You are wrong to say "The only difference between the VMX and VMX128 is the size of the register file."
VMX128 uses-requires a new and completly incompatible set of instructions to use the new 128 registers and obviousy a new SIMD compiler. Any assembly programmer would consider this a pretty fundamental change. This number or size of registers and instruction set is the most important thing the compiler and programmers see for any compatible series of CPU's it what makes 80386 and 68000 different and it's something which is not hidden. Sure in silicon a X86 and 68K may have exactly the same ALU mabey only the microcode differs, but they are completly incompatible in regards programmer model or compiler. Or in this case a new and strikingly similar programmer model shared by Xenon and Cell.
Changing the number of Registers requires new instructions and new decoder logic AND obviously new silicon - the Register set seen by the compiler or programmer of a CPU is a fundamental element which defines a CPU. Every CPU in existance has an ALU some may be superscalar some may be 16 bit or 32 some have SIMD but what the user or compiler sees are the instructions and registers foremost this is what makes the difference between a Mips an X86 and and a 6502 or an ARM. The 128register set is a new and common feature shared only by these 2 consoles. Changing Number of registers is extremly important since various algorythms will get significant benefit from the register set being optimised even when the ALU is exactly the same the optimum size register set can make all the difference in real world performance. This New common feature is the sort of thing the author is refering to. The Xenon PPC's are significantly different from any other PPC because of VMX128. Anyone who thinks they are just normal PPC with VMX is mistaken - sad to see so many people on slashdot are unaware of how non standard the Xenon PPC's are. The Programmer CPU register set/instruction set model is not copyritable which is how AMD and VIA and Intel all make X86 compatible CPU's,but it is however the most fundamental thing that makes an X86 an X86. And the Cell and Xenon while not 100% programmer model compatible feature the common VMX128 and SPU register files they are like twins mabey not identical ones but they share alot in common.
I am familar with SPU assembly and they share much in common - VMX128 is a completly new language extension to the PPC instructions it's unlike traditional VMX instructions which only supported 32 registers. SPU also has a completly new 32bit word instruction set they both feature 3x128bit SIMD operands with multiple word sizes. Both have new adaptations for multimedia and simulation including 128registers and both share similar silicon the SIMD ALU units have almost identical theoretical performance. PS3's Cell has 7 and Xenon has 3 and the theoretical performance of the chips is directly related to the number of VMX128 or SPU's as these account for the bulk of the theoretical performance. As for the Cells PPC it is typical dual thyperthreaded with standard VMX, in this respect is quite unlike the VMX128 hybrid PPC's used in the Xenon - these Xenon PPC's are a fusion of SPU and traditional PPC technology. The common features they share are clearly a result of idea sharing. What do you expect ! they both come from the same IBM design house. IBM would not want to admit it but the VMX128 is a cut and paste of subset of the SPU. VMX128 is directly coupled to the PPC and replaces VMX,While the SPU implementation is a fully de-coupled superset of VMX128 which no longer requires a coupled PCC to operate !. They may look a little different but when you look close they share alot more in common than people realise.
VMX128 on the Xenon PPC's is brand new and borrows from the design of the SPU's on the Cell these 2 chips are like brothers, they share more than just the same PPC origin they both feature this new type of 128register X 128bit SIMD feature. It's called VMX128 on the Xenon and the basis of the SPU's execution unit on the Cell.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars/4 Read down and yes i am not the only person to notice - the author of this article notices the coincidences about the VMX and the Cell SPU's. Anyone who programmes the Xenon's VMX128 will be plesantly supprised with the Cell SPU's similarity. It's like having 7 or 8 decoupled super VMX128 units instead of just one locally coupled one. !
Note that the PPC on the cell only has VMX. But how odd that Xenon is the only PPC with "VMX128". Where did VMX128 come from all of a sudden and it just so happens to be great for multimedia and gaming ?. No supprise here VMX128 is a cut and paste subset of the SPU functionallity from on the Cell. Sure a full SPU operates decoupled from the PPC which allows 1 PPC to mediate 7 or 8 SPU's and it's local VMX while the Xenon's VMX128 replaces the traditional VMX. VMX128 is a cut and paste of the Cell SPU's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltiVec#VMX128 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_software_development Only two processors in existance have SIMD with a 128register 128bitdesign with multimedia and gaming enhancements they are the X360's Xenon and the PS3's Cell. Need i say more !
You obviously have no idea that Xenon chips PPC's have a completly new VMX128 register set and instructions which is a cut and paste of the SPU's of the Cell. The PPC core is not new at all it's the new VMX128 and the SPU's producing the big gains which allow the Cell to do 175+Mflops or the xenon to do 75Mflops. The VMX128 on the Xenon PPC's is a cut and paste subset of the SPU's design from the Cell!.
Slashdot users read and learn because anyone who fails to understand the following is uninformed >
The SPU's on the Cell and the PPC Altivec unit on the Xenon(X360) are very closely associated never before has IBM done a 128register 128Bit Altivec unit. The 128bit X 128register Altivec VMX128 unit on the Xenon is the best of any CPU it is also an almost perfect subset or cut down version of the Cell's SPU !.
In non braching calculations and assuming no cache misses VMX128 performance is equal to the SPU's performance this is not a coincidence it's a newly shared design feature in both the instruction sets and silicon fab and clearly shows the CPU designers shared alot.
The older VMX is only 32 registers. Only the Xenon PPC cores and Cell's SPU's have this new VMX128 type arrangement with 128 SIMD registers - especially enhanced for multimedia and gaming.
Yes correct the LHC will never work (in our dimesnion) - the story is not a story it's absolutley correct we can only ever continue to exist in the remaining dimensions where the LHC Fails. This is in much the same manner as we can only exist in a universe and on a planet which can evolve complex life like humans.
I think it will gradually come to realisation on the LHC operators that their machine destroys every possible dimesnion in which it operates correctly - this discovery alone is worth the cost of the machine in some ways.
So simple genetically engineer a type of floating giant algae plant similar to some seaweeds that have air nodules to help support them - or water plants which float on the surface of water - only with much bigger gas nodules. they can float like little ballons , soak up sunlight and collect nutrients dispersed from baloon supported fertalizer platforms which drill or scrape up minerals from the hot surface (like ocean based oil platforms)- to terraform the atmosphere.
Commercial business unlike CBC dont have a laws/system/infrastructure in place which could declare you bankrupt, strip you of all your assets, fine or even imprision people who dont pay or try to avoid paying their taxs. I would rather pay as i use than be forced to pay for something which i do not watch.
But since they took the money as tax allready they may as well deliver the product to the maximum number of people who payd for it - i like the idea.
But the comment about ignoring Digital rights Management is simply stupid for a commercial media company if your entire catalogue is stolen you make no income and close down. !
They can compensate for voltage changes using PWM, high/voltage stacks and switching between series/parallel configurations. Regards energy storage some new ultracapacitor technologys offer theoretically higher storage than batterys. If they can attain this capacitors will find a huge number of new high energy applications and displace normal betteries in many current ones. Image mobile phones/ portable power tools/appliances (or other devices) which can recharge in just seconds. Portable tools would be lighter and far more powerfull than battery based ones too.
Manufacturing cost of optical disks is almost directly related to number of layers - single layer is cheapest 2 layer is more 3 layer huge increase - each layer adds greater posibility for defects and longer manufacturing processes etc. Blu-ray is ultimatly cheaper to produce. Also more reliable, greater storage and faster streaming rates.
We know last year toshiba bribed paramount 150-180Million to drop blu-ray and constantly sold their inferior 1080i players at a loss to keep their inferior product alive.
Warner actually said before Xmas they would go with which format sold the most copies. Well over Xmas2008 blu-ray was over 2* more popular - Warner published both formats they decided to go with the most popular one.!
The article does NOT have any mention of payouts to warner from sony at all i think untill there is an actual annocuncemnt from either about a payout this is pure bad loosing tactics propogated from HD-DVD fans.!
HD-DVD fans never supported their own format by buying disks even though they claimed to have the highest number of standalone players. HD-DVD fans killed their own format by not supporting it and then complain about bribery as the cause of warner droping HD-DVD - THEY are the ones who killed their own format NOT warner bros !.
Paramounts HD-DVD's constantly undersold and many made losses - even the best selling HD-DVD transformers movie was outsold by many less popular movies on blu-ray.
Warner own patents on certain blu-ray technologies. HD-DVD fans should have been thankfull that warner even published HD-DVD at all as warner had finantial incentive to drop HD-DVD due to their ownership and royalties from their blu-ray patents !.
IMHO Warner has a very even handed and fair play policy in their decision. - Which includes continuing to publish on HD-DVD for another few months (unlike paramount who were bribed and droped Blu-ray immediatly to drag out the format war to mid 2008).
When people decide to get one of those Shiny 50 inch displays they pretty quickly discover there is a very distinct improvement in quality between 1080p and 576p-480p. Paying an extra few hundred dollars for Blu-Ray and HD-TV tuners etc is well worth it after paying $3000 for the display.
Dual format disks cost ALOT more to make the industry would definatly prefer to spend the minimum to manufacture - single layer blu-ray where possible double sided when necessay , and just one HD format to deal with is what is happening.
Also thanks to bit-torrent piracy the Movie industry will be pushing VERY VERY hard for blu-ray since it offers Customers a distinct benefit over pirating Low-bitrate torrents. If nothing is done about bit-torrent piracy i can soon see movies comming out on blu-ray exclusivly to discourage people from ripping DVD's (Yes you can rip blu-ray but only with a huge loss in quality it's like recording a CD to compact cassette) , Pirating is only feasable with low quality rips.
Full 1080p Blu-Ray 25G or 50G is not economically viable to store or stream for most people (I pay $50aud for 4Gig on wireless - 50Gig download would cost over $500aud) even ADSL at around $1 per gigabyte is not economic to stream and store when you can buy a Blu-Ray original package for ~$38aud and the price will be the same as DVD within 12months.
Dont see the point of this each side has a discount at some stage - when Tosiba had it's discounts on players they basically were loosing money or break-even too but HD-DVD complain when blu-ray is discounted they are two faced - well i noticed the HD-DVD camp have shut up about their lead in standalone players because they are either about to or have alreay lost it (you dont brag about a race you are loosing do you )!. With a lead in standalone players plus 9 million PS3 owning customers blu-ray's disk sales are far outpacing hd-dvd. Given the cheapest 40inch 1080P displays are thousands of dollars, the price of the player is insignificant , sony - toshiba , samsung etc make their big $$ of the displays. Saving $100 by buying an obsolete 1080i HD-DVD player is pointless the $2500 display you bought will be wasted - after buying such a nice display if you want to use it get a multiformat player or a blu-ray player and an HD-TV tuner.
I started watching BBC's Planet Earth on blu-ray 1080P the other day it's absolutley stunning photography - i press pause and every frame is like photographic quality worthy of framing. Funny HD-DVD supporters were claiming that Planet Earth on HD-DVD had out sold the blu-ray version - well guess what they are very quite lately because the blu-ray verion is about to take the lead over, HD-DVD camp has another favourite claim to fame is now being owned by blu-ray. The disk format with the highest streaming rate and greatest storage (blu-ray) is the way to go.
Yes there no doubt we will f?*k up this planet in the next 20 or so years so it makes alot of sense to go looking for a new one as soon as practicaby possible.
Long before the first men even got into space or stood on the surface of the moon people were allready aspiring to attacking and exterminating extra terrestrial's (starship troopers, etc), lets keep that dream alive I say.
Also people complain that the money spent on space exploration would be able to feed the starving millions in africa - well what about the possible billions of starving people on other worlds who need our help. ! We need to launch probes and manned missions (star trek style) to find and help them too. Just because they are not from earth does not mean they are any less important, it's so important not to discriminate these days.
The posibilities are staggering - toshibas 4 demos are the tip of an iceberg - how about optical collision avoidance for vehicles, and as mentioned security apps.
I love the idea of the hand gestures for remote control of video will never need to search behind the sofa for the lost remote control again.
Why just be putting this into a laptop though, imageine the benefit of this gesture remote control system for a media player, with a short intro anyone can use it, with a low light camera it would be easier to use gestures than trying to read the inscriptions on the tiny buttons of my current remote in the dark.
The STI Cell is a future technology today - the performance/power/cost ratios of this chip archecture are remarkable.
Also these maimed CELL chips with just 4 SPE's probably cost nothing they are rejects from PS3 and other STI-CELL users who want only premium 7 or 8 SPE CELL chips.
At 1.5Ghz a 4SPU STI cell can do 50Giga Flops using under 10watts so Toshiba can put them and other very advanced functionallity into equipment without adding much to the price, size, weight, heat generation or the power consumption of them.
The 1080p upscaller application is remarkable use of this technology current DVD upscallers are pretty much a joke ( thay just use single frame linear interpolation basically they do very little to improve image quality) , though i think the toshiba upscaller demo is probably a huge step forward, it wont get the full 1080p back but it's trying.
I chose the PS3 because i hoped to see the motion
sensitive controller used to provide a more intuitive and immersive
experience than twiddling a couple of thumbsticks, or trying to use a
mouse keyboard setup.
So far the developers have managed to figure out how to do tilt steering
with the controller this is fun, balancing in some games , and a few sometimes amusing addons in other
games, most of these are simple to implement.
But there is a whole science to understanding the movement signals from
the controllers akin to voice recognition or avionics in aircraft and
the developers dont seem to be able to take full advantage of the posibilities.
This should be a area ripe for exploration, to develop games which are
instantly intuitive and fun to play, using the controler for movement
should be as obvious as recognising your self in a mirror, the player
should instantly recognise how their actions are associated with the
character in a gameworld thus drawing them into the game.
It could be waving around a sword , pointing a pistol,using motion to unbalance an oponent in a fighting game,
pretending to throw objects, pointing the controller the way your character should look,
leaning the controller like it's a bicycle, there are many posibilities of ways to map natural
motion to gameplay in intuitive ways.
The Wii and PS3 motion sensors have considerably greater scope for immersive gameplay than the old thumbstick only games of the past, pitty developers are so slow to realise it - read on if oyu would like to know why i think this is so>>.
The other reason we fail to see better use of motion in games is that the human mind after many years of playing thumbstick based games remaps it's motor cortex from arm movements into thumb movements, unfortunatly hardcore players loose the ability to move their arms properly.
Some find it very difficult to rehabilitate themselves to use their arms again as their brain has to relearn and remap to use their arms. Sadly many developers/reviewers etc within the games industry suffer from thumbstick syndrome. Worse still they fail to realise that unlike themselves most casual gamers are actually very capable with motion sensing.
The result is that they completly fail to understand casual gamers abilitys and cant understand how to make games for them,
I hope to see this change now PS3 and Wii are available. The game industry needs to get people from their target casual gamer market NOT experienced gamers who are suffering from thumbstick syndrome. They then should put in effort to make games for the masses who dont suffer from thumbstick syndrome.
By all means provide options for so thumbstick players can play without motion support, effort should be made to let them enjoy playing in their limited way, but please dont let them hold back the progress of better motion support in games.
Slashdot Mirror
This will be a huge bonus for anyone who is paralysed from the waist up and therefore unable to use their arms. ;-)
You are wrong to say "The only difference between the VMX and VMX128 is the size of the register file."
VMX128 uses-requires a new and completly incompatible set of instructions to use the new 128 registers and obviousy a new SIMD compiler. Any assembly programmer would consider this a pretty fundamental change. This number or size of registers and instruction set is the most important thing the compiler and programmers see for any compatible series of CPU's it what makes 80386 and 68000 different and it's something which is not hidden.
Sure in silicon a X86 and 68K may have exactly the same ALU mabey only the microcode differs, but they are completly incompatible in regards programmer model or compiler. Or in this case a new and strikingly similar programmer model shared by Xenon and Cell.
Changing the number of Registers requires new instructions and new decoder logic AND obviously new silicon - the Register set seen by the compiler or programmer of a CPU is a fundamental element which defines a CPU. Every CPU in existance has an ALU some may be superscalar some may be 16 bit or 32 some have SIMD but what the user or compiler sees are the instructions and registers foremost this is what makes the difference between a Mips an X86 and and a 6502 or an ARM. The 128register set is a new and common feature shared only by these 2 consoles. ,but it is however the most fundamental thing that makes an X86 an X86. And the Cell and Xenon while not 100% programmer model compatible feature the common VMX128 and SPU register files they are like twins mabey not identical ones but they share alot in common.
Changing Number of registers is extremly important since various algorythms will get significant benefit from the register set being optimised even when the ALU is exactly the same the optimum size register set can make all the difference in real world performance.
This New common feature is the sort of thing the author is refering to. The Xenon PPC's are significantly different from any other PPC because of VMX128. Anyone who thinks they are just normal PPC with VMX is mistaken - sad to see so many people on slashdot are unaware of how non standard the Xenon PPC's are.
The Programmer CPU register set/instruction set model is not copyritable which is how AMD and VIA and Intel all make X86 compatible CPU's
I am familar with SPU assembly and they share much in common - VMX128 is a completly new language extension to the PPC instructions it's unlike traditional VMX instructions which only supported 32 registers. SPU also has a completly new 32bit word instruction set they both feature 3x128bit SIMD operands with multiple word sizes. Both have new adaptations for multimedia and simulation including 128registers and both share similar silicon the SIMD ALU units have almost identical theoretical performance. PS3's Cell has 7 and Xenon has 3 and the theoretical performance of the chips is directly related to the number of VMX128 or SPU's as these account for the bulk of the theoretical performance.
As for the Cells PPC it is typical dual thyperthreaded with standard VMX, in this respect is quite unlike the VMX128 hybrid PPC's used in the Xenon - these Xenon PPC's are a fusion of SPU and traditional PPC technology. The common features they share are clearly a result of idea sharing. What do you expect ! they both come from the same IBM design house. IBM would not want to admit it but the VMX128 is a cut and paste of subset of the SPU.
VMX128 is directly coupled to the PPC and replaces VMX,While the SPU implementation is a fully de-coupled superset of VMX128 which no longer requires a coupled PCC to operate !. They may look a little different but when you look close they share alot more in common than people realise.
VMX128 on the Xenon PPC's is brand new and borrows from the design of the SPU's on the Cell these 2 chips are like brothers, they share more than just the same PPC origin they both feature this new type of 128register X 128bit SIMD feature. It's called VMX128 on the Xenon and the basis of the SPU's execution unit on the Cell.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars/4
Read down and yes i am not the only person to notice - the author of this article notices the coincidences about the VMX and the Cell SPU's.
Anyone who programmes the Xenon's VMX128 will be plesantly supprised with the Cell SPU's similarity. It's like having 7 or 8 decoupled super VMX128 units instead of just one locally coupled one. !
Note that the PPC on the cell only has VMX. But how odd that Xenon is the only PPC with "VMX128". Where did VMX128 come from all of a sudden and it just so happens to be great for multimedia and gaming ?. No supprise here VMX128 is a cut and paste subset of the SPU functionallity from on the Cell. Sure a full SPU operates decoupled from the PPC which allows 1 PPC to mediate 7 or 8 SPU's and it's local VMX while the Xenon's VMX128 replaces the traditional VMX. VMX128 is a cut and paste of the Cell SPU's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltiVec#VMX128
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_software_development
Only two processors in existance have SIMD with a 128register 128bitdesign with multimedia and gaming enhancements they are the X360's Xenon and the PS3's Cell. Need i say more !
You obviously have no idea that Xenon chips PPC's have a completly new VMX128 register set and instructions which is a cut and paste of the SPU's of the Cell. The PPC core is not new at all it's the new VMX128 and the SPU's producing the big gains which allow the Cell to do 175+Mflops or the xenon to do 75Mflops. The VMX128 on the Xenon PPC's is a cut and paste subset of the SPU's design from the Cell!.
Slashdot users read and learn because anyone who fails to understand the following is uninformed >
The SPU's on the Cell and the PPC Altivec unit on the Xenon(X360) are very closely associated never before has IBM done a 128register 128Bit Altivec unit. The 128bit X 128register Altivec VMX128 unit on the Xenon is the best of any CPU it is also an almost perfect subset or cut down version of the Cell's SPU !.
In non braching calculations and assuming no cache misses VMX128 performance is equal to the SPU's performance this is not a coincidence it's a newly shared design feature in both the instruction sets and silicon fab and clearly shows the CPU designers shared alot.
The older VMX is only 32 registers. Only the Xenon PPC cores and Cell's SPU's have this new VMX128 type arrangement with 128 SIMD registers - especially enhanced for multimedia and gaming.
Yes correct the LHC will never work (in our dimesnion) - the story is not a story it's absolutley correct we can only ever continue to exist in the remaining dimensions where the LHC Fails. This is in much the same manner as we can only exist in a universe and on a planet which can evolve complex life like humans. I think it will gradually come to realisation on the LHC operators that their machine destroys every possible dimesnion in which it operates correctly - this discovery alone is worth the cost of the machine in some ways.
So simple genetically engineer a type of floating giant algae plant similar to some seaweeds that have air nodules to help support them - or water plants which float on the surface of water - only with much bigger gas nodules. they can float like little ballons , soak up sunlight and collect nutrients dispersed from baloon supported fertalizer platforms which drill or scrape up minerals from the hot surface (like ocean based oil platforms)- to terraform the atmosphere.
Commercial business unlike CBC dont have a laws/system/infrastructure in place which could declare you bankrupt, strip you of all your assets, fine or even imprision people who dont pay or try to avoid paying their taxs. I would rather pay as i use than be forced to pay for something which i do not watch.
But since they took the money as tax allready they may as well deliver the product to the maximum number of people who payd for it - i like the idea.
But the comment about ignoring Digital rights Management is simply stupid for a commercial media company if your entire catalogue is stolen you make no income and close down. !
They can compensate for voltage changes using PWM, high/voltage stacks and switching between series/parallel configurations. Regards energy storage some new ultracapacitor technologys offer theoretically higher storage than batterys.
If they can attain this capacitors will find a huge number of new high energy applications and displace normal betteries in many current ones.
Image mobile phones/ portable power tools/appliances (or other devices) which can recharge in just seconds.
Portable tools would be lighter and far more powerfull than battery based ones too.
Manufacturing cost of optical disks is almost directly related to number of layers - single layer is cheapest 2 layer is more 3 layer huge increase - each layer adds greater posibility for defects and longer manufacturing processes etc. Blu-ray is ultimatly cheaper to produce. Also more reliable, greater storage and faster streaming rates.
We know last year toshiba bribed paramount 150-180Million to drop blu-ray and constantly sold their inferior 1080i players at a loss to keep their inferior product alive.
Warner actually said before Xmas they would go with which format sold the most copies. Well over Xmas2008 blu-ray was over 2* more popular - Warner published both formats they decided to go with the most popular one.!
The article does NOT have any mention of payouts to warner from sony at all i think untill there is an actual annocuncemnt from either about a payout this is pure bad loosing tactics propogated from HD-DVD fans.!
HD-DVD fans never supported their own format by buying disks even though they claimed to have the highest number of standalone players. HD-DVD fans killed their own format by not supporting it and then complain about bribery as the cause of warner droping HD-DVD - THEY are the ones who killed their own format NOT warner bros !.
Paramounts HD-DVD's constantly undersold and many made losses - even the best selling HD-DVD transformers movie was outsold by many less popular movies on blu-ray.
Warner own patents on certain blu-ray technologies. HD-DVD fans should have been thankfull that warner even published HD-DVD at all as warner had finantial incentive to drop HD-DVD due to their ownership and royalties from their blu-ray patents !.
IMHO Warner has a very even handed and fair play policy in their decision. - Which includes continuing to publish on HD-DVD for another few months (unlike paramount who were bribed and droped Blu-ray immediatly to drag out the format war to mid 2008).
When people decide to get one of those Shiny 50 inch displays they pretty quickly discover there is a very distinct improvement in quality between 1080p and 576p-480p.
Paying an extra few hundred dollars for Blu-Ray and HD-TV tuners etc is well worth it after paying $3000 for the display.
Dual format disks cost ALOT more to make the industry would definatly prefer to spend the minimum to manufacture - single layer blu-ray where possible double sided when necessay , and just one HD format to deal with is what is happening.
Also thanks to bit-torrent piracy the Movie industry will be pushing VERY VERY hard for blu-ray since it offers Customers a distinct benefit over pirating Low-bitrate torrents. If nothing is done about bit-torrent piracy i can soon see movies comming out on blu-ray exclusivly to discourage people from ripping DVD's (Yes you can rip blu-ray but only with a huge loss in quality it's like recording a CD to compact cassette) , Pirating is only feasable with low quality rips.
Full 1080p Blu-Ray 25G or 50G is not economically viable to store or stream for most people (I pay $50aud for 4Gig on wireless - 50Gig download would cost over $500aud) even ADSL at around $1 per gigabyte is not economic to stream and store when you can buy a Blu-Ray original package for ~$38aud and the price will be the same as DVD within 12months.
Dont see the point of this each side has a discount at some stage - when Tosiba had it's discounts on players they basically were loosing money or break-even too but HD-DVD complain when blu-ray is discounted they are two faced - well i noticed the HD-DVD camp have shut up about their lead in standalone players because they are either about to or have alreay lost it (you dont brag about a race you are loosing do you )!. With a lead in standalone players plus 9 million PS3 owning customers blu-ray's disk sales are far outpacing hd-dvd.
Given the cheapest 40inch 1080P displays are thousands of dollars, the price of the player is insignificant , sony - toshiba , samsung etc make their big $$ of the displays. Saving $100 by buying an obsolete 1080i HD-DVD player is pointless the $2500 display you bought will be wasted - after buying such a nice display if you want to use it get a multiformat player or a blu-ray player and an HD-TV tuner.
I started watching BBC's Planet Earth on blu-ray 1080P the other day it's absolutley stunning photography - i press pause and every frame is like photographic quality worthy of framing.
Funny HD-DVD supporters were claiming that Planet Earth on HD-DVD had out sold the blu-ray version - well guess what they are very quite lately because the blu-ray verion is about to take the lead over, HD-DVD camp has another favourite claim to fame is now being owned by blu-ray.
The disk format with the highest streaming rate and greatest storage (blu-ray) is the way to go.
Yes there no doubt we will f?*k up this planet in the next 20 or so years so it makes alot of sense to go looking for a new one as soon as practicaby possible. Long before the first men even got into space or stood on the surface of the moon people were allready aspiring to attacking and exterminating extra terrestrial's (starship troopers, etc), lets keep that dream alive I say. Also people complain that the money spent on space exploration would be able to feed the starving millions in africa - well what about the possible billions of starving people on other worlds who need our help. ! We need to launch probes and manned missions (star trek style) to find and help them too. Just because they are not from earth does not mean they are any less important, it's so important not to discriminate these days.
The posibilities are staggering - toshibas 4 demos are the tip of an iceberg - how about optical collision avoidance for vehicles, and as mentioned security apps. I love the idea of the hand gestures for remote control of video will never need to search behind the sofa for the lost remote control again. Why just be putting this into a laptop though, imageine the benefit of this gesture remote control system for a media player, with a short intro anyone can use it, with a low light camera it would be easier to use gestures than trying to read the inscriptions on the tiny buttons of my current remote in the dark. The STI Cell is a future technology today - the performance /power /cost ratios of this chip archecture are remarkable.
Also these maimed CELL chips with just 4 SPE's probably cost nothing they are rejects from PS3 and other STI-CELL users who want only premium 7 or 8 SPE CELL chips.
At 1.5Ghz a 4SPU STI cell can do 50Giga Flops using under 10watts so Toshiba can put them and other very advanced functionallity into equipment without adding much to the price, size, weight, heat generation or the power consumption of them.
The 1080p upscaller application is remarkable use of this technology current DVD upscallers are pretty much a joke ( thay just use single frame linear interpolation basically they do very little to improve image quality) , though i think the toshiba upscaller demo is probably a huge step forward, it wont get the full 1080p back but it's trying.
So far the developers have managed to figure out how to do tilt steering with the controller this is fun, balancing in some games , and a few sometimes amusing addons in other games, most of these are simple to implement.
But there is a whole science to understanding the movement signals from the controllers akin to voice recognition or avionics in aircraft and the developers dont seem to be able to take full advantage of the posibilities. This should be a area ripe for exploration, to develop games which are instantly intuitive and fun to play, using the controler for movement should be as obvious as recognising your self in a mirror, the player should instantly recognise how their actions are associated with the character in a gameworld thus drawing them into the game.
It could be waving around a sword , pointing a pistol ,using motion to unbalance an oponent in a fighting game,
pretending to throw objects, pointing the controller the way your character should look,
leaning the controller like it's a bicycle, there are many posibilities of ways to map natural
motion to gameplay in intuitive ways.
The Wii and PS3 motion sensors have considerably greater scope for immersive gameplay than the old thumbstick only games of the past, pitty developers are so slow to realise it - read on if oyu would like to know why i think this is so>>.
The other reason we fail to see better use of motion in games is that the human mind after many years of playing thumbstick based games remaps it's motor cortex from arm movements into thumb movements, unfortunatly hardcore players loose the ability to move their arms properly.
Some find it very difficult to rehabilitate themselves to use their arms again as their brain has to relearn and remap to use their arms. Sadly many developers/reviewers etc within the games industry suffer from thumbstick syndrome. Worse still they fail to realise that unlike themselves most casual gamers are actually very capable with motion sensing.
The result is that they completly fail to understand casual gamers abilitys and cant understand how to make games for them, I hope to see this change now PS3 and Wii are available. The game industry needs to get people from their target casual gamer market NOT experienced gamers who are suffering from thumbstick syndrome. They then should put in effort to make games for the masses who dont suffer from thumbstick syndrome.
By all means provide options for so thumbstick players can play without motion support, effort should be made to let them enjoy playing in their limited way, but please dont let them hold back the progress of better motion support in games.