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Cool XBox feature (1 Viewer)

Dean Cooper

Supporting Actor
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Oct 23, 2000
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You guys are getting down right nasty...Try sampling Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber. The most anoying sound in the world. :) To me any thing by Bjork would qualify for this type of thing...
Dean
 

Kelly Scott Rickards

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Jan 26, 2000
Messages
225
quote:
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Imagine hearing one annoying sound over and over and over again. It would be a test of will.
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I don't have to imagine.
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Brad Grenz

Second Unit
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Mar 14, 1999
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295
unless there are RIAA lawyers who don't want anything copied for whatever reason ever whispering in their ear.
I bet this is why you can't plug an Xbox into your hub and just transfer your MP3 collection to the Xbox HD over the network.
It should be noted that this MP3 ripping thing could be done easily on a PS2 with the hard drive as well.
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Brad Grenz
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Camp

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Dec 3, 1999
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Here's a typically horribly written IGN story about this exact topic. It's a story that claims, "Learn all about what the Xbox can do with your music CDs" but fail to even touch on bit rates or explore the WMA possibility or even comment on sound quaility.
But they do have some screen shots of the interface.
At least you don't have to pay for this story.
 

Dave Falasco

Screenwriter
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Oct 2, 2000
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It should be noted that this MP3 ripping thing could be done easily on a PS2 with the hard drive as well.
I never thought of that, but it sounds reasonable. However, I would think there would have to be games that would support these custom soundtracks, and so far I haven't seen any for the PS2? Although maybe there are. Also, since the Sony HD is an add-on, I would imagine that game developers may not want to put a great deal of effort into putting in support for a custom soundtrack. But who knows, if the Sony HD sells well and there is a big demand for this, maybe we will start seeing Sony games with this ability.
Either way, I'm thrilled that this comes out of the box for MS. I loved Tony Hawk 2 for the PSX, but I had to turn the soundtrack off after the 5,000th time I heard "Guerilla Radio"!!
 

AndyVX

Supporting Actor
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Aug 2, 2000
Messages
804
OMG!!! I had absolutly no idea that this was possible on the Xbox. This just seems like such a great feature! Hopefully games will include this kind of feature when the PS2 hard drive comes out also.
One quick question though. Weren't you able to do something similar to this on the PSX also though. I've never actually tried this out, but I read somewhere that it some games, once the level or whatever had loaded up, you could just replace the game CD with an audio CD and it would play the tracks from it. Maybe this is just my imagination talking here, but I honestly seem to remember reading this somewhere a long time ago.
Andrew
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Graeme Clark

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You were able to do a CD Swap with the orginal Ridge Racer because the entire game was able to fit into the memory of the PS1. And you couldn't really make a playlist, it would just play the tracks it was supposed to.
Not many games fit into the memory though.
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[Edited last by Graeme Clark on November 03, 2001 at 03:04 PM]
 

Brad Grenz

Second Unit
Joined
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Messages
295
However, I would think there would have to be games that would support these custom soundtracks, and so far I haven't seen any for the PS2?
Well, games have to support it on the Xbox too. You can't override a game's sound dtrack with your own if the game doesn't give you that option. I don't know any PS2 games that will have this kind of function, though. But with the publicity the Xbox is getting for this feature, it would be easy for Sony to steal the idea and run with it. (Although they might use Atrac3, or whatever file format it is you're forced to use in their portable MP3 players, just as MS my actually use WMA.)
And, hey, you can fit a lot more MP3s on a 40 gig'er than on the Xbox's 8. :)
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Brad Grenz
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Morgan Jolley

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Oct 16, 2000
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Couldn't you just make a custom CD and then run it and turn the volume in the game off? This way, you get to hear the whole song and not just whatever plays until the end of the level.
One thing I like is that games like GT3 allow you to customize which songs play instead of actually making a soundtrack. This way, you control what you hear, sort of.
I hope this feature isn't included in a lot of games. Tony Hawk would be cool, as would Amped, but games like Halo or Munch would just be too weird with different music. I also couldn't see an RPG with this feature.
 

Dave Falasco

Screenwriter
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Brad,
I know games have to support it on the Xbox as well, I wasn't meaning to imply that one could just override any default soundtrack willy-nilly. My point was just that since the HD is native to the Xbox and an add-on to the Sony, my guess is that we will see the feature supported to a much greater degree on the Xbox, that's all. But if it's not that big of a deal development-wise, then I wouldn't be surprised to see it offered on several PS2 titles as well.
And Morgan raises a good point, too. There are only certain types of games that I think this would really be good for. Sports games are perfect, I think, and maybe some FPSs, but for RPGs and even platformers, the music is often such an integral part of the experience that I can't see overriding it. I haven't played Halo yet, but even that I would think would not be enhanced by a custom soundtrack, unless you're playing a multi-player deathmatch or something. Still, the more games that offer it, the better! At least it gives one the option.
All in all, a very cool feature, and one that I think we'll see a lot more of in the future.
 

Morgan Jolley

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I think that this feature will be used in games that are extreme sports and racing games, maybe some multiplayer games (like Fuzion Frenzy), but otherwise, it should be left out. I hope to god this doesn't lower the quality of game soundtracks.
 

Graeme Clark

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In the official XB Mag's review of THPS2x, it mentions in a side bar the the audio files are "encoded as secure Windows Media Audio, encrypted and locked down. You can edit and delete them, but you can't post 'em to the Internet"
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[Edited last by Graeme Clark on November 07, 2001 at 11:41 AM]
 

James D S

Screenwriter
Joined
Nov 14, 2000
Messages
1,000
Makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up, Graeme.
Hopefully, the WMA codec used here will offer the same performance and audio quality of recently updated ones. WMA has come a long way.
 

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