[bromgeksan]

Err. WTF? The HD-DVD has been demoed live and whilst the 360 reaches the Dashboard based on it have been seen by everyone who it's as loud. Don't be considered a douche and link to The Inquirer's meaning of a blog post, only link to the blog post... http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archi...gence-day.aspx What requires 4.7 million lines of code, companion groups from throughout Microsoft, and huge amount of money to produce? The Xbox 360 Console system software? No. This really is only the HD DVD player. The Xbox system group (us) is experiencing its introduction time by late; we've been hard at the office for yesteryear 8 weeks directly getting the drop program upgrade to fruition. I've not really published since August. Daryl's already reviewed lots of the functions and changes which are in this discharge. I've personally been working on the Xbox 360 Console HD DVD participant (which, incidentally, reached the number 1 most useful supplier position on Amazon.com's game titles class) and I thought I'd review a few of the technical issues it requires to provide HD DVD to industry. There's a notion that HD DVD is simply DVD with HD information, but it's obvious that HD DVD is really a different animal entirely, when you look at things more carefully. When Microsoft as a business put its recommendation behind the conventional, the Xbox system group became seriously interested in HD DVD this past year. The Xbox 360 Console HD DVD Player, for the absolute most part, is definitely an completely pc software based implementation. Other people available on the market have specific chips (named DSPs) that decode such things as H.264, MPEG, VC1, DTS, Dolby Digital, and other codecs. Similar to how backwards compatibility for Xbox 1 works on Xbox 360, the large areas of HD DVD are completed on Xbox 360's triple-core CPU. If DVD is definitely an audio/video pipe with some navigation information (visit the selection, begin enjoying, etc.), HD DVD can be viewed as a environment where audio/video play is simply one main function. Therefore let's break up that 4.7 million lines of code. I actually do not need the figures for each element, but each of those is just a very substantial chunk: * Video Codecs: H.264, MPEG-2, VC1 * Audio Codecs: Dolby Digital+, DTS, TrueHD, LPCM, MPEG * HDi: The HD DVD runtime engine. * GDI: Drawing things like selections * AACS: Cryptography/DRM material * MF: Audio/Video pipe That's lots of material. A few of the acronyms may possibly not be identifiable. GDI may be the Graphics Device Interface, that has been a pillar of the Windows operating-system for several years, giving services to attract material on displays. MF is Media Foundation - a platform for audio/video pipelines which was being constructed for Windows Vista. The Windows groups responsible for the above mentioned elements all pitched directly into make sure they are work on Xbox 360 Console while continuing to work on other Windows tasks (Vista, CE, etc.) - a significant job. Prior to the Xbox 360 Console HD DVD Player had been constructed lots of the codecs endured in signal at Microsoft. Nevertheless, it was all rule that was enhanced for PC systems (windows/x86) and not Xbox 360's PPC primary. That meant carrying out a large amount of marketing. In this respect, the Xbox 360 Console execution of H.264 can be viewed as a glorious success. With this computationally costly codec, a hybrid method was taken. Since GPUs are extremely proficient at parallelized workloads, stuff that might be parallelized is calculated there, as the stuff that can't is better suitable for the CPU and is performed there. Unlike DVD, where common players move the audio information from the disk to your recipient, HD DVD requires that players blend looks from such and selections in with the audio being performed for the film. The 360 participant software then directs that to your recipient, blends something that must get together, re-encodes it into Dolby Digital and decodes all of the over codecs in software. Therefore, don't be surprised whenever your recipient however says "Dolby Digital" even although you have chosen DTS in the selections. All 6 of Xbox 360's equipment posts are hard at the office while enjoying back an HD DVD. Right now, Xbox is pushed by the player software 360 harder than every other (save your self, possibly, Gears of War throughout some especially active areas of the overall game). If I'd have known just how much work it would be getting the 360 HD DVD Player out this year, I might not have registered last year, however now that I will view HD films, it's difficult to return to crummy previous DVD