HDMI and stuff, check it!

[E2K]

As you know, a lot of people are looking forward to the next generation of movie entertainment. Be it Blu Ray, or HD DVD.
The PlayStation 3 will have a blu ray drive, where the xbox fans are getting a complete HD DVD drive expansion.
So no gaming enthusiasts need to miss out on it. As seen with the xbox360, gamers are investing in HD TV's.
Whether you hate movies or nex gen formats is not the case here.

There is something else going on, that a lot of people are afraid of.

Neither the PS3, nor the Xbox360 have HDMI outputs for high definition connection.
"Ah, but i have 720P on my Samsung HDTV with component cables, so i don't need HDMI!!"
That is true.
Not much people seem to understand the following, but component out IS capable of delivering 1920*1080P for your console, or the movies for that matter.
The only thing is that component is analog, whereas HMDI is fully digital.
Analog does not mean bad. As you can see, your 720P games look razor sharp.

I will not go into too much details, but some can see if a tft is connected to a pc through vga or dvi, but only by observing pixels at 1 cm. So you will never notice it while playing games or watching a movie.

This does not change that HDMI IS tehcnically more advanced, etc, but as neither next gen console has it, there is not much to worry about.


When the HDMI standard was made, the movie studios insisted that BD or HD DVD should encrypt the data. So that nobody can pirate the source. The encryption is called HDCP.
I will not discuss if this is ethical correct.
In the end it means that for full 1920*1080P movie viewing, when the protection is enabled, it requires that your player, AND your HDTV support this HDCP.

If your HDTV has HDMI, it is no problem, but people bought HDTV's also before 2004. And the way it seems now, the PS3 and X360 will not have a HDMI out.
Will it display nothing?
No, it will display the movie. But it will be reduced to 960x540.
The thought behind this was that a HDTV that does not have HDMI, is in 95% of the case a Plasma or LCD flatscreen, who run at the resolution of 852x480, or in the best case 1024*something
Those people will not see difference between the full or cripled 1080P 'source'.

So everybody happy then!!

No wait!! I forgot that PS3 and XBOX360 don't have HDMI! While the owners might have a HDMI-'screen'!!
This is what somebody (well a nobody ;) (just kidding) ) on this forum referred to.

Worry not!

Both the DB and HDDVD studios said that the intitial movies would not have this HDCP protection.
Sony (columbia-tristar) was the first to 'do' this, the rest soon followed.

"Yeah but those motherfuckers will put the protection on, as soon as the sold enough players!"

Nah,
while it "might" happen, i don't think so.

The reason why?
Microsoft is a strong supporter of HD DVD, and they have a lot of power, as you know.
Microsoft would not allow the Xbox owners to be screwed by enabling the protection.
beacuse a lot of HD DVD player owners WILL be xbox360 owners. Plus they would not buy movies.

The same goes for Sony.
The fact that the PS3 will not have HDMI out suggests this even more.

Nobody would buy a movie that is slightly 200 pixels better in horizontal quality, believe me.


Anyway this was a long read :) But i hope you understand it better now.

Xbox and playstation fans, rejoyce, you will enjoy 1080P movies on your HDTV. :D ! (or 720P if you have this model ;) )

Some will think that i made this all up, but here are the links (didn't use all, but theres good info on it anyway)

http://hometheater.about.com/cs/television/f/aaplasmafaq5.htm
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/001657.html
http://www.dvdforum.org/forum.shtml
http://www.blu-ray.com/
http://www.digital-cp.com/home
http://www.projectorcentral.com/component.htm

If you have more questions, or if you have a idea about something mentioned above, please post it.
I hope this will lead to a good quality non fanboy discussion O-)


-E2K for xboxic.com

edit: there will be a more expensive version (100 euros extra :( ) to support HDMI, but that aside.

[Curry]

Honestly: good post :)

[E2K]

(well i would not be posting it if all ps3 had HDMI, but anyway, don't tell anyone ;) :) )

[Curry]

HDMI cable for Xbox 360 available soonish? (http://www.xboxic.com/news/906)

[Number 13]

This sort of thing makes me cry. *grins*

I used to be quite good at keeping up to date with technology, but I must be getting old, I feel like I've fallen away a bit!

[E2K]

This is not hostile towards the xbox360, or other hdmi-missing consoles, but here is some info:

"HDMI is fully backward compatible with PCs,displays and consumer electronics devices incorporating the Digital Visual Interface (DVI) standard. Both HDMI and DVI were pioneered by Silicon Image and are based on TMDS®, Silicon Image's powerful, high-speed, serial link technology. HDMI supports standard, enhanced, or high-definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It transmits all ATSC HDTV standards and supports 8-channel digital audio, and with 5 Gbps of bandwidth, HDMI can accommodate future enhancements and requirements."

I pick out "DVI" and "backwards compatible", so it would be logical to think something like this:

"well i can get a DVI cable for my xbox360, so then i can put on a DVI to HDMI connvertor plug, and i'll have hdmi on my xbox360. succes!!"

There is a DVI cable for the xbox, but it is essentialy VGA to DVI plug convertor. The signal will remain in analog VGA form. The xbox360 only has analogue output. As said before, this is not essentialy a bad thing.

So you could use the cable to hook the xbox360 up to a HDMI television, but it will only get an analogue VGA signal.

And the most important point: the xbox360 does not have HDCP hardware, which means that the problem with HDCP enabled movies only displaying at 960x540 would still be there.

The only option is:
a) change the xbox360 hardware specs to include digital outputs and HDCP chips

b) the HD DVD expansion would have it's own output.

the last one seems the most probable to me, but that is all i can come up with.

[Curry]

b) the HD DVD expansion would have it's own output.

the last one seems the most probable to me, but that is all i can come up with.I think that was even confirmed. Dunno if it was official or some MS guy telling me off the record :)

[jrichar3]

I think we will have all the answers the fall when all of this launches.:)

[cybermans]

"well i can get a DVI cable for my xbox360, so then i can put on a DVI to HDMI connvertor plug, and i'll have hdmi on my xbox360. succes!!"


Afaik you are wrong

When you put a dvi convertor on a vga it puts through DVI-A, now when you put hdmi on that it doesn't do shit afaik because it doesnt have the digital signal .

[Curry]

Seems the Lik-Sang cable is fake anyway. I expect the HD-DVD extension to have its own RAMDAC capable of outputting digital signals directly from the framebuffers, and the true digital HDMI output to feature on there.

[Rival24]

Seems the Lik-Sang cable is fake anyway. I expect the HD-DVD extension to have its own RAMDAC capable of outputting digital signals directly from the framebuffers, and the true digital HDMI output to feature on there.
Doesn't DAC mean Digital to Analog Converter :P

[cybermans]

Yup

Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter (RAMDAC) – RAMDACs are chips found on graphics cards that convert the digital signal received from the graphics processing unit (GPU) to an analog signal to be sent to the monitor. Digital displays can receive the unconverted signal from graphics cards capable of digital video output (via the DVI connector), and therefore do not require the additional processing provided by the RAMDAC.
source:http://www.geeks.com/techtips/2005/techtips-16JUN05.htm

but I think curry means is a digital video transmitter or something :P

[Curry]

Doesn't DAC mean Digital to Analog Converter :P
Yes it does ;) With RAMDAC I meant in general the chip that converts the Digital framebuffers to an output signal, and indeed in this case it wouldn't be a DAC :P

[mace1337]

Yes it does ;) With RAMDAC I meant in general the chip that converts the Digital framebuffers to an output signal, and indeed in this case it wouldn't be a DAC :P

Just the RAM then eh? :P

Hey, xbox360 has RAM, this means it will do HDMI after all!! :+

[Curry]

A framebuffer isn't necessarily in an output-ready format, even though both are digital :) Framebuffers might be 8-bit palettized, or 32-bit with alpha decoding, or 16-bit in 5-6-5 layout, or 5-5-5-1 layout. The output has to be uniform according to the signal specification, so a conversion step is often required anyway.

[mace1337]

A framebuffer isn't necessarily in an output-ready format, even though both are digital :) Framebuffers might be 8-bit palettized, or 32-bit with alpha decoding, or 16-bit in 5-6-5 layout, or 5-5-5-1 layout. The output has to be uniform according to the signal specification, so a conversion step is often required anyway.

Interesting, however, I was joking (hence the :+)

You need TDMS transceivers anyway.

[Curry]

I caught the joke but expected you'd find it interesting nonetheless ;)

[Ponder416]

interesting indeed, I feel much smarter now by reading this thread!

[ONI 23]

I, however feel dumber!? :(

[McGrude]

I, however feel dumber!? :(

That's because, atleast in quantum mechanics, information can be negative. That is if I tell you negative information you'll know less than you did before.

http://www.physorg.com/news5621.html

[Curry]

8)7

[Emily]

I, however feel dumber!? :(

I'm lost too, i stopped reading many posts ago :(

I say, as long as i can play Tomb Raider (which i can't since Chris lost it), does the technical mumbo jumbo really matter all that much?

[Aift]

Yes, Emily!

The technical stuff does matter. People like me want the best experience and clearity in there videogames. I didn't spend $560.00 on a new HD-TV for nothing, you know. I mean,if someone has a TV set that has a HDMI output; why wouldn't they want to get what ther paid for? Right?

[Chris]

Sauce.

[Curry]

Yes, Emily!

The technical stuff does matter. People like me want the best experience and clearity in there videogames. I didn't spend $560.00 on a new HD-TV for nothing, you know. I mean,if someone has a TV set that has a HDMI output; why wouldn't they want to get what ther paid for? Right? I've yet to see a TV set with an HDMI output.

[Aift]

I've yet to see a TV set with an HDMI output.

Dude.

Stop. You're humor isn't funny. Stop being a jerk. People you wrong wording all of the time, so get used to it. I am not perfect, you aren't either. So stop correcting people, and trying to put senseless humor into it.

[Curry]

It's 2:51, I've had a few beers mmmkay, can't expect too much of me at this hour cept correcting a slight mistake alright? ;)

[McGrude]

I've yet to see a TV set with an HDMI output.

LOL. Good one Curry. I noticed that too but declined to call him on it. I knew what he meant.

[Emily]

Dude.

Stop. You're humor isn't funny. Stop being a jerk. People you wrong wording all of the time, so get used to it. I am not perfect, you aren't either. So stop correcting people, and trying to put senseless humor into it.

Sensitive much?

[McGrude]

Sensitive much?

No doubt. This might erupt into a flame war if we aren't careful!

8)7

[E2K]

noobs! :d
hdmi CAN output, it can send programming data to your recorder its called nextview on scart, hdmi is similar.

[Aift]

Thx for backing me up E2K!

[Curry]

The fact that is supports a single channel capable of bidirectional serial communication doesn't make it an output yet but okay ;)

[E2K]

haha, sorry :D

"I've yet to see a TV set with an HDMI output"

I read it wrong, i read 'output' as a verb :P

But output as in "HDMI input" Curry was right... :)
That didn't amke a lot of sence but you get the idea :)

[mace1337]

Curry is fucking ants as usual :P

(dutch expression, he'll understand)

[Curry]

Curry is fucking ants as usual :P

(dutch expression, he'll understand)
As I searched images.google.com for a good picture to support my opinion of "mierenneuken" I found this very fitting image I would like to dedicate to you:
http://files.xboxic.com/crew/curry/yoga.jpg

[Hoffer]

I'm listening to Major Nelson's podcast. He's got an interview with the head of the accessories group. He asked him about HDMI. The guy said that currently, you can get full resolution from component. He said that they are looking at it, but have nothing to announce.

I took this as that there won't be an HDMI cable. HD DVD won't currently use the down resezing flag. So, an HDMI cable isn't needed until that happens.

I'm curious, HD DVD disks have 1080p, but scales it down to whatever is needed. I wonder if the 360 will be able to output 1080p from HD DVDs?

[mace1337]

I'm listening to Major Nelson's podcast. He's got an interview with the head of the accessories group. He asked him about HDMI. The guy said that currently, you can get full resolution from component. He said that they are looking at it, but have nothing to announce.

I took this as that there won't be an HDMI cable. HD DVD won't currently use the down resezing flag. So, an HDMI cable isn't needed until that happens.

I'm curious, HD DVD disks have 1080p, but scales it down to whatever is needed. I wonder if the 360 will be able to output 1080p from HD DVDs?

I'm guessing not, because it's maximum resolution is 1080i

@curry: just one thing to say: 8)7