Print

[Xbox-Scene]

Xbox Team about Developing the Xbox360 HD-DVD Addon Posted by XanTium | November 4 00:03 EST

From the Official Team Xbox Blog: What takes 4.7 million lines of code, partner teams from all over Microsoft, and millions of dollars to create?  The Xbox 360 system software?  Nope.  This is just the HD DVD player. The Xbox platform team (us) is experiencing its own emergence day as of late; we've been hard at work for the past 8 months straight bringing the fall system update to fruition.  I haven't even posted since August.  Daryl's already gone over a lot of the features and changes that are in this release.  I've personally been working on the Xbox 360 HD DVD player (which, by the way, reached the #1 best seller slot on Amazon.com's video games category) and I thought I'd go over some of the technical difficulties it takes to bring HD DVD to market. There's a perception that HD DVD is just DVD with HD content, but once you look at things more closely, it's clear that HD DVD is a different beast altogether.  The Xbox platform team became serious about HD DVD last year, when Microsoft as a company threw its endorsement behind the standard. The Xbox 360 HD DVD Player, for the most part, is an entirely software based implementation.  Other players on the market have specialized chips (called DSPs) that decode things like H.264, MPEG, VC1, DTS, Dolby Digital, and other codecs.  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. If DVD is an audio/video pipeline with some navigation data (go to the menu, start playing, etc.), HD DVD can be considered a runtime environment where audio/video playback is just one major feature.  So let's break down that 4.7 million lines of code.  I don't have the numbers for each component, but each of these is a very significant chunk:     * Video Codecs: H.264, MPEG-2, VC1     * Audio Codecs: Dolby Digital+, DTS, TrueHD, LPCM, MPEG     * iHD: The HD DVD runtime engine.     * GDI: Drawing stuff like menus     * AACS: Cryptography/DRM stuff     * MF: Audio/Video pipeline That's a lot of stuff.  Some of the acronyms may not be recognizable.  GDI is the Graphics Device Interface, which has been a mainstay of the Windows operating system for many years, providing facilities to draw stuff on screens.  MF is Media Foundation - a framework for audio/video pipelines that was being built for Windows Vista.  The Windows teams in charge of the above components all pitched in to make them work on Xbox 360 while continuing to work on other Windows projects (Vista, CE, etc.) - quite a task. A lot of the codecs existed in code at Microsoft before the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player was being built.  However, it was all code that was optimized for PC platforms (windows/x86) and not Xbox 360's PPC core.  This meant doing a lot of optimization.  In this regard, the Xbox 360 implementation of H.264 can be considered a crowning achievement.  For this computationally expensive codec, a hybrid approach was taken.  Since GPUs are very good at parallelized workloads, stuff that could be parallelized is computed there, while the stuff that can't is better suited to the CPU and is done there. Unlike DVD, where typical players pass the audio data from the disc through to your receiver, HD DVD requires that players mix sounds from menus and such in with the audio being played for the movie.  The 360 player software decodes all the above codecs in software, mixes anything that needs to go together, re-encodes it into Dolby Digital and then sends that to your receiver.  So, don't be alarmed when your receiver still says "Dolby Digital" even if you've selected DTS in the menus. 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). If I'd have known how much work it was going to be bringing the 360 HD DVD Player out this year, I may not have signed up last year, but now that I can watch HD movies, it's hard to go back to crummy old DVD

[proger]

I don't like how the say how hard the 360 is being pushed to play HD-DVD movies. Better have a good audio system to over power the fans.

[bobbyblaze]

Is that all this thing outputs? Vanilla Dolby Digital? It may be a HD DVD player but theres absolutely nothing high definition about the sound output, is there? Chalk up a MAJOR reason to get a stand alone player with 5.1 analogue outs if necessary. If I didn't already have a 360 then true 24bit 96khz sound would be a big reason to get a PS3 with HDMI 1.3.

[ghostdog69]

So they're saying that all output will be in Dolby Digital, regardless of source?!?  That's a major strike against getting an 360 HD-DVD add-on I would think.

[DoTsTeR]

umm guys...

Doesn't Dolby Digital mean all sorts of things... 2channel, ac3, 5.1,6.1,7.1 etc etc
At compressed or uncompressed levels...

I am pretty sure HD DVD is a standard that any player must meet or it can't be called HD-DVD and the audio is a part of that standard just as much as the video is.


Lack of HDMI output with this solution is an issue though...

This post has been edited by DoTsTeR: Nov 4 2006, 06:29 AM

[starwars22]

intresting I might get this

This post has been edited by starwars22: Nov 4 2006, 06:27 AM

[lmaolmao]

QUOTE(DoTsTeR @ Nov 4 2006, 06:21 AM)

I am pretty sure HD DVD is a standard that any player must meet or it can't be called HD-DVD and the audio is a part of that standard just as much as the video is.
Lack of HDMI output with this solution is an issue though...

i think by a standard it has to cope with certain formats.  but doesn't have to output them.  for example i've seen DTS 'capable' all-in-one systems that down convert to 48khz.  but it still has the DTS logo on.

it's like the HDReady logo, the screen can be any resolution (such as samsungs slim fit crt) but still carry the logo as long as it can display the pictures and deal with HDCP.

i think the xbox certifies it by being able to cope with all these streams, but as the xbox has a certain sound chip (i assume it has a hardware DD encoder, but i may be wrong), it has to output that way.

the dolby digital output has been hushed over quite abit.  this guy is trying to make it sound like its a benefit to do it this way.

overall, i think this 'add-on' is pretty poor, its a remarkable job to have done it, and fit it in with the xbox OS, but its definitely a compromise.

[epsilon72]

So I guess since this thing is CPU intensive those fans won't be slowing down at all...

I think I'll pass....

[Foe-hammer]

It is not the fans that make the loud noise in the 360, but the dvd drive.  And because obviously the dvd drive will not be running while using the HD-DVD there will be little noise.

[Romps]

QUOTE(Foe-hammer @ Nov 4 2006, 06:47 AM)

It is not the fans that make the loud noise in the 360, but the dvd drive.  And because obviously the dvd drive will not be running while using the HD-DVD there will be little noise.

Id say in game the fans sound out do my dvd drive sound by double the db's
So ill be thinking twice b4 getting this addon maybe wait for the new designed 360 with better cpu core and hopefully needs less cooling and with hope have built in hd-dvd allthough they say they not gona
I can see they doing one b4 long
When the community starts asking for it..

[Caldor]

I said many months ago this solution is crippled by the lack of HDMI.

Without 8 channel analog audio out, or HDMI 1.3 Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital TrueHD, DTS-HD wont work. There isnt enough bandiwdth in the lgeacy sfdif connection method.

And then, the problem of not using the industry standard interface for 1080P video - hdmi. VEry few 1080P displays support 1080P inputs via vga and component.

Worse, because MS nerfed the vga 1080P in the fall update some of the few 1080P displays that will actually support 1080P dont, because MS stuffed up the standards compliance and the frequency of the refresh isnt right for all computer monitors and tv displays.

And then there is the threat of ICT

All of this would not have happened if HDMI was included

[DoTsTeR]

QUOTE(Romps @ Nov 4 2006, 01:56 AM)

Id say in game the fans sound out do my dvd drive sound by double the db's

I agree... my dvd drive doesn't make much noise.. its a hitachi.. dont know if that is why

[Neoistheone2000]

well dolby digital vs DTS i would chose DTS as the audio channels are more clear (to me) so when i select DTS in the menues i beter damn well see the DTS light on my Reciver ON like i did on the original xbox witch had the option for DTS in the dash bord

[deltop]

QUOTE(Neoistheone2000 @ Nov 4 2006, 10:40 AM)

well dolby digital vs DTS i would chose DTS as the audio channels are more clear (to me) so when i select DTS in the menues i beter damn well see the DTS light on my Reciver ON like i did on the original xbox witch had the option for DTS in the dash bord

Agreed, I understand why they are re-encoding the new codecs on the fly and outputting them as DD, ie they have no choice. But I can't see any reason as to why they aren't outputting standard DTS tracks AS DTS! People aren't going to be happy if that's the case.

EDIT: Actually I've just realised he's probably talking about the NEW DTS codecs and not standard DTS doh! Obviously these will have to re-encoded since there is no way to output either.

This post has been edited by deltop: Nov 4 2006, 11:44 AM

[michaelboord]

They should just have put in an HDMI connection on the Xbox.

Most people with HDTV LCD TV's have problems with connecting their
xbox 360 now!