HD-DVD Pushing Xbox360 Hardware
According to Microsoft employee Shaheen Gandhi, the software powering the HD-DVD video and audio decoding pushes the Xbox360 hardware to the limits. Since the Xbox360 hardware doesn’t support the sort of technology HD-DVD needs, everything is emulated, as Gandhi explains,
“Other players on the market have specialized chips (called DSPs) that decode things like H.264, MPEG, VC1, DTS, Dolby Digital, and other codecs. Much like how backwards compatibility for Xbox 1 works on Xbox 360, the heavy parts of HD DVD are all done on Xbox 360’s triple-core CPU.”
The software takes up 4,7 million lines of code, and uses all 6 of Xbox360’s hardware threads during HD-DVD playback, only surpassed by Gears of War, during demanding parts of the game. The Xbox360 HD-DVD add-on goes on sale later this year for $199 (£129 in UK/EU), including a copy of Peter Jackson’s King Kong.
Read (MSDN)
November 7th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Ive almost had enough of this crap, almost ALL of this ‘code’ can be found GPLed for Linux, so unless they completely rewrote shakespears works without reading em, there talking absolute bullshit about 4.7 million lines of code. Try 0.1, and a good recompile.
As for stretching it to its limit, decoding MPEGs can be done on a 300mhz Pent 1, so triple core CPU should be able to do this, even at double bandwidth, with raising an eyebrow… I hope these guys dont spout this crap to their bosses…
November 7th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
OH, WTF are we paying more AGAIN in the UK?!?!? Ill leave it till the price lowers.
November 24th, 2006 at 12:25 am
I just bought this bad boy and I am about to hook it up and enjoy the copy of King Kong (HD-DVD of course) that came with it. Once I get it going if anyone has any questions I will be more than happy to answer them. I am really looking forward to seeing just how good movies are on this new and exciting format.