XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive! - Page 2

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

My apologies, CRyan! I somehow overlooked Romier's response in this thread a few days before (or glossed over some of the important points he made).

Based on the content of that message I fully agree with your position. This "Elite" is merely a stopgap measure instead of a full HD-DVD solution. I'm going to have to take a hard look at my decision to upgrade to a 1337 when it's released. On the one hand, I would like the HDMI output for 1080p and I also like the fact that the hard drive is 6x larger than the original. But the downside is that this is a flawed HD-DVD implementation without HD audio codec support. I guess I'll just have to see whether the price is worth it to me to add HDMI video and 120g capacity (rather than spending $179 for a new Hdrive for the 360.) That means that the "true" cost of the Elite is $300 (assuming I decide to keep the old 360 for use elsewhere in the house.) It certainly means I'm going to have to look for a better HD-DVD player at CEDIA in September. Yes, I know the Toshiba 2nd Gen. players are out there now, but I don't think that the HD-DVD saga ends with those new models.

There was one point in Amir's quoted comments that is a little confusing. He states that since the XBox is based on HDMI 1.2 and not 1.3 it cannot output DD+ nor TrueHD. I'm assuming he meant to say that it cannot output the undecoded form of those codecs because if the player does the decoding then even HDMI 1.1 has the capacity to send out all the HD audio codecs post-processed as LPCM. The first Gen. Toshiba XA-1 that I own is only HDMI 1.1 and does a good job outputting those decoded codecs. The real problem appears to be some inadequate audio capabilities on the current 360 (and the new "Elite") that limits LPCM output to 2 channel instead of 5.1 (or 7.1).

Obviously the 1337 isn't going to be a full-function HD-DVD player and, as such, cannot compare to the PS3 in terms of HD disc video and audio performance.

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

Since the source of those specs aren't final, I will wait until we have official word from the production version of the Elite before making a decision. One thing that I will make unequivocally clear to Microsoft:

No HDMI 1.3 = No Sale.

If it's true that it's 1.2, this would be a shame. The Elite is MS's chance for a mulligan, a do-over, to really get it right this time. I can sort of (just barely) understand not changing the CPU to a smaller, cooler running model, if it affects the price. Although with the amount of heat related problems in the first run it justified doing so, I can understand when bean counters win out over common sense.

But 1.3 really isn't a trivial upgrade. With regards to the new audio codecs, it's an absolute necessity. Had the Elite been released half a year or more ago, the omission might be understood if not condoned. But releasing it in April of 2007, just when the HD formats are starting to pick up a little steam, is really shortsighted.

I wonder what they'll call the revision after Elite (1337), the PWNED?

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

Actually, while I agree with you that I probably won't buy another piece of HDMI enabled equipment that is not version 1.3 (except for my upcoming JVC DLA-RS1 projector where this is really not an issue due to the video-only capabilities of the projector and the state of video at this point in time) I would like to point out that you don't need 1.3 for all the available and proposed audio codecs as long as the player does the decoding internally. All forms of HDMI will pass the decoded LPCM stream to receivers able to handle this decoded stream.

That said, the fact that Microsoft has announced that the "new" 1337 will not offer any audio processing means that the inability to pass all raw HD audio codecs via the presence of HDMI 1.3 compounds the insult. I understand that the 1337 is a stopgap measure because MS determined that reworking the internal chips to allow for audio decoding is beyond the scope of the current project. But not at least providing access to the native audio codecs on the HD-DVDs completely eliminates any post-player processing possibilities (talk about alliteration!). I suspect that this is not only related to what's going on inside the XBox but what is not being sent from the 2nd Generation Toshiba Player that is the heart of the HD-DVD add-on. My gut feeling is that the player has the capacity to access the codecs (why wouldn't it? It's used on current Toshiba standalone units) but as part of the cost cutting to bring this XBox HD player to market Microsoft left out the necessary components to do the job. If it's not coming out of the player to start with then it's not going to come out of any HDMI 1.3 outputs from the XBox either the way things now stand.

I would love to hear someone from Microsoft tell us exactly what gets sent from the external HD-DVD player to the XBOX in case my assumptions are incorrect. If it turns out that the HD audio codecs do, in fact, make it to the XBOX from the player then the lack of HDMI 1.3 is even more disturbing since when you add HDMI circuitry that's when you make the choice regarding which "flavor" to install.

Food for thought.

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

Well, if I get this, I'd still be using an optical cable for the sound because my reciever doesn't have an HDMI input. But the new system would be nice.

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

Question:

Does the portable player have an HDMI output to the 360?
Because, if it can't "pass the raw HD audio codecs via" HDMI 1.3, how could it pass the HD codecs to the Elite for processing, even if the Elite had HDMI 1.3 output?

Paul

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

I think the HD-DVD add on, connects to the Xbox via a USB cable.

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

As I understand it, the HD-DVD is connected via USB, and is purely a data source. Any processing of that data is done by the 360. So whatever audio tracks are on the disk are accessible to the 360. It's just a matter of the format that they're transferred off of the 360 to the receiver.

Jeff

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

For the new audio to be "accessible" to the 360, wouldn't you at least need an HDMI 1.1 or later interface for the "add on" to pass HD-multichannel-linear PCM to the XBOX?

Does a USB interface have enough bandwidth, to handle high-resolution - multichannel - linear PCM?

Does the "add on" decompress the soundtrack to linear PCM?

The "add on" itself, would need an HDMI 1.3 interface for its ability to send the lossless formats in their encoded forms, over the cable to the Elite for decoding and processing.

Paul

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

OK, I'll fully admit up-front that I have no real knowledge about how the thing is implemented. So anybody, feel free to correct anything that's wrong.

But, AFAIK, there is no HDMI from the add-on drive (right?). The 360 just uses the HD-DVD drive as a disc drive. So, in other words, all it (the HD-DVD) knows how to do is pull data off of the physical media. The 360 just reads the raw data over the USB. The USB is fast enough, because it's all compressed data. The 360 is responsible for any and all decompression. The 360 would determine whether to decode the audio and send if via analog, or to just send the compressed bits.

All audio and video data are accessible to the 360. It doesn't need HDMI at all to get it off the drive. How the data gets from the 360 to an audio receiver is different issue, and that is where the HDMI would come into play.

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

It's been two days with no one responding to your questions, so I'm going to try to clarify a couple of things.
A USB interface couldn't be "fast enough" (have enough bandwidth) to send "compressed"-encoded lossless formats to the XBOX 360/Elite, because you need at least HDMI 1.3 to send lossless formats in ther encoded forms, from any HD player to any AVR for processing, XBOX included.

USB is limited/inadequate for encoded lossless audio formats.

If the 360 can't receive the "raw data", it can't process it (decompress it), decode it, or send it via analog or in its compressed form, back out via HDMI 1.3. All audio, except the encoded lossless formats, are accessible to the 360. They can travel via USB.

Only an HDMI 1.3 interface, can transport encoded lossless audio to the 360 or any other AVR for decoding and processing.

The "add on", needs an HDMI 1.3 interface, for the lossless audio to "get off the drive" for 360 access, because if this weren't true, then any HD player could send encoded lossless formats to any AVR/XBOX/Elite via USB.

The same "issue" is needed, to get the encoded lossless data from the 360 to an audio receiver.

Paul

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

Hey Paul,

Again, I don't know all of the technical details of the specs, but if you're dealing with 8 channels of 192kHz, 96 bit [ and it looks like most audio is 24-bit] uncompressed PCM audio, that's ~150Mbps out of USB's ~480Mbps bandwidth. Granted, that doesn't leave you a lot for video... but 330 Mbps is still a lot better thant the ~10Mbps (total) used by DVD. Avid's high-quality, frame-based HD compression maxes at 220 Mbps, so I have to imagine that the other IPB-type codecs like VC-1 use a much lower bit rate than that.

What are the bit-rate allocations for video vs audio?

Are there other issues with the encoding/encryption that can only be handled by HDMI hardware?

So please, I'd be grateful to learn more about the restrictions. Even if you could point me to a site that lists some of the details.

Thanks,
Jeff

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

Thanks Jeff, for having patience and sticking with this thread, giving me the opportunity for a greater understanding of the scope of possibilities.

As you already stated, I will now state too, that "I have no real knowledge about how the thing is implemented."

In searching for a site for details about "restrictions", I only found more questions and confusion.

Didn't realize that a USB interface had so much bandwidth potential and I only assumed that the HDMI 1.3 interface was the only approved transport, allowing the new audio codecs to be transmitted in their native bitstream.
The fact that the audio, which can't be passed alone over an HDMI signal, riding on top of the video and having HDCP involvement, caused me to dismiss other possible solutions.

Will keep looking for someone who knows who can give a concrete answer.

Paul

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

Pushing the conversation away from the lossless audio topic for a moment, this site has a nice writeup on the internals of the Elite:

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/news/i..._360_elite.htm

I'm not quite on board in believing the 65nm core being implemented in this hardware revision, but the report does put to rest any issues about the 360 having a clear direct digital path via the HDMI port. You can clearly see the updated HANA digital scaler chip in one of the pictures there.

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

So what does that mean exactly? that it could do HDMI 1.3 if pushed with a firmware update?

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

Yeah, I'm hoping 1.3 would be possible as well...still don't understand why they didn't 100% nail that one down...

Folks have reported seeing these in Wal-Mart's already...some have had success buying them, but most have not been able to because it won't ring up properly at the cash register...YMMV.

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

Review comparisons are floating around the net now.

Here's one from Engadget

Here's another from Gizmodo

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

SO has anyone gotten an Elite? I still don't have a 360, and was considering getting an Elite. They seem to be going quickly.

Also, with the rumors (that I'm propagating by mentionaing in this thread) that they'll be coming out with a 65nm-versios "some time" this year... I'm wondering if I should wait for the cooler-quieter version. The nice thing about the 360 is that it made original-Xbox games very inexpensive, so I've ben adding to my original collection and have plenty of stuff to play.

I do like the black though. Not sure if they're going to continue that as a color, even though Elites are "special edition".

Jeff

Re: XBOX 360 HDMI 120GB hard drive!

IMO wait. do yourself a favor, pick up a Core unit on the cheap in a few weeks/months (I plan to pick up a spare Core unit for my bedroom mainly as a media server). then upgrade to the cooler one down the line. My premium in my livingroom is so loud, I want to smash it, but instead I may build a box to help silence it.