Microsoft's flatly denied comments made by their CEO yesterday, that the Xbox 360 will soon receive a Blu-ray add-on.
Microsoft Mouthpiece, Major Nelson said: "During an interview yesterday, Steve Ballmer was asked about Blu-Ray and the Xbox 360. I wanted to clear something up. Steve was referring to Blu-Ray accessories for the PC.
"As we have said in the past, we have no plans to introduce a Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. In fact, the future of home entertainment starts very soon when Xbox 360 becomes the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies.
"With a library of thousands of TV shows and movies to choose from, Xbox 360 owners can instantly watch the movies they want, when they want, in the highest form of high definition."
There you are then. Yesterday Ballmer excitedly bellowed during an interview: "Well I don't know if we need to put Blu-ray in there - you'll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories."
I would hope that this puts this rumour to bed, however like so many things this Gen, it will probably just roll on and on and on and on and on (you get the picture).
But it's not the future. It won't 1080p24 and their cetainly won't be any DTS-MA or Dolby-HD soundtracks, which you can get with Blu-Ray. Just because it's 1080 doesn't mean it will any better than an decent upscaled DVD. What bitrates are they using? My bet will be low. You only have to watch some of the HD content on ITV to see HD doesn't mean better.
I would hope that this puts this rumour to bed, however like so many things this Gen, it will probably just roll on and on and on and on and on (you get the picture).
I can't believe how far out of context some of these gaming websites took his quotes. It was plainly obvious he didn't mean an add-on for the xbox.
But let me throw in some kindling - the quote says no plans for blu-ray for Xbox 360.
But.. I don't want to stream bad quality so-called "HD 1080" video. It won't look as good as a blu ray on a video projector, and it certainly won't include uncompressed audio tracks. If it did, we'd need a minimum 100mbs connection to watch it streamed.
The point is moot anyways, most of us have already bought a PS3 solely for the Blu-ray playback.
Instant On sounds awesome in principle but it won't replace Blu-Ray for a couple of reasons. Firstly you'll need 8MB or over broadband to stream Instant On in full 1080p from what I've read which in the UK (with many on lower speeds) means lots of us will be getting a significantly lower resolution as it adjusts the bitrate according to the max speed your line supports. Secondly the wacko prices that MS are charging. I saw a preview of the new dashboard update on the net and for the film HOUSE OF THE DEVIL it cost 1200 MS Points to rent in HD. Who in their right mind would pay Ł10 to rent one film when they can rent the Blu-Ray from any number of online rental sites for much, much less or even buy it for a similar price after it's been out for a while? If they sort their prices out MS could make a serious attempt at gaining some market share from Blockbusters, I Love Film etc but only if they make it cheap enough for the masses to get on board. I'm keeping my Xbox for gaming anyway and getting a PS3 for BR antics so I doubt I'll use the service at all.
Has anyone got the new update yet? I registered with Connect and got an email about 4am this morning saying the trial has gone live, but no update when I switched on an hour or so ago.
I've got 20MB cable. I'm sure streaming HD will be fine, although slightly pointless with a CRT TV!
Has anyone got the new update yet? I registered with Connect and got an email about 4am this morning saying the trial has gone live, but no update when I switched on an hour or so ago.
I've got 20MB cable. I'm sure streaming HD will be fine, although slightly pointless with a CRT TV!
It's rolling out over the next 24 hours or so. I'm hoping I should be able to give this a go later.
Instant On sounds awesome in principle but it won't replace Blu-Ray for a couple of reasons. Firstly you'll need 8MB or over broadband to stream Instant On in full 1080p from what I've read which in the UK (with many on lower speeds) means lots of us will be getting a significantly lower resolution as it adjusts the bitrate according to the max speed your line supports.
I suggest you test it. There is a Silverlight HD test (ok granted this isn't quite 1080i but it gives you a good idea of how good it can be). If your internet connection can cope with this, then it should be ok for Zune, as that uses Silverlight too. I for one am very impressed.
Has anyone got the new update yet? I registered with Connect and got an email about 4am this morning saying the trial has gone live, but no update when I switched on an hour or so ago.
I've got 20MB cable. I'm sure streaming HD will be fine, although slightly pointless with a CRT TV!
It's rolling out over the next 24 hours or so. I'm hoping I should be able to give this a go later.
Well pretty much everything on facebook this morning seems to be about Nick Griffin, so I can handle not having that for a few days until it all dies down!
What I don't get is why they palm off Blu-ray like it's totally dedicated to movies. I'd rather take more storage space on a disc than less, because that means we can get more game content for our money. 50Gb instead of 8? Count me in.
Strangely enough, I use my games consoles primarily for gaming. Sure, I watch the odd DVD through them but they're 99% gaming. I've never even played a BR movie on the PS3.
And yes, I wouldn't expect it for the 360 anyway. A completely new media drive would be a nightmare - developers would have to put out multiple versions of their games to suit both the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'. But as someone said earlier, that doesn't mean it won't be on the neXtbox.
There is a Silverlight HD test (ok granted this isn't quite 1080i but it gives you a good idea of how good it can be). If your internet connection can cope with this, then it should be ok for Zune, as that uses Silverlight too. I for one am very impressed.
I'm impressed. I gave it a try on my not particularly fast net connection, and the video was still impressively detailed and smooth. Only problem for me, was when I gave it a bit of stress (openend up another window and streamed some other vids) once it dropped quality, it wasn't very good at recovering? Seemed to take ages and never went back toe the level I had at the start?
There is a Silverlight HD test (ok granted this isn't quite 1080i but it gives you a good idea of how good it can be). If your internet connection can cope with this, then it should be ok for Zune, as that uses Silverlight too. I for one am very impressed.
I'm impressed. I gave it a try on my not particularly fast net connection, and the video was still impressively detailed and smooth. Only problem for me, was when I gave it a bit of stress (openend up another window and streamed some other vids) once it dropped quality, it wasn't very good at recovering? Seemed to take ages and never went back toe the level I had at the start?
Mine seemed to recover, although it did take a few seconds. And the 5mbps connection is actually streaming at 1080i, apparently. It's impressive nonetheless, even if there are a couple of hickups.
I also love that even if the rate does drop a tad, it's still a very smooth transition between the resolutions. You'd hardly notice it unless (like me) you were studying it about 3 inches from the screen.
I suggest you test it. There is a Silverlight HD test (ok granted this isn't quite 1080i but it gives you a good idea of how good it can be). If your internet connection can cope with this, then it should be ok for Zune, as that uses Silverlight too. I for one am very impressed.
Don't get me wrong I am impressed with it. I did test it months ago in fact and it looked pretty good but as my broadband is about 2.5MB speed I can see artiface and digitization in the image because of the lower bitrate. So therefore it's not as good s watching a Blu-Ray for me. That's what I was getting at, it'll be a viable alternative for those which good connections. For those that don't it won't look as good as Blu-Ray and as such cannot be considered a replacement.
I got the update yesterday haven't tried out the video streaming yet as I refuse to pay the extortionate prices they charge for a film to rent for 24hrs . The last f.m facebook and twitter work fine you just download a 6 mb app and then it installs on you dashboard
Great MS, well done. Notice the way they don't actually say their 1080p service will be as good as Blu-ray as any person who knows about how the tech works knows it an't be done by even japans broadband speed standards.
Yes you might have a res of 1080p whic is to say a progressly scanned picture that is 1980x1080 pixels, but the bit rate is no where the 40mbps of Blu-ray, no it is going to be around 5-8mbps, so you might as well just watch a DVD being upscalled.
And like gazzb be already said, there will be no DTS-MA or Dolby-HD sound, so what MS is selling is not even in the same league as Blu-Ray. People beliving that paying for this service is going to be close-as-damn-it to Blu-Ray are going to be ripped off. I say ripped of becuase MS are talking about this service and blu-ray in the same sentance which makes to two things sound like they are equal in terms of output, which is not even near to being true.
Exactly 'only' even if they were to use HD audio codecs even PCM the HDMI socket on the 360 is not 1.3 complient so you could get it into an AV amp to decode. I would have to down graded to Dolby Digital for the optical output all be it at a slightly higher bit rate than standard. The HDMI only passes stereo unless 'surprise' you get the MS lead.
word of advice, get ur internt from Be There un limited, UPTO 24MB ( ran a speedtest and i recieve 9MB of this, i live a while from the exchange so would be faster if i was closer) Ł17.99 a month unlimited download and upload, i got free set-up aswell. streamin HD for me is a walk in the park, got a problem get a better internet connection, also Zune optimises ur connection so even on 3-4 mb you still recieve 1080p dolby 5.1 HD video/audio. however i dont see on demand eclisping blu-ray yet, so dont worry that blu-ray player you payed a few hundred for is still worth it
Stupid. Our broadband isn't fast enough for Blu ray quality 1080p movies yet.
Speak for yourself, mine will be absolutely fine for it!
you may have (if its a gigabit connection which I highly doubt) but MS wont up that bitrate and clog the sh1t out of the service for 1 consumer.
I'm no huge tech guy but that seems like what's going on unless MS over night single handedly revolutionized compression protocols to offer a comparable, but prob still inferior, pic/sound quality.
Of course I will bet that 90% of people will say that it looks exactly the same as blu-ray but that's no surprise as more think that mp3's have great sound quality and sound the same as loss-less files.
MS are retards tbh. they need a new xbox with blu ray built in there too slow crash too much. and englands broadband is not fast enough for 1080p hd movies.
The point is moot anyways, most of us have already bought a PS3 solely for the Blu-ray playback
Well, i didn't and I'm sure the 20 million PSN users would disafree? Actually I'm rounding down, I seem to remember it being about 24 million, but I'm not entirely sure.
PS3 isn't just a blu-ray player, people don't seem to get that, even when it outsells the 360 and the wii.
You "res" dorks need to get outside, meet a girl, SOMETHING!
I just heard from a friend who has a friend who knows this guy who has a Dad who works for MS that they're going to release a 70mm film projector attachment for the 360 which will beat BR to hell. Still no word on what renting a 70mm film print will cost but I'm betting 400 MS points!
I can tell most of the negative posters on here are Sony fanboys but there is no excuse of guessing at the quality.
They're never going to try to stream raw HD data in this generation.
You only need 5-8MB for a top quality compressed HD stream (H264 codecs amongst others) and even less when higher compression is used......together with the fact that you're unlikely to see the difference anyway when you're sat on your sofa watching it. Has anyone heard of MP4 either...I don't see many people whinging about that too much.
It's funny how none of the PS3 fanboys haven't mentioned the HD VidZone clips....perhaps this is totally unrelated and comments have to pass through the 'blinkered fanboy filter' first.
It's funny how none of the PS3 fanboys haven't mentioned the HD VidZone clips....perhaps this is totally unrelated and comments have to pass through the 'blinkered fanboy filter' first.
Er maybe because the article is about a Blu Ray drive for the Xbox and Vidzone isn't in HD.
You might want to read the posts above....there are lots of posts regarding HD streaming.
Exactly my point about VidZone......there are lots of requests for HD content and it's supposely being looked into, yet the argument that UK broadband isn't fast enough has never been mentioned by the fanboys. Basically, if it's for PS3 then the problems obviously don't exist
You might want to read the posts above....there are lots of posts regarding HD streaming.
Exactly my point about VidZone......there are lots of requests for HD content and it's supposely being looked into, yet the argument that UK broadband isn't fast enough has never been mentioned by the fanboys. Basically, if it's for PS3 then the problems obviously don't exist
Being looked into? VidStore being launched in a few weeks with online streaming of SD and HD movies on PSN. I think it's well past the 'being looked into' point.
Looks like Paradaz has got himself a stalker,,,creepy.
Anyway no point with MSoft putting a high capcity optical drive on the 360 this gen. Maybe next gen they will either go with next gen blu-ray (Think I read somewhere about 100 Gig+ storage but hey), or try and develop their own again (highly unlikely). Who knows everyone might even go with cloud computing/gaming yet and make optical storage for games a thing of the past altogether.
You might want to read the posts above....there are lots of posts regarding HD streaming.
Exactly my point about VidZone......there are lots of requests for HD content and it's supposely being looked into, yet the argument that UK broadband isn't fast enough has never been mentioned by the fanboys. Basically, if it's for PS3 then the problems obviously don't exist
I think you've mixed up the meaning of HD, I think even 800x600 is technically HD (correct me if I'm wrong sum1) so the term is very loose. sky HD isnt 1080p, most games arent run at tht res and any HD content online has its bitrate slashed and is compressed to sh1t.
The way MS are showing off the service will undoubtedly trick many, many people into thinking its truly full HD and I think that's where the problem is.
It appears most of you haven't had much dealings with HD content, I'm a bit of an HD snob, I tend not to watch anything unless its in HD. I have the raw blu ray data for the new Star Trek movie its around 42gig, and I also have a 1080p DTS audio rip in .mkv format, its only 15.8gig and I'll challenge any of you to spot the difference.
I'm on a 50mb connection so I get around 6.25 megabytes per second download, meaning I can download that 15.8gig in less than an hour, infact I can download around 22gig per hour, meaning I can download the 42gig raw blu ray data in less than 2 hours. So thats a 2 hour 7 minute movie downloaded in less time than it takes to watch it.
With BT set to roll out its fiber optic network, and Virgin already trialing 200mb, I think the UK is in pretty good shape for digital distribution, you just have to put your hand in your pocket...and live in the right area.
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streamin HD for me is a walk in the park, got a problem get a better internet connection, also Zune optimises ur connection so even on 3-4 mb you still recieve 1080p dolby 5.1 HD video/audio. however i dont see on demand eclisping blu-ray yet, so dont worry that blu-ray player you payed a few hundred for is still worth it
