Blu-Gay: Read or die in squallor!!!!!!

[Trippy]

I still don't know what the 2004 is for though.

Wolf asked the same question above. The companies listed above without the "2004/2005" have fiscal years that match the calendar year. The ones that do have the 2004/2005 are typically April 2004 through March 2005 or thereabouts. So EA's fiscal year 2005 included Christmas 2005 but Square Enix's fiscal year 2005 had Christmas 2004. That can make comparing fiscal years among different publishers difficult since the Christmas's shopping seasons aren't always the same. Hence the reason why I made the notation, but obviously I should've just left it off since I just confused everybody.

[Roac]

Here are some numbers (all US$) for 2005 revenue:

EA - $3.1 billion
Activision - $1.41 billion
Ubisoft - $795 million (2004/2005)
VU Games - $775 million
THQ - $757 million (2004/2005)
Square Enix - $686 million (2004/2005)

Microsoft doesn't break out Microsoft Game Studios revenue but they did make $300 million just on Halo 2 alone in 2005.

Just for reference, EA already bought 20% of Ubi.

[Pococurante]

My 8-Track of Peter Frampton Alive agrees with you.

I have an 8-track of Queen's News of the World sitting in a box somewhere.

Silly personages.  The entire pleasure of the eight track are the shiny parade trailers a cassette creates when tossed from the car at highway speed.  They also are for picking up late middle-aged bar hags for a quick drive around the block in the El Camino.

[Azazel]

Something else that more recent reading has turned up is that Codemasters are no longer the hardworking little studio that turns out good product. I was too distracted by enjoying Heroes of the Pacific to realise that they're also hosting many subpar MMOs in the UK and blowing smoke out of their arseholes about LotR-Online and so forth.

[Litigator]

Somewhere, a long time ago, I read an article about revolving formats, and how it was planned to have everyone re-buy their media every 10-15 years.  This was to ensure some sort of self-fueling profit cycle or some nonesene.  I laughed at the time, but I begin to wonder.

As far as straight audio or video, human senses really don't need anything more precise than the current cd/dvd technology provides. Despite what faggy audio/videophiles say, human senses barely take advantage of what's provided by those. No human can detect the .0000005 difference in the treble levels you'd get from a new, bigger technology.  Until we get holoprojectors or whatever, DVD's are fine. Where new technology is handy is storage. Right now I have about 3tb of external hard drives on my desk. I'd much prefer that all on 2 hdv disks. Or even better, a 40tb internal drive. Or whatever the hell.

Blasphemer!

You should notice a difference between HD and standard-def video (or at least you should, if your cable company doesn't compress the everliving fuck out of all its digital channels like our local crapheads do.)

Some people don't "see" it immediately; it takes a while to click.  Case in point with the upgrade from VHS to DVD:  I bought one of those $500 (well, $450) DVD players.  I'm a video producer, the difference in image quality was blatantly obvious to me, but the wife got pissed that I would throw money away on something like that when VHS was perfectly fine and she "couldn't tell the difference."  Bitched about it for days. 

A few weeks later the optical head malfunctioned, and I got home and she surprised me by demanding I take the DVD player back and get it repaired IMMEDIATELY because after becoming accustomed to it, she'd discovered she could not stand to watch the VHS any more. 

I believe broadcast/standard cable is 4x3, 240 lines, and DVD has 16x9 in 480 (and is widescreen). Additionally, most HDTVs convert the image up to their native resolution. HD discs will display 720 lines.

I've compared DVD to HD video on my HDTV. The HD image is a little crisper, but it's not nearly as huge a difference as VHS to DVD. I think this is going to be a device that does not offer a sufficiently compelling improvement to justify an upgrade for the vast majority of consumers. Like Laserdisc.

[Murgos]

I've compared DVD to HD video on my HDTV. The HD image is a little crisper, but it's not nearly as huge a difference as VHS to DVD. I think this is going to be a device that does not offer a sufficiently compelling improvement to justify an upgrade for the vast majority of consumers. Like Laserdisc.

Yeah, that's the common opinion among people who have thought about it.  Which is a big reason why Blu-Ray is the predicted winner of this battle even though only the first shots have been fired.

PS-3.

There is no reason to upgrade except that it will be included into several million homes by the end of the year anyway.

[Sky]

That's what I'm sayin'.

[Trippy]

I believe broadcast/standard cable is 4x3, 240 lines, and DVD has 16x9 in 480 (and is widescreen). Additionally, most HDTVs convert the image up to their native resolution. HD discs will display 720 lines.

I've compared DVD to HD video on my HDTV. The HD image is a little crisper, but it's not nearly as huge a difference as VHS to DVD. I think this is going to be a device that does not offer a sufficiently compelling improvement to justify an upgrade for the vast majority of consumers. Like Laserdisc.

NTSC is 702 x 480 interlaced (4:3 aspect ratio with non-square pixels, 640 x 480 is the square pixel resolution). NTSC DVD is 720 x 480 for either 4:3 or 16:9 and is either interlaced or progressive. HD DVDs (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) support at least 1080i (1920 x 1080 interlaced) with Blu-Ray also supporting 1080p (p for progressive) which is why people consider Blu-ray more "future proof".

[schild]

Native resolution on widescreen dvds is actually 852x480. This includes everything from 16:9 to 2.35:1. The black space counts.

Edit: On second thought, technically speaking, I may be wrong. I've "authored" DVDs in the past and remember every single one being a variant of 852x480, but I also remember it actually recording at 720x480 despite my wishes.

[Polysorbate80]

I believe broadcast/standard cable is 4x3, 240 lines, and DVD has 16x9 in 480 (and is widescreen). Additionally, most HDTVs convert the image up to their native resolution. HD discs will display 720 lines.

I've compared DVD to HD video on my HDTV. The HD image is a little crisper, but it's not nearly as huge a difference as VHS to DVD. I think this is going to be a device that does not offer a sufficiently compelling improvement to justify an upgrade for the vast majority of consumers. Like Laserdisc.

NTSC:  4:3, interlaced, 486 viewable vertical lines of resolution.  There's actually 525 lines in the signal, but the remainder of the vertical interval is used for other purposes such as carrying caption information.  Unless you're using a widescreen monitor and/or a progressive-scan DVD player, that's what a DVD delivers to you; the entire difference in picture quality is use of digital media vs. an analog tape signal (and not a very good one, in the case of VHS) and the use of better connectors on most DVD players (component vs. composite).

DVDs *are* capable of delivering a higher-quality anamorphic widescreen signal, if you have a TV/monitor capable of handling it.  The short description is, it's encoded to use the full 525 lines of vertical resolution for actual video image (extra lines are discarded when the signal's shown on a standard-def monitor).  So, it's already kind a middle-ground between NTSC and HDTV; if you're used to watching images in that mode, then upgrading to HDTV does show less of a difference than you would have between regular old broadcast NTSC and HDTV.  It's still there, but without having a side-by-side comparison it may not be immediately noticeable.  Get used to it, though, and you'll notice it if you switch back.

That assumes, of course, that your cable doesn't do what ours does; they look to be applying some heavy, heavy MPEG compression at too low a bitrate, it's chock-full of artifacts.  Comes from trying to squeeze in hundreds of channels that nobody wants to watch anyways.  Drives me nuts, but a lot of people don't seem to notice.  Then again, these are a lot of the same people who can't figure out how to set their HDTVs so it doesn't horribly distort the non-HD channels.

Is Blu-Ray 1080 compatible?  I'm too lazy to check, but if so, I'm all for it.

[Trippy]

[DVDs *are* capable of delivering a higher-quality anamorphic widescreen signal, if you have a TV/monitor capable of handling it.  The short description is, it's encoded to use the full 525 lines of vertical resolution for actual video image (extra lines are discarded when the signal's shown on a standard-def monitor).

No, there are not. There are only 480 lines of vertical resolution on a standard NTSC DVD (MPEG-2) encoded frame:

http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/DVD/Book_B/Video.html

So, it's already kind a middle-ground between NTSC and HDTV; if you're used to watching images in that mode, then upgrading to HDTV does show less of a difference than you would have between regular old broadcast NTSC and HDTV.  It's still there, but without having a side-by-side comparison it may not be immediately noticeable.  Get used to it, though, and you'll notice it if you switch back.

I think you are getting confused between progressive scan DVD players and encoded material and interlaced material. 480p is often referred to as "EDTV" or Enhanced Definition TV but that's not a true HD standard.

Is Blu-Ray 1080 compatible?  I'm too lazy to check, but if so, I'm all for it.

Like I said above Blu-ray supports 1080i and 1080p while HD-DVD only supports up to 1080i.

[Polysorbate80]

Y'know, yer actually right, shame on me...bad broadcaster, bad!  I'm mis-remembering the way various widescreen formats are encoded on DVDs. 

Although, I'm actually still right, just not about the >480 lines on anamorphic video. 

"Anamorphic" widescreen is encoded without the usual letterboxing at the top and bottom you see on a "widescreen" DVD.  If you look at the raw video, it's squashed horizontally.  Ordinarily a "widescreen" image would be both horizontally and vertically expanded to fill a widescreen TV, but the loss of vertical resolution in the encode doesn't look as sharp when it's blown up vertically.  An anamorphic encode allows the widescreen TVs to only need to horizontally expand the image without the vertical stretch, reducing the amount of artifacting from lost lines of resolution and giving a clearer image. 

Of course, to further fuck with things, depending on how "wide" the widescreen was on the original film print (Ben Hur, I'm looking at you...) you may still end up with letterboxing at the top and bottom and/or some amount of pan-and scan, but you still don't suffer the loss of vertical lines the way normal widescreen does. 

If it's shown on a 4:3 set, it downconverts each 4 lines into 3 lines to correct the image (I think that's where my brain got sidetracked)

It makes my brain hurt...This illustration might help some folks

And no, I'm not confusing widescreen or EDTV with HDTV.  They're both still mid-points, in their own separate ways.  With anamorphic, you don't have over 480 lines, but you have a wider, more complete segment of the image than an NTSC pan-and-scan and a sharper image than a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD.  With 480p, you don't technically have higher vertical resolution, but you get it without the interlacing.  It's not HDTV, it's not NTSC , it's somewhere in the middle.

[Strazos]

So, I have to replace my early-80s RCA unit soon?

[Trippy]

No you still have a couple more years.

[bhodi]

Don't forget the fact that 720p is actually better than 1080i for viewing a lot of fast moving stuff like sports games; 1080i may look better, but only if it's still framed pictures; there's actually more video bandwidth in a 720p signal than a 1080i, becuase 1080i is interlaced (the I, get it?) and each frame only updates half the image.

Some newer TVs will stick the frames in a buffer and update them all at the same time so you can't see the jerkiness as much, in effect generate the off frames, but it still doesn't look as good.

As someone who's sensitive to movement (must be all those FPS games) until we get to true 1080p, in my eyes 1080i is essentially a bigger number for a worse picture.

[Trippy]

Don't forget the fact that 720p is actually better than 1080i for viewing a lot of fast moving stuff like sports games; 1080i may look better, but only if it's still framed pictures; there's actually more video bandwidth in a 720p signal than a 1080i, becuase 1080i is interlaced (the I, get it?) and each frame only updates half the image.

No 1080i still uses more bandwidth:

1920 x 1080 * 30 = 62,208,000 (or 1920 x 540 x 60 if you prefer)
1280 x 720 * 60 = 55,296,000

I agree though that 720p is better than 1080i for sports and other fast moving images.

[Polysorbate80]

Ironically, even though there's twice as much raw video data in a progressive image, there's typically a very high correlation between lines of video so it actually encodes quite well for little extra overhead than interlaced video.  So 1080p should take about the same amount of resources as 1080i.

Edit:  i should point out I'm talking progressive vs. interlaced within the same 720 or 1080 framework, not comparing 720p to 1080i here

[bhodi]

Don't forget the fact that 720p is actually better than 1080i for viewing a lot of fast moving stuff like sports games; 1080i may look better, but only if it's still framed pictures; there's actually more video bandwidth in a 720p signal than a 1080i, becuase 1080i is interlaced (the I, get it?) and each frame only updates half the image.

No 1080i still uses more bandwidth:

1920 x 1080 * 30 = 62,208,000 (or 1920 x 540 x 60 if you prefer)
1280 x 720 * 60 = 55,296,000

I agree though that 720p is better than 1080i for sports and other fast moving images.

Oops. I was thinking with current TV compression, how it looks, and got my numbers mixed up. Of course, this is all theoretics, since there isn't any broadcast media that can do 1080p/60.

[Sky]

There's where the PS3 factor comes in. It would be the first viable 1080p product. My pc would choke on 1080p, but it is admittedly a couple years old now. 720p is the sweet spot right now, great place to be.

Some of that PS3 footage at CES was suhweet.

[bhodi]

There's where the PS3 factor comes in. It would be the first viable 1080p product. My pc would choke on 1080p, but it is admittedly a couple years old now. 720p is the sweet spot right now, great place to be.

Some of that PS3 footage at CES was suhweet.

You mean the magical PS3 that doesn't even have any demo models out to developers yet? The one that gets repeatedly pushed back for a variety of reasons? I'll be SHOCKED if it's out by christmas.

[Litigator]

There's where the PS3 factor comes in. It would be the first viable 1080p product. My pc would choke on 1080p, but it is admittedly a couple years old now. 720p is the sweet spot right now, great place to be.

Some of that PS3 footage at CES was suhweet.

Very few monitors even display 1080p.

[Sky]

Sure. Maybe we should stick to 640x480. Many display 1080p today, and in two years, everything outside the walmart special will be 1080p.

[schild]

Errrrr. the majority of the material on the PS3 will be 1080i, not 1080p. It's pretty much gunning for the same resolution as the 360. Sure, eventually we'll see 1080p material when people figure out how to hack the Gibson, but it'll be a while.

[Strazos]

Sure, eventually we'll see 1080p material when people figure out how to hack the Gibson, but it'll be a while.

I better not be the only person who gets that one. Heh.

[Margalis]

This is all rather obvious.

VHS was an analog medium that would duplicate imperfectly and degrade with multiple viewings or copies. DVD is a digital format that does not suffer those problems. *That* is the main differentiator. Not resolution or anything like that.

HD-DVD is just DVD with higher specs, but it's not a fundamentally different animal. DVD was fundamentally different from VHS. Of course you can always do better the jump from HD-DVD is nothing like the jump from VHS to DVD.

[Sky]

Errrrr. the majority of the material on the PS3 will be 1080i, not 1080p. It's pretty much gunning for the same resolution as the 360. Sure, eventually we'll see 1080p material when people figure out how to hack the Gibson, but it'll be a while.

Console lifetime is going to see 1080p more mainstream, though. The PS3 will be the only 1080p console. My supervisor just bought a 1080p set, my next set would be 1080p. And I'm not so sure material on the PS3 will be any set res, you might see a move to a more pc-like selection of resolution depending on your display, as the walmart crowd uses 1080i and the early adopters use 1080p, with the mainstream (heh) using 720p. It's got the capacity to display it is all I'm saying, unlike the others.

From the That's What I Was Saying Dep't.

[Hokers]

Then again, these are a lot of the same people who can't figure out how to set their HDTVs so it doesn't horribly distort the non-HD channels.

At risk of sounding like a noob, but can I have some more info on this.  My regular channels look fine but I have not adjusted anything specifically for this on my TV.

[WindupAtheist]

Today at work someone made reference to Blu-Ray, and I thought of this thread.  I couldn't remember whether the title was really "Blue-Gay" or if I was just making that up in my mind.  It was quite vexing.

[Trippy]

Then again, these are a lot of the same people who can't figure out how to set their HDTVs so it doesn't horribly distort the non-HD channels.

At risk of sounding like a noob, but can I have some more info on this.  My regular channels look fine but I have not adjusted anything specifically for this on my TV.

Here's a basic primer:

http://www.cnet.com/4520-7874_1-5140690-3.html?tag=arw

Also you need to be careful if you go the black bar route since that can cause burn in with various display technologies (flip back two pages in the above link to get more info).

[dusematic]

Today at work someone made reference to Blu-Ray, and I thought of this thread.  I couldn't remember whether the title was really "Blue-Gay" or if I was just making that up in my mind.  It was quite vexing.

This thread has legs.

[WindupAtheist]

Maybe, but it will never be a truly legendary thread.  Needs more Star Wars.

[dusematic]

True, but it served its purpose well in lampooning the "maybe if I camp this penny stock night and day I can figure out a pattern and become rich!" guy.

[WindupAtheist]

Am I missing some regulation or something, or is it really that fast and easy to dupe money IRL?

Lawl.

[Der Helm]

Needs more Star Wars.

Be carefull what you wish for.

[Azazel]