X-BOX fans - No progressive-scan DVD for YOU!

[UberNeuman]

Strike off another feature that you all keep crowing about...

And don't forget to pick up your $30.00 remote for your standard DVD player... BAWHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!

 

[JAC0B]

<< BAWHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!! >>

 

[xyyz]

yeah but who's buying the XBox to use it as a DVD player?

 

[Lankin]

Thats $10 for the remote, $20 for the licensing fee. And this has been known for 4 months... The games are still progressive...

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

TEH GAY!?!? TEH GAY!?!?! WHERE ARE YOU, TEH GAY?!?!?!




TEH GHEY IS AT MACROHARD.

GHEY GHEY GHEY GHEY GHEY


INTERLACED = TEH GHEY!

 

[slicksilver]

same here.........i'm not going to buy a XBOX thinking how it is gonna play a DVD...uugh

Raj

 

[LiQiCE]

I've said it before and I'll say it again ... Microsoft has plans to release this feature in an upcoming revision of the DVD drivers. It was not included now because it isn't an important enough feature. I don't doubt that if Microsoft needs it as a feature they will enable it, and tout it like crazy. Plus who's to say there won't be hacked drivers coming out that will enable Progressive scan?

Right now it isn't important either because PS2 can't do Progressive scan, and Gamecube (not counting Panasonic's version) can't play DVDs at all.

 

[Sugadaddy]

This has been known for a few months now...

 

[kpxgq]

why is xbox crap?










<<
CISC

Pronounced sisk, and stands for Complex Instruction Set Computer. Most PC's use CPU based on this architecture. For instance Intel and AMD CPU's are based on CISC architectures.

Typically CISC chips have a large amount of different and complex instructions. The philosophy behind it is that hardware is always faster than software, therefore one should make a powerful instructionset, which provides programmers with assembly instructions to do a lot with short programs.

In common CISC chips are relatively slow (compared to RISC chips) per instruction, but use little (less than RISC) instructions.



RISC

Pronounced risk, and stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computer. RISC chips evolved around the mid-1980 as a reaction at CISC chips. The philosophy behind it is that almost no one uses complex assembly language instructions as used by CISC, and people mostly use compilers which never use complex instructions. Apple for instance uses RISC chips.

Therefore fewer, simpler and faster instructions would be better, than the large, complex and slower CISC instructions. However, more instructions are needed to accomplish a task.

An other advantage of RISC is that - in theory - because of the more simple instructions, RISC chips require fewer transistors, which makes them easier to design and cheaper to produce.

Finally, it's easier to write powerful optimised compilers, since fewer instructions exist.
>>



in a nutshell.... RISC cpus put more emphasis on the software while CISC cpus but more emphasis on hardware....

now for PCs (computers), the CISC architechture (x86 platform) is the best since we can always upgrade the hardware and keep up with newer technologies and software...

but a console is a dummy box.. everything is proprietary and nothing can really be upgraded (kinda like a mac)... but the RISC architecture allows the software/games to be the scaler.... the hardware remains the same but newer software comes out and the hardware just scales to the software... that is why RISC is just SUPERIOR for apples and consoles... think back to the Playstation... the first generation playstation (psx) games looked like crap and were pretty simplistic... but evolved by leaps and bounds through newer software and programming without even upgrading the machine... with a computer, we get better performance from upgrading hardware (cpu, ram, video card, etc)...

now the PS2 and Gamecube are built on traditional RISC architectures... while the XBOX has a pc based x86 CISC chip.... also the fact that the XBOX cpu is only 32bit brings it down to the level of the PS2's 128bit processor (even thought it is more mhz, kinda like IPCs when comparing intel to amd). the thing is that the XBOX games look great.... but they will look about the same 2 years from now... and without any hardware upgrades that are available to a PC, the life of an XBOX will be greatly reduced.... The PS2 and gamecube games also look great.. but the thing is that their RISC architectures allow the machines to scale to software, so in 2 years from now, you will see MUCH improved gaming performance from these two consoles...

 

[MrBond]

The progressive-scan feature was left out due to cost. So I doubt it could be enabled with a driver.

But you're right about it being the only other console (except ps2) with DVD playback. It will continue to be that way too, because the Panasonic thing isn't getting released here.

 

[kami]

Who cares? What kind of moron would buy a console for dvd use? It's for freakin games. If you want to watch movies, buy a stand alone player.

 

[kpxgq]

<< What kind of moron would buy a console for dvd use? >>




college students?

 

[Zwingle]

<< Who cares? What kind of moron would buy a console for dvd use? It's for freakin games. If you want to watch movies, buy a stand alone player. >>


You wouldn't believe how many people I know that use the PS2 as a dvd player.....if you don't already have a dvd player....this is what you will use until you can afford to get one.


<< Plus who's to say there won't be hacked drivers coming out that will enable Progressive scan? >>


How can you hack hardware that isn't there? Hacked drivers........hahahahahaha!

 

[Digobick]

If a college student (like me) can afford an X-Box, then he most likely already has a DVD player (my apartment has three). Besides, DVD players are cheap nowadays, and getting cheaper. Shop around, and you can probably find some good ones for under $150; next year they'll break the $100 barrier.

 

[LiQiCE]

kpxgq,

I don't see anything in your definition of CISC vs. RISC that says that RISC is more scalable than CISC. Yes RISC is better in general than CISC. But don't forget that the Nvidia GPU is what is doing the bulk of the calculations on the X-Box (and the GameCube alike), and I believe the GPU is RISC. I'm pretty sure the Pentium III processor converts CISC instructions into RISC on the fly to optimize calculations. (I know for a fact that AMD processors do this, but I forget if P3 does). And the Nvidia GPU is supposedly 256bits (Remember, the GeForce 1 was fully titled GeForce 256, GeForce 3 and XGPU is based on the same exact architecture). Bits is sortof like comparing Mhz in Intel vs. AMD arguements too, just because the processor's floating point calculations are only 32-bits wide doesn't mean that the system is slower. In the older days, a 16-Bit system was a big improvement over an 8-bit system, but by today's standards "bits" is sortof a useless comparison of systems almost like Mhz is becoming somewhat useless (benchmarks are better).

MrBond,

The hardware does have Progressive scan built into it. Its simply the software that will have Progressive scan disabled ... The XGPU is essentially a GeForce 3, and GeForce 3 can definitely display an overlay at 640x480 or 480p (which is what Progressive scan DVD is displayed at.. Actually, since GeForce 1 this was possible). The X-Box is obviously capable of displaying at 480p because games can be displayed at 480p and up to 1080i. The DVD software is being made by Ravisent, who makes the Cinemaster DVD software and the ATI DVD player. Both DVD players support the 3:2 Pulldown that is needed to display 480p in their PC versions so I see no reason why the feature would not be included in the DVD software for X-Box. However, I'd imagine due to licensing issues, or perhaps even software stability issues, Microsoft decided to disable the progressive scan ability of X-Box. Please note that the reasoning that Microsoft decided not to include Progressive scan due to cost is pure speculation by ZDNet and makes no sense because the XGPU can easily do Progressive scan DVD playback in hardware with no problems (a Pentium III 733 with 64MB of RAM and a GeForce 3 can play software DVDs with the overhead of Windows, so why can't an X-Box do it with virtually no overhead... There's no telling if Nvidia added better hardware DVD decoding support into the XGPU too). I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft's plan is to release another DVD upgrade costing more money to get progressive scan either, or perhaps disabling it in X-Box so they can include it in another "console" like a Home Entertainment unit that includes Ultimate TV... There's many reasons why Microsoft would not include it in their X-Box, but I don't think hardware limitations is one of them ... Remember Microsoft is losing money on the hardware, so making up some of it by releasing an upgrade for Progressive scan DVD playback at a later time makes sense. BTW- I don't see any hard evidence suggesting that the X-Box does not include the hardware needed to do progressive scan DVD playback.

 

[royaldank]

Yeah, you realize that the GameCube and PS2 aren't progressive scan DVD players either.

And you comments about the $30 is pretty mute, also. We (and by that I mean people that don't hate the XBOX because it's MS and aren't PS2 and GameCube fanboys) can just fire back with, "enjoy paying $39.99 for your broadband adaptor and another $100+ for your harddrive."