"As I understand it, both formats allow "one click" transfers to hard disk drives, distribution through home networks and standard-definition downloads to portable devices."
Your player will have to be connected to the internet to allow for copies, and it's likely you will have to pay for any copy you make, even temporary ones.
I think you are taking chip names a bit too seriously...
You actually thought the Emotion Engine wasn't a CPU??? I guess it would have been cool if Sony had created the Emotion Engine using souls from the recently executed or some other type of dark magic.
"Not wanting a 360 because of all the things Sony claims will be on the PS3 is just silly. We don't know the "Top 10 reasons for a PS3" because we don't know exactly what the PS3 is yet."
We know that the PS3 will be a Hi-Def Disc player(Blu-Ray)
We know it should be at least marginally faster from specs
We know it will play nice with PSPs (handheld integration could be very big now that we have wifi)
What features didn't make it into the PS2?
"The shop where I work paid many times more for each CPU in our servers than the entire 3-cpu xbox retails for... the admins tell me that it's the same cpu...
"
Wow!! must be a slow server...
The 360s CPU is definately not meant for servers. The VMX(Altivec/Vector) units are next to worthless for server; IBM's Power4 and Power5 CPUs don't even have VMX units. The lack of branch prediction and OO execution will make the 360's CPUs rather slow at running pretty much anything that wasn't optimized for them.
I sure hope that's true, but I'm pretty sketical. Sony makes butt loads of cash off the software sales for the PS2 so if Sony actually does give us Linux it's going to have some strings attached. For example, I very much doubt that Sony will give us access to the GPU.
What gives me the most hope for a relatively unencumbered PS3 Linux distro is the Blu-Ray format. All Blu-Ray players will have a Java layer for interactive crud, which should be enough for stupid little games( i.e. Tetris, Puzzle Bobble, Metal Slug ), Sony almost has to concede the the non-3D market.
I'm personally really excited about the BD-J stuff, and the homebrew scene that will grow up around it.
I've had similar experiences: VIA being stable and nVidia being crap.
That said, I don't think the manufactuor of the chipset has as much to do with the mobo manufactuor's experience with the specific chipsets that the mobo is based on. I'm guessing that most VIA K8T900 boards will kick ass since they are pin for pin compatable with the K8T890 which mobo manufactuors have been using for awhile now.
"While people knock them for business practices in the PC field, you have to give them some credit for how far they've come in 4 years."
Umm... they are using their PC monopoly to finance this push into the video game market; not many other companies can lose 4 billion dollars on the first version of a product and call it a "success". To me it looks like Microsoft is trying to extend their monopoly of PCs into consoles.
Re:360 is impressive, has potential, but needs tim
on
Prepping For The 360
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· Score: 0, Troll
I think you are underestimating Microsoft...
They most certainly could operate this generation in the red and they most certainly don't need to innovate. If Microsoft just continues to throw billions into their XBox division then eventaully Sony and Nintendo will go bankrupt. Sony's video game division supplies most of it's profits, and Nintendo is purely a video game company. It's nearly impossible to compete against a state-approved monopoly.
"I'll never buy a video card that only outputs DVI."
You know almost all(like 99.9%) of video cards with DVI ports are DVI-I which includes VGA in the extra pins. I have seen some ancient compaq TNT2s that were DVI-D, but those are were far outside the norm.
DVI-V = no digital signal, just vga rearranged (I've never seen one of these)
DVI-D = only digital, no vga. Generally this is what a monitor's DVI port is
DVI-I = both digital and analog, you can hook this one up to anything(you need an adapter for standard vga) and it's the most common DVI output
HDMI and DVI-D are basically the same thing in a different pinout, however DVI equipment doesn't normally support interlaced modes while HDMI has to. Anyhoo, what "deinterlacing applications" don't work with DVI??
Adding HD to the revolution at a later date should be trivial. Not supporting HD right now takes a lot of preasure off developers and lowers costs all around. I'm betting in about 2-3 years from now we see a HD version of the revolution.
I don't know what the grand-parent was talking about with "3 years ahead" though.
"you might want the $100 20GB memory card instead of the $40 64MB memory card."
True, true... although both are ridiculously expensive, which was the point I was tryng to make.
But, again, I think the Revolution is going to be the best in this area with 512MB of flash standard and SD slots.
"If they can magically produce 3 million in three months, then why not go ahead and delay the release a week or two and not have a shortage, since they're so guaranteed to sell so many?"
M$ has been building up a supply of 360s for several months for the launch, and I'm not covinced there will be a shortage. A $299 console with only 10 mediocre games avaliable for it isn't going to appeal to that many people no matter how much hype there is behind it. The $399 version seems even sillier... just $100 for a big memmory card!!!
"Ok. I wasn't talking about eliminating the physical media option, and Bill wasn't either." [...] "He says this is the 'last physical format' but he doesn't give a timetable for its elimination"
Well, I guess that depends on how you read that quote. I take "Everything's going to be streamed directly or on a hard disk. So, in this way, it's even unclear how much this one counts." as meaning HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are irrelavant.
I'm pretty sure almost all patentable chip designs could be demonstrated purely in software with VHDL. FPGAs are nice for speed and size, but rarely manditory to prove that an idea works.
Can you give an example of any patent that would require one of those mamoth FPGAs? As others have pointed out, you don't patent a "modern CPU", you patent all the non-obvious ideas/tricks you use within it.
"For example, you couldn't patent a better way to do 3D graphic chipsets unless you could actually BUILD that chipset? Effectively, you've narrowed the market down to a small cadre of companies."
If a "little guy" wanted to patent some non-obvious chipset improvement he wouldn't have to build a shipping product, just a prototype of his improved part. A prototype could consist of a computer simulation or FPGA and cost very little, it wouldn't need to run at full speed.
I think we need to move back to a patent system where you actually have to implement what you are patenting. It's really sad that it has gotten to the point where it is less profitable to actually make a product then squat on ideas and ruin those that actaully do.
Slashdot Mirror
"As I understand it, both formats allow "one click" transfers to hard disk drives, distribution through home networks and standard-definition downloads to portable devices."
The "Managed Copy" feature only gaurantees that you will be able to make a copy to send over a network, not that it will be free. Arstechnica explains it pretty well: "all content provided on HD DVD must give users the option of making at least one copy. Jordi Ribas, director of technical strategy for the Windows Digital Media Division, told me that while the feature is mandatory, the studios will have the option of charging for it."
Your player will have to be connected to the internet to allow for copies, and it's likely you will have to pay for any copy you make, even temporary ones.
I think you are taking chip names a bit too seriously...
You actually thought the Emotion Engine wasn't a CPU??? I guess it would have been cool if Sony had created the Emotion Engine using souls from the recently executed or some other type of dark magic.
"Not wanting a 360 because of all the things Sony claims will be on the PS3 is just silly. We don't know the "Top 10 reasons for a PS3" because we don't know exactly what the PS3 is yet."
We know that the PS3 will be a Hi-Def Disc player(Blu-Ray)
We know it should be at least marginally faster from specs
We know it will play nice with PSPs (handheld integration could be very big now that we have wifi)
What features didn't make it into the PS2?
Waiting to buy the 360 makes sense because:
Well, it's still not as bad as Mizuho's error. The aritcle is only off by a factor of 100.
"The shop where I work paid many times more for each CPU in our servers than the entire 3-cpu xbox retails for ... the admins tell me that it's the same cpu...
"
Wow!! must be a slow server...
The 360s CPU is definately not meant for servers. The VMX(Altivec/Vector) units are next to worthless for server; IBM's Power4 and Power5 CPUs don't even have VMX units. The lack of branch prediction and OO execution will make the 360's CPUs rather slow at running pretty much anything that wasn't optimized for them.
"Every PS3 hard drive is shipping with Linux onboard."
I sure hope that's true, but I'm pretty sketical. Sony makes butt loads of cash off the software sales for the PS2 so if Sony actually does give us Linux it's going to have some strings attached. For example, I very much doubt that Sony will give us access to the GPU.
What gives me the most hope for a relatively unencumbered PS3 Linux distro is the Blu-Ray format. All Blu-Ray players will have a Java layer for interactive crud, which should be enough for stupid little games( i.e. Tetris, Puzzle Bobble, Metal Slug ), Sony almost has to concede the the non-3D market.
I'm personally really excited about the BD-J stuff, and the homebrew scene that will grow up around it.
A quick calculation shows that the Cell has BUTT LOADS OF REGISTERS!!!
SPE registers = 8 SPEs * 128 registers * 128 bits
PPE registers = 2 threads * (32 integer + 32 floating pont) registers * 64 bits
PPE VMX-128 registers = 2 threads * 128 registers * 128 bits
Grand total = 21+ Kbytes of registers, not to mention the 2 Mbytes of SRAM on the SPEs.
This thing is going to be a lot of fun!
Well... considering the "problem" is that some people are getting a $400 doorstop I think they had to acknoledge it.
I've had similar experiences: VIA being stable and nVidia being crap.
That said, I don't think the manufactuor of the chipset has as much to do with the mobo manufactuor's experience with the specific chipsets that the mobo is based on. I'm guessing that most VIA K8T900 boards will kick ass since they are pin for pin compatable with the K8T890 which mobo manufactuors have been using for awhile now.
What anti-trist lawsuits in the 80s??
#$%#^.... I hate ACs
"While people knock them for business practices in the PC field, you have to give them some credit for how far they've come in 4 years."
Umm... they are using their PC monopoly to finance this push into the video game market; not many other companies can lose 4 billion dollars on the first version of a product and call it a "success". To me it looks like Microsoft is trying to extend their monopoly of PCs into consoles.
I think you are underestimating Microsoft...
They most certainly could operate this generation in the red and they most certainly don't need to innovate. If Microsoft just continues to throw billions into their XBox division then eventaully Sony and Nintendo will go bankrupt. Sony's video game division supplies most of it's profits, and Nintendo is purely a video game company. It's nearly impossible to compete against a state-approved monopoly.
"I'll never buy a video card that only outputs DVI."
You know almost all(like 99.9%) of video cards with DVI ports are DVI-I which includes VGA in the extra pins. I have seen some ancient compaq TNT2s that were DVI-D, but those are were far outside the norm.
DVI-V = no digital signal, just vga rearranged (I've never seen one of these)
DVI-D = only digital, no vga. Generally this is what a monitor's DVI port is
DVI-I = both digital and analog, you can hook this one up to anything(you need an adapter for standard vga) and it's the most common DVI output
HDMI and DVI-D are basically the same thing in a different pinout, however DVI equipment doesn't normally support interlaced modes while HDMI has to. Anyhoo, what "deinterlacing applications" don't work with DVI??
Adding HD to the revolution at a later date should be trivial. Not supporting HD right now takes a lot of preasure off developers and lowers costs all around. I'm betting in about 2-3 years from now we see a HD version of the revolution.
I don't know what the grand-parent was talking about with "3 years ahead" though.
In the article it sounds like they already requested a redaction, and this is there only course of action left
Sony sold 7.8 million in Q4 2002 and 8.5 million in Q4 2003. I don't know what 2004 was like but I'd bet those numbers were higher with the new slim PS2.
I'd be quite suprised if the 360 outsells the PS2 until after the PS3 comes out.
"you might want the $100 20GB memory card instead of the $40 64MB memory card."
True, true... although both are ridiculously expensive, which was the point I was tryng to make.
But, again, I think the Revolution is going to be the best in this area with 512MB of flash standard and SD slots.
"If they can magically produce 3 million in three months, then why not go ahead and delay the release a week or two and not have a shortage, since they're so guaranteed to sell so many?"
M$ has been building up a supply of 360s for several months for the launch, and I'm not covinced there will be a shortage. A $299 console with only 10 mediocre games avaliable for it isn't going to appeal to that many people no matter how much hype there is behind it. The $399 version seems even sillier... just $100 for a big memmory card!!!
From a long time Apple user .... "HA!!!"
Personally I'd like to see someone buy the UNIX trademark and then donate it to Linus for safe keeping.
"Ok. I wasn't talking about eliminating the physical media option, and Bill wasn't either." [...] "He says this is the 'last physical format' but he doesn't give a timetable for its elimination"
Well, I guess that depends on how you read that quote. I take "Everything's going to be streamed directly or on a hard disk. So, in this way, it's even unclear how much this one counts." as meaning HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are irrelavant.
You go on to say "It makes sense to argue for as much flexibility as possible. I think we are in agreement on that.". Have you looked at what the "mandatory managed copy" crap Intel and MS have been screaming about actually is? Arstechnica explains it pretty well: "all content provided on HD DVD must give users the option of making at least one copy. Jordi Ribas, director of technical strategy for the Windows Digital Media Division, told me that while the feature is mandatory, the studios will have the option of charging for it." HD-DVD's managed copy feature is implemented via AACS(the new CSS) which both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are using. The mandatory part doesn't really help if studios can sharge whatever they want for a copy, and Blu-Ray will almost certainly support managed coppies.
Well, that really blows...
thanks
"If I cared about streaming video all over the house, I probably would have looked at getting my fingernails dirty with MythTV on Linux"
Actaully Elgato also sells Eye Home which lets you stream all the video you collect with the EyeTV to your TV. It is a very elegant solution.
I'm pretty sure almost all patentable chip designs could be demonstrated purely in software with VHDL. FPGAs are nice for speed and size, but rarely manditory to prove that an idea works.
Can you give an example of any patent that would require one of those mamoth FPGAs? As others have pointed out, you don't patent a "modern CPU", you patent all the non-obvious ideas/tricks you use within it.
"For example, you couldn't patent a better way to do 3D graphic chipsets unless you could actually BUILD that chipset?
Effectively, you've narrowed the market down to a small cadre of companies."
If a "little guy" wanted to patent some non-obvious chipset improvement he wouldn't have to build a shipping product, just a prototype of his improved part. A prototype could consist of a computer simulation or FPGA and cost very little, it wouldn't need to run at full speed.
I think we need to move back to a patent system where you actually have to implement what you are patenting. It's really sad that it has gotten to the point where it is less profitable to actually make a product then squat on ideas and ruin those that actaully do.