rendering high definition anti aliased back buffers. To accomplish the same effect on PS3 is prohibitively expensive. That would explain Blu-Ray's adaptaion in the console. They are relying on native resolutions of the format to carry out menial tasks. The XBOX could live on a BD-Deck with H.264 decoding, but why when MS created VC-1? Not going into that neck of the woods again. I will however say that, the company I work for, the top engineers are scratching their heads, on why they didn't go with VC-1 vs the supposed industry standard H.264. Anyways a discussion for another day.

ReaggieP, I think you've got me mixed up with someone else

What post are you responding to?

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The XBOX could live on a BD-Deck with H.264 decoding, but why when MS created VC-1?

Microsoft should have adapted H.264 decoding on the XBox. Then it could have played the following HD DVD movies:

Transformers
Arctic Tale
Top Gun
Babel
The Matador
Beowulf
Black Christmas
Into The Wild
Black Snake Moan
Scary Movie 4
Blades of Glory
Clerks II
Derailed
Disturbia
Freedom Writers
Harsh Times
Stardust

etc. etc.

The XBOX 360 can't play any of those HD DVD's? Since when?