Tech innovations for PS3 in March? Stereo-3D? HDMI 1.4?

[koshien]

Latest rumours:
1) hdmi 1.4 will come out next year, between February and May.
2) 3D blu-rays are coming out, with TDV codec.
3) 3D FRIENDLY TVs from Samsung are coming out in January and, compared to 3D-ready TVs, they might be hooked up straight to the game consoles or other devices.
4) Ps3 is going to get technological innovations (and price-cut?) in March!? Stereo-3D firmware? Hdmi 1.4?
Shall we get ready to rumble?

Sources:
1) http://uk.cinenow.com/articles/8847-hdm ... technology
2) http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1779
3) http://www.gamecyte.com/is-your-gaming- ... -part-four
4) http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2008/11/22/ ... o-blowout/

[DmitryKo]

1) hdmi 1.4 will come out next year, between February and May.

The specification version 1.4 may come next year, but will take a couple of years for actual devices to catch up.
Until then (and probably even beyond), checkerboard pattern will continue to be the most relevant stereo transmission protocol for 3DTV devices, thanks for the lack of ANY foresight by HDMI developers.

2) 3D blu-rays are coming out, with TDV codec.

Nice, but are there any Blu-ray Disc player out there that support TDVCodec? And what titles does this Chinese studio plan to release - "People's Liberation Army Military Parade 3D"?

AFAIK, TDVCodec is a (proprietary?) extension of good old MPEG-2, which is not terribly efficient at high resolutions - that's why Sony had to go through all the trouble of developing such a huge and costly storage medium, while HD DVD sticked with H.264 intitally so they could rely on a less capable but much cheaper solution.

I'd rather rely on efforts from established engineering bodies like SMPTE, MPEG/ITU-R, Microsoft and BDA to implement backward-compatible stereo versions of VC-1 and H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) coding streams.

3) 3D FRIENDLY TVs from Samsung are coming out in January and, compared to 3D-ready TVs, they might be hooked up straight to the game consoles or other devices

DDD/TriDef definition of 'friendliness' implies using their proprietary chip in the TV set (which also claims to convert existing 2D video content into stereoscopic 3D in realtime).
http://www.ddd.com/about/Press%20Releas ... 80207.html

Hooking a TV is as simple as connecting two HDMI ports with a cable, but what should have been 'friendly' is the setup proces - that is, connecting shutter glases and emitters, setting resolutions and transmission formats, etc. Suppose you have wireless LCD shutter glasses, a 3D DLP TV with the wonder-chip, and a TDVCodec-enabled Blu-ray player - will a typical customer be able to get it all together in order to watch those beatiful Chinese military parades in 3D? As of now, I guess you'd need an engineering degree to make it work.

4) ps3 is going to get a technological upgrade (and price-cut) in March! Stereo-3D firmware? Hdmi 1.4?

No. The 'technological upgrade' is most probably a transition to 55 or 45 nanometer CMOS manufacturing process - it's what enables the price cuts in the first place.

[koshien]

For points 1-4...we'll see.
Especially, have you read this? http://www.play3-live.com/news-ps3-film ... 35-p2.html... I know Sony hasn't confirmed any of that, and it might have been a marketing move from TDVision... but still...
And TDVcodec is mpeg2... what if Sony is somehow having a deal with TDVision and changing TDVcodec in mpeg4?
In particular, you say "No." to point 4...how can you be so sure? I know Ati has already gone to 55nm process technology and Nvidia is finally catching up... ps3 might take advantage of this with rsx, BUT, if the rumour is true, why such emphasys on "technological innovation"? It's not like Microsoft made such claims when Falcon and Jasper versions of xbox 360 came out...
Also, how do you explain the fact that both Nintendo and Microsoft affirmed stereo-3D technology was nice but didn't like the glasses... what did Sony say about it? Nothing...
How about Ubisoft and Avatar game?
How about game developers talking to Neil about stereo-3D on consoles?
How about Panasonic move to 3D plasma technology? Couldn't they have used some kind of hdmi 1.4 prototype to get the full-hd 3D experience on their plasma tv (if it was full-hd and not checkerbord instead)?
If it's only a slim-ps3 I don't know...it would seem a little bit too early to me... even so, March is very close to hdmi 1.4 release period... why not to put hdmi 1.4 in it and keep being "the most technological machine on the market"? It could actually differentiate from Microsoft and give customers a reason for the higher price of the ps3 system.
Sony has to push hard to win against Microsoft in this game console gen... stereo-3D could be a nice marketing move (I say "marketing move" because there won't actually be so many 3D TVs out there...).
Last, but not least... once 3D movies will have been in theatres, how will we be able to watch them @Home? I mean, I don't think there won't be a real 3D blu-ray for "Avatar"... I know the "Avatar" blu-ray will probably coming out around March 2010, but meanwhile...what's up with "Bolt", "Monsters vs Aliens", "Toy Story 1"...??? Will we have to watch them in anaglyph forever...??? I don't think so.

[BlackShark]

My guess is the next PS3 revision will simply be a "slim and light" type upgrade, just like the PSP, the PS2 and the PS1.
A smaller, cuter, and cheaper PS3 and not much more.

Sony's marketing strategy is to promote it's important stuff years in advance to say "This the hidden power of the PS3, so buy PS3 not X360"
How many times did Sony surprise everybody and kept something amazing secret until the last moment ?

Current gen consoles are perfectly S-3D capable, it's just that it should output interlaced Field Sequencial or Anaglyph, and that developpers must make their games 3D native.

[koshien]

My guess is the next PS3 revision will simply be a "slim and light" type upgrade, just like the PSP, the PS2 and the PS1.
A smaller, cuter, and cheaper PS3 and not much more.

Sony's marketing strategy is to promote it's important stuff years in advance to say "This the hidden power of the PS3, so buy PS3 not X360"
How many times did Sony surprise everybody and kept something amazing secret until the last moment ?

Current gen consoles are perfectly S-3D capable, it's just that it should output interlaced Field Sequencial or Anaglyph, and that developpers must make their games 3D native.

Maybe they' ve learned the lesson with Home...
Also, it would have been weird to publicize in big advance something that is going to be compatible with few TVs...
Or maybe they don't want Microsoft to copy... it might be at first "bluray movie-only" stereo 3D... who knows...
I just see too many things going on... I can't explain all this in some other way...there must be something going on

[koshien]

Wow... "Pirates of the Caribbean 4" in stereo 3D... one more reason to be able to have stereo-3D @Home.

http://******.com/3d-movies/pirates-of-t ... es-3-d/310

[DmitryKo]

Current gen consoles are perfectly S-3D capable, it's just that it should output interlaced Field Sequencial or Anaglyph, and that developpers must make their games 3D native.

'Capable' does not equal 'playable'. GeForce 7800 and Radeon X1900 level chips used in current generation of consoles have trouble rendering full 180p60 picture and have to employ tricks like scaling and interlaced rendering.

Anyway, I just don't see Sony and Nvidia making such a major addition to the graphics infrastructure in the middle of the support cycle. Part of the problem is reviously released games will not automatically work in stereo like it happens with Windows games. This is the classical chicken and egg problem of S3D game development - new S3D titles will have to be released, and developers will most likely ignore the feature if it's only usable by 1% of the customer base.

[DmitryKo]

I know Sony hasn't confirmed any of that, and it might have been a marketing move from TDVision...
what if Sony is somehow having a deal with TDVision and changing TDVcodec in mpeg4?

You're just trying to make a guess on a highly technical matter. TDVCodec may be perfectly suitable for stereoscopy, but it's not part of an established coding standard, unlike upcoming MultiView coding extension for H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.

http://www.merl.com/projects/multiview-coding/

In particular, you say "No." to point 4...how can you be so sure?

Brother Ockham whispered it in my ear

if the rumour is true, why such emphasys on "technological innovation"?

Well, Sony does need to cut the price WAY down to match the Wii and Xbox360 Arcade, probably going as far as integrating the CPU with the GPU in one package - just like they did with the late 'slim' PS2.

Also, how do you explain the fact that both Nintendo and Microsoft affirmed stereo-3D technology was nice but didn't like the glasses... what did Sony say about it? Nothing...
How about Ubisoft and Avatar game?
How about game developers talking to Neil about stereo-3D on consoles?

Engineers are always talking about ways of making new technology accessible to their customers. When there is a definitive product announcement, that would be a whole another story.

why not to put hdmi 1.4 in it and keep being "the most technological machine on the market"? It could actually differentiate from Microsoft and give customers a reason for the higher price of the ps3 system.

It's rather 'why bother when there are no 1.4 chipsets and devices on the market'.

I don't think there won't be a real 3D blu-ray for "Avatar"... I know the "Avatar" blu-ray will probably coming out around March 2010, but meanwhile...what's up with "Bolt", "Monsters vs Aliens", "Toy Story 1"...??? Will we have to watch them in anaglyph forever...??? I don't think so.

The home video format is currently being assessed by SMPTE's 3-D Home Entertainment Task Force, however I doubt the effort will result in a consumer distribution format by 2010.

[koshien]

What if Sony knows better than we do? No hdmi 1.4 out there? Sony might be among the first ones to deliver them and we wouldn't know that right now... or at least Samsung , which seems to be ahead of everybody, will have some hdmi 1.4 TVs.
Anyways, there are still people claiming there is no need for hdmi 1.4 since hdmi 1.3 can deliver 1080p at 120 Hz.
In the end you might be right... but there are so many rumours... I' ll keep hoping s-3d going mainstream soon
Nice call that "William of Ockham" thing... damn William!

[CraziFuzzy]

I just wish they'd work on using the existing standards, and just release Blu-Ray discs that had the left and right eyes in separate video streams. Then all it would take for playback on ANY system is the interleaving of these two streams into whatever standard your display uses, and would automatically be backwards compatible with 2d playback as well. (just use one of the streams).

[cybereality]

.. but there are so many rumours... I' ll keep hoping s-3d going mainstream soon

I keep hoping too, but realistically we are looking at it *maybe* happening on PS4, forget PS3. I could see 3D BluRay in the picture but not games for a while.

[martinlandau]

Brother Ockham whispered it in my ear

The stories I could tell you Dmitry about grandpa Rube Goldberg at IBM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_4VZOjKRxA

[DmitryKo]

I just wish they'd work on using the existing standards, and just release Blu-Ray discs that had the left and right eyes in separate video streams.

MultiView Coding extension for H.264/MPEG-4 AVC will allow far more efficient coding of left-right representation than is possible with two independent video streams. BDA just needs to approve the use of this profile when it becomes part of the standard.

http://www.google.com/search?q=h.264+Multi-view+coding


I believe TDVCodec uses a similar approach for MPEG-2 streams, however I haven't heard about any standardization efforts from TDVision.

[koshien]

I keep hoping too, but realistically we are looking at it *maybe* happening on PS4, forget PS3. I could see 3D BluRay in the picture but not games for a while.

This would still be a cool start
So that everybody gets to know about stereo-3D and start to wonder about how cool it would be in videogaming.

I believe TDVCodec uses a similar approach for MPEG-2 streams, however I haven't heard about any standardization efforts from TDVision.

I read in a post on blu-ray.com TDVision is going for a standardization "de facto"... being the first and the best to deliver a technology might make your product a standard... something like Ipod in the music world I guess.

This was the post:

TDVision is pushing to break the vicious cycle that stops the content creators to adopt a 3D encoding format due to the lack of hardware support by:
- Being an active part of the standardization process
- Entering discussions and negotiations with different studios like MagicPlay
- Enabling practically every existing PC for 3D playback with a simple, free download
- Support of all the existing 3D displays out there in the market

The feasibility of updating the PS3 and Blu-ray 2.0 players has been analyzed and validated internally, so technically speaking we can do it immediately if we get clearance to modify the low level firmware. The only thing that is a challenge here are the business agreements, not the technical skills. To "conform" the format for a specific 3D ready display is simply a very basic pixel addressing that can be done with a simple pointer when writing the frame buffer right after the image has been decoded, there's nothing to it. It may seem complicated for somebody that is not expert low level coding but it's extremely simple thing to do when having the right low level programming access.

There are two kinds of standards:
- Written Standard
- Standard de-facto

Most of the standards de-facto, started by being adopted by companies, users and people before there was a written standard. Content is ready, displays are ready and we do not see any reason why this shouldn't happen today. Buy a Blu-ray and download the free software, get any 3D Ready Mitsubishi or Samsung display at Wal-Mart (In case you don't know people are buying it and more than 2 million people have purchased one) and you're ready, why would that be aggravating? In order to see in 3D is clear that you need a 3D-Ready TV. Several manufacturers are working on that like Mitsubishi, Samsung, ViewSonic, and even Sony, and content encoded with our TDVCodec can drive ANY 3D display. It's clear that if you do not buy a 3D TV you won't be able to see in 3D, oh, wait, our Format not only plays back the full HD version in 2D but it can also playback the same Blu-ray disk in 3D anaglyph when using a 2D monitor!... We see the interest not only of one company but many to use our TDVCodec and just so you know, MagicPlay is not the only one, but we can not disclose any names by now.

TDVision has the PC playback ready now. The update for some existing Blu-ray players is 100% feasible, is in our roadmap and it's going to happen within the near future.
The frames per second and the refresh rates are two different things, the content is encoded at 24fps for each eye and the display is refreshing at 120Hz or 60Hz per eye, there's no flickering, have you ever tried one?, we would like to invite you to our demo room to see it working, we have it running on an off-the-shelf Laptop connected to an off-the-shelf Samsung TV we got at Fry's with off-the-shelf online acquired shutter glasses with our free download on it. Works, doesn't flicker, great 3D.

The number of Blu-ray units is increasing every day, the PCs shipped with Blu-ray players is almost mandatory now so this is only going to allow more users to be capable to watch 3D content with a simple free download.

When more and more content is encoded with our system, and as we have been able to prove so far, the benefit for the user of having the freedom of choice to drive any 3D display without adding or having to pay for any additional hardware is clear and has been demonstrated in several shows by now where thousands have been able to see it working.

Our mission is to provide the users with the best 3D experience while providing full compatibility with existing 2D infrastructures. We are ready now.

Regards,

TDVision's CTO

[DmitryKo]

I read in a post on blu-ray.com TDVision is going for a standardization "de facto"... being the first and the best to deliver a technology might make your product a standard... something like Ipod in the music world I guess.

IMHO, standardization "de facto" is not a standardization at all.

The market has learned by now that closed proprietary data formats are not in the best interests of both manufacturers and consumers, so being open and free is a major incentive for implementation. Letting dozens incompatible formats compete "in the wild" is just not productive anymore.

The iPod uses industry standard (and patent free) MPEG-4 AAC compression. Even before the iPod craze, many Asian companies were able to capitalize on audio players supporting MPEG Audio Layer III, also known as MP3 (though it's not patent-free). OTOH, Sony's proprietary ATRAC and Microsoft proprietary (though licensed) Windows Media Audio did not quite catch up, as well as open source (but non industry-standard) OGG Vorbis.


To me, it looks like TDVision is a small niche company and has no patents on their own, they are trying to capitalize on individual licensing contracts - and are unwilling to submit the technology to an open standards body because it will open a way for a free re-implementation.