Media Fight - PS3 Blu-ray vs. 360 HD DVD Add-On

An anonymous reader sent a link suggesting we might enjoy High Def Digest's next-gen console media comparison. They take a look at the PlayStation 3's Blu-ray playback capabilities, and compare it to the performance of the Xbox 360's HD DVD add-on. The article offers a number of technical details for the movie, audio, and gaming buff. As you might expect, given the companies involved, both products basically perform their functions very well. From the article: "That doesn't mean both aren't without their drawbacks. The Xbox 360 add-on suffers from a lack of HDMI and analog outputs, though it still delivers excellent results despite those limitations. The PS3, meanwhile, also lacks analog outs, but it does have HDMI 1.3 support and can decode Dolby TrueHD. The lack of 1080 upconversion of 720p sources on the PS3 is a huge issue, though, so unless you have a 1080p-capable HDTV, you may suffer buyer's remorse."

Comments

Re:it's the games, stupid

[macadamia_harold]

That would be an insightful comment, except that it's completely wrong. You can buy the Samsung BDP1000 Blu-Ray player for LESS than a playstation 3 (if you can even get your hands on a playstation 3), and the Samsung outputs at proper 1080p resolution. The playstation 3 does not.

Put simply, anyone interested in blu-ray video content is going to have a player that does the job properly. The PS3 is for games.

Why are we advertising this failed format war...

[plasmacutter]

Look.. the formats are stillborn.

they were announced months ago, and despite being advertised everywhere sales are lack luster to non-existent.

everyone on slashdot got it right.. it didn't offer anything substantially different to dvd.. was much more expensive, and imposes incredibly confusing, draconian, and prohibitively expensive DRM schemes.

heck.. in my local area theyre running ads trying to get people interested by directing them to a website where they explain the rediculously complicated HDTV crap.. (why your component won't play at full 1080 p---probably lying about it too to gloss over the whole DRM point like all the ad nazis do)

Re:it's the games, stupid

[macadamia_harold]

The PS3 may be a "gaming console" to you, but it's also the cheapest [blu-ray] player on the market.

Except that it's not. That's a load of BS. As has already been mentioned, you can get a Samsung BD-P1000 for less than the PS3, and the Samsung actually has 1080p output (the PS3 does not).

The PS3 does 1080p just fine.

[dannycim]

More FUD from the Sony bashers. PS3 does 1080p just fine. What it doesn't do is upscale 720p content up to 1080i if the TV only doesn't do 1080p. So what it does is feed the 720p content directly to the TV to do what it can with it, provided it supports 720p. If it doesn't, the PS3 downscales the content to 480p.

So in order to suffer the downscaling, you need a really crappy HDTV which doesn't support 1080p AND 720p.

Personally, I'd be more frustrated at a lack of HDMI on my HD content player as any moderately decent HDTV support either of those two modes fine.

Re:The PS3 does 1080p just fine.

[InsaneGeek]

So you are cool with paying hundreds of dollars more to only downcovert to the same video resolution as the WII / standard DVD? Only in the past 6-8 months has 1080p come into the price range of most consumers, so the amount of HD TV's in consumers hands that support 1080p are most likely limited to a single digit percentages at this time, so I'd saying any "moderately decent HDTV" will support either of those modes fine is completely insane. The number of TV's that don't do 720p that are in consumers hands today are a much larger percentage than the number of TV's that will accept a 1080p input, so it is a very large concern to a very large number of people.

Re:Hardware Vs Firmware

[prencher]

If you look at the Xbox 360 Component HD AV Cable", you can see they have a special connector at the xbox end of things, it outputs both audio and video.

Wouldn't it be possible for them to make a new cable that has a HDMI or DVI connector on the other end? I would guess that port outputs digital and it's converted in the cable to whatever formats they need. For example the above cable's has a toslink plug for digital audio - it plugs right into the cable's connector, not the xbox.

The other thing that makes me think this is possible is that Todd Holmdahl said in an older interview, that "We're poised to hit the sweet spot of the HD market at launch and as the market matures, and we will provide an HDMI for our customers when it makes sense.".

Re:Hardware Vs Firmware

[prencher]

Here's some more 'evidence', not sure how accurate it is: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/ hdmi-on-a-xbox-360-coming-soon-198495.php

Re:it's the games, stupid

[Kjella]

You can buy the Samsung BDP1000 Blu-Ray player for LESS than a playstation 3

Umm are the prices that far out of whack compared to Norway? Best prices around here (forget the exchange rate, look at the relative prices)

Cheapest PC burner: LG GBW-H10N 4795,-
Playstation 3 (preorder): 5489,-
Cheapest standalone: Samsung BD-P1000 11295,-

All figures from hardware.no, which has all the major webshops covered. So at least around here BD-P1000 is over twice the price of a PS3, not that PS3 will be released here before March. Are you comparing store BD-P1000 prices to eBay PS3 prices or something?

more wrongness

[Ender Ryan]

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=samsung+bd+p10 00&btnG=Search+Froogle

The two models of the PS3 are $500 and $600. $700 - $800 is not less than $600.

Re:more wrongness

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there no taxes in the US?
Here in Quebec it's 14 something %.

I always refused to speak the language of retail sellers with their 599,99 and other bullsh*ts. I always find it funny when people always speak about prices in sellers terms. The price of something is the price you f***ing pay.

So it's not 699,99$ CND it's 810 bucks for christ sake.

My 2 cents (actually 3)

Re:Can someone explain this whole PS3 output busin

[jkf]

Basically, what I want to know is if I get a PS3 for my HDTV capable of 1080i/720p/480p, will it convert 1080p to either 1080i or 720p, or will I be stuck with 480p?

Because your tv does not support 1080p, the PS3 would feed it a 720p picture, and rely on the tv to upscale it to 1080i. If the tv can not do the upscaling to 1080i, then it would display the 720p picture. The 480p problem comes from tvs that can do 1080i, but not 720p.

I have both, let's clear the air

[fahrvergnugen]

Lots of FUD floating around this response thread. I happen to own both a PS3 and an XBox 360 with HD-DVD add-on, along with a television that does them both justice. Here's some facts:

1. The difference in picture and sound quality between HD-DVD / Blu-Ray and DVD is roughly the same as the jump in quality from VHS/LD to DVD. I've run numerous side-by-side comparison tests using the King Kong DVD & HD-DVD, as well as older films like Casablanca and Blazing Saddles. Much depends on the master & source material, but the difference is undeniable.

Now, that might not be enough to save either format. Most people didn't buy DVD for the increased quality, they bought it for the convenience of random access, and the decreased physical size / increased durability of the media vs. VHS tapes. HD-DVD / Blu-Ray don't offer any of these increases over the standard DVD.

2. The formats are almost identical in many key areas. Both play back the same video codecs (MPEG2, VC1, H.264), so when it comes down to it the films available on both formats are often identical. It all comes down to how the source material was mastered. Early blu-ray releases (5th Element) took a lot of knocks because the films are still mastered in the older MPEG2 format. Most newer films are encoded in the nicer Microsoft VC-1 standard, and look absolutely stunning.

3. The Playstation 3 absolutely does 1080p playback for blu-ray movies, when equipped with an HDMI cable. (Get a quality one for http://www.thedvdwars.com/index.cfm for both formats. While $20-35 / movie is too steep for my blood, Netflix carries both, and prices are similar to first-gen DVD.

Pure speculation: Combo players are probably going to show up in '07, and once this blue laser shortage horseshit gets resolved, I'd expect prices to fall by 100% in '07, and the $100 combo player will probably arrive in '08. By '09 or '10 you won't even be able to buy a standard DVD player anymore. By this time it won't matter because they'll have been cracked as thoroughly as DVD before them.

Any other questions, I'll be happy to answer.

Re:I have both, let's clear the air

[fahrvergnugen]

Weird, slashdot ate half my post on submission. Here's the whole thing, in its entirety:

Lots of FUD floating around this response thread. I happen to own both a PS3 and an XBox 360 with HD-DVD add-on, along with a television that does them both justice. Here's some facts:

1. The difference in picture and sound quality between HD-DVD / Blu-Ray and DVD is roughly the same as the jump in quality from VHS/LD to DVD. I've run numerous side-by-side comparison tests using the King Kong DVD & HD-DVD, as well as older films like Casablanca and Blazing Saddles. Much depends on the master & source material, but the difference is undeniable.

Now, that might not be enough to save either format. Most people didn't buy DVD for the increased quality, they bought it for the convenience of random access, and the decreased physical size / increased durability of the media vs. VHS tapes. HD-DVD / Blu-Ray don't offer any of these increases over the standard DVD.

2. The formats are almost identical in many key areas. Both play back the same video codecs (MPEG2, VC1, H.264), so when it comes down to it the films available on both formats are often identical. It all comes down to how the source material was mastered. Early blu-ray releases (5th Element) took a lot of knocks because the films are still mastered in the older MPEG2 format. Most newer films are encoded in the nicer Microsoft VC-1 standard, and look absolutely stunning.

3. The Playstation 3 absolutely does 1080p playback for blu-ray movies, when equipped with an HDMI cable. (Get a quality one for less than $10 at monoprice.com.) The XBox 360 absolutely does 1080p playback over component or VGA. Most HDTV's don't support 1080p over component or VGA (even my 2006 model Sony doesn't). Sadly, since the HDMI folks demand that all HDMI connectors be HDMI-only, and they disallow meta-connectors like the one on the 360, it seems unlikely that there will ever be an XBox 360 HDMI connector.

4. Some older HDTV's only do 1080i or 480p, and won't process signals in 720p up to 1080i. The hoohah is because the Playstation 3 also won't process 720p signals up to 1080i, but instead will downprocess these signals to 480p. Sony's already stated that they're working on a fix for this that will be pushed down via mandatory firmware update in the near future.

5. The newer audio formats, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD, are decoded at the player and then sent to the receiver for playback. The lack of analog outputs means that these decoded formats can't be sent from a ps3 or a 360 to an older receiver. With a newer receiver, the PS3 can send these audio formats out via HDMI. The lack of HDMI outputs from the 360 means that these decoded formats can't be sent out from that system at all. That's too bad, because the difference in sound quality is pretty nice, and a definite upgrade over existing DTS / Dolby Digital. However, the 360 does downconvert these new signals to the highest bitrate of Dolby Digital possible (640K). There's an improvement over the sound quality of a DVD here, but not a big enough one you'd notice without listening to A/B comparisons.

6. The 360 HD-DVD drive has nothing to do with gaming. It's for movie playback only. It's also a terrific value. For $200 ($160 with a sneaky coupon last month), you get a $35 remote, a $35 movie, and an external USB2 drive that's recognized by both macs and PCs as well as an XBox 360. This thing has been flying off the shelves since it was released. Since the major argument against using a game console as your primary playback device is that you're putting undue wear on the system's drive, this means that I can now use the 360 as my primary DVD / HD-DVD playback device. That's great, because the 360 is a fantastic DVD player.

7. The formats are far from stillborn. Around 100 titles have been released for each format in the first year. Amazon sales data is tracked at http://www.thedvdwars.com/inde

Re:Add-on peripherals (like drives) to consoles...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate it when people compare the 32x and the Sega CD addon to ANYTHING.

Did microsoft develop the HD-DVD drive in secret until the very last possible moment? Sega did and that's why Sega CD, 32x, and Saturn failed horribly.

Are they making games soley for the HD-DVD addon? Those attachment's games (Sega CD, 32x) were mostly shovelware, not a new standard in general media.

Are they coming out with a next generation system any time soon to kill the 360 off? The 32x was doomed the moment it came out because the Saturn was released in the same month. IN each and every case of a company trying to release an addon, it's meant to extend the life of the dying system. This is exactly why the HD-DVD drive is seperate from any of these examples. It's meant to keep up with the technology, not reinvent the console.

Re:Why are we advertising this failed format war..

[DECS]

Remember that in "HD vs not HD," resolution isn't the only factor in video quality.

Anyone can release a good DVD or a really bad DVD of the same content. It's not a difference of resolution, but in compression and other factors. Cable and satellite feeds that are Standard Def are commonly compressed to the point of being blocky, just so they can force as many channels as possible through the pipe. They might be the same nominal resolution as DVD, but that doesn't mean they deliver the same (or the potential) video quality of that resolution.

HD obviously has higher potential quality, but a poorly mastered Blu-ray could easily be no better than DVD; consider the source quality and the technical expertise dedicated to it (shovelware) as potential factors.

Since broadcast is heavily compressed, the low-end of Standard Def programming can approach VHS quality. Since those same opperators want to sell HD, they can make the difference look far more dramatically different by providing decent HD and poor SD feeds. Conversely, until there is a huge demand for BR or HD-DVD, they won't necessarily offer some huge leap in quality over DVD, particularly since the majority of TV watchers don't have high end HD capacity anyway.

The market also has a reputation for settling on "good enough." Standards fixated on overshooting good enough have a long history of going nowhere.

BetaMax was technically and mechanically superior in certain ways to VHS.
LaserDisc was clearly and obviously superior to VHS.
CD offered outstandingly superior sound over cassette tape, but didn't catch on for many years (82-89)
SACD, DVD audio, and DAT offered various advantages that were overwhelmed by excessive DRM and a general disinterest in the high end.

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