Apple wouldn't include HD-DVD or Blu-Ray to facilitate distribution of HD movies. They would do it because they need higher capacity removable media. The fact that an HD movie could be (easily?) encoded by a 2x2x2.5 G5 PM for playback on some systems somewhere would be an added benefit. The drive manufacturers would rush their products to market if someone would buy them. No one will buy a stand alone player because there's nothing to play on them. As others have pointed out, there could be considerable value in being first to have any sort of high definition recorder on the market.
Apple won't include HD DVD . They are on the board of directors of the Blu-Ray advisory panel.
They would put BR in if it were made available to them in sufficient quantities. Apple, more than other computer companies, has an interest in the entertainment industry, as you know.
If they put this in their machines, there could very well be discussions with those companies for content. Apple putting this in their machines, given their position in the industry, would have weight. This has been said by a number of people in the industry.
I would imagine that both Disney and Pixar, both long time supporters of BR would provide content. Just as they are supplying content for Apple's video offerings now. This would help to jump start the BR bandwagon.
Early reports suggest the ATI x1800 XL (w/ recent driver update) bests the nVidia 7800. Sadly, I can't find the link I read right now.
In my PC experience, nVidia has been much more reliable driver-wise, while ATI has had the edge visually. Regardless of opinion, one things is certain. Their frantic arms race is a blessing for all of us in user land.
I just saw it recently; and it doesn't best the NVidia so much as level the playing field a bit. The driver update as far as I saw was an optimization specific to OpenGL games, and doesn't effect other games' performance. Also, while Doom3 performance was higher (assuming AA was on and at res higher than 1024x768, without AA the 7800 was still faster), other recent OpenGL games showed NVdia still had a small lead.
In many other games the ATI cards beat the Nvidia cards. It's games based on the Doom game engine that the ATI cards fall down. In fact, Nvidia has been accused of biasing their cards towards Doom since it's difficult for most any machine and therefore is used often as a test.
ATI also said there that this was not finished.
"The fix will shortly be rolled into CATALYST 5.11 according to ATI sources and a beta drop of that driver will be made available for testing in due course, before the final WHQL driver from Terry Makedon's CATALYST team is made available for public download in November."
We will probably see some more improvment when it's released. That's normal.
Apple won't include HD DVD . They are on the board of directors of the Blu-Ray advisory panel.
Please stop perpetuating this fallacy. Apple is a member of the DVD Forum as well. I watched a webinar of their engineers discussing DVD Studio Pro 4 and other Pro apps and they clearly stated Apple is neutral and will support both products. I realize this is a training video for Apple resellers only but Apple has never gone on record ever claiming they were Blu-Ray exclusive. However there is ample information stating they are happy to support both.
I suspect you are correct, that driver cost (and it's a cost spread over a smaller market) is the defining difference. The two platform's cards really are quite similar, to the point were you can firmware flash some PC cards to work on Macs. Also note I believe the ATI 9600 or some such similar model had a hardware switch that would allow either Mac or Windows functionality.
ATI just came out with a card (I forget which one) that works with the Mac and PC out of the box.
I keep telling everyone that it doesn't matter which chip Apple uses, if the board manufacturers want to, they can do this. They just haven't wanted to.
The firmware change is a small one. It's the drivers that are the big issue. These aren't simple drivers, they are fair sized pieces of software. The difference is not just the chip, but the OS. As long as the Mac uses OS X rather than XP or Vista this problem will exist no matter which chip is in the machine.
If the Powermac can increase its marketshare enough, we will see more boards.
Remember that when Apple went to mostly all in ones and Mini computers, Apple's presence in the upgradable market dropped like a stone. Apple sold something like 125,000 PM's last quarter. That's, as they say, a drop in the bucket. And so you are absolutely correct, the small (tiny), (very tiny), marketshare Apple has with upgradable machines makes any board cost more, and may not even viable in certain categories.
Well, I saw plenty of sites. Nvidia was comfortably ahead. That's what I said. I've never heard of Hexus by the way.
The Ati is a good card. But it's late. And expensive compared to the Nvidia's retail price which has settled below RRP.
Sure, the ATI card is innovative. It is being tweaked for Doom 3 and GL performance in the leak you gave. Pulls it ahead in DOom for the first time but not in theother GL game. So they have to tweak on a GL game by game basis. Hmmm. But it will cost you more. You'll get the same or better GL performance from Nvidia judging from those benches. And cheaper too. IN fact, the Nvidia 7800 GT is the sweet spot. Most of the performance of the GTX for lots less. No doubt stuffing ATI's number 2 card in the process.
On the Mac, things aren't so cut and dried. Because GL performance sucks and we don't have years of GL Intel optimisation or decent clockspeeds or optimisation then both cards will probably perform the same...low 60fps... at all resolutions. Seems to be some weird performance cap on PowerMac Doom 3 on ATi/Nvidia cards.
On a Mac. Either card would do.
On the PC. Nvidia still seem ahead in GL in general to me. Direct X scores look nice. But...the Nvidia cards are cheaper. They've been out longer.
Lemon Bon Bon
HEXUS is pretty well known in the gaming world. That's why ATI, Nvidia and others give them previews.
Their top board is selling for $439 at Egghead. That's not more. The prices are already coming down. The card was $499 a week ago. It will drop farther. Nvidias cards have been out for a while and so have had the advantage of getting past the initial high prices new cards command.
Sure, it will likely cost more on the Mac, but so will the Nvidia.
There are lots of games where ATI's cards are faster. Both companies made a choice as to how they were going to go. If you check these tests, remember that they were done before the new driver upgrade. Many games are better, and even much better with the ATI cards. The ones that are worse are now better or much better than they were before. Remember that as well. The price statements at the end of the article are also no longer as valid as they were when the article was written, and will go away after some fairly short time.
The point is that ATI's chips are highly programmable, Nvidia's, much less so.
What I've read since is that we may see the game programmers themselves doing the tweeks. They already tweek for each chip to a certain extent as the board manufacturers do for the types of game engines.
At any rate, this upgrade is not even in beta yet. We will most likely see further improvement when it comes out.
Please stop perpetuating this fallacy. Apple is a member of the DVD Forum as well. I watched a webinar of their engineers discussing DVD Studio Pro 4 and other Pro apps and they clearly stated Apple is neutral and will support both products. I realize this is a training video for Apple resellers only but Apple has never gone on record ever claiming they were Blu-Ray exclusive. However there is ample information stating they are happy to support both.
No they are not.
This is the membership list of those companies who have announced support for HD DVD and joined the association.
If you find Apple's name there please let me know.
The membership of the DVD forum is very different. If you look closely, you will notice quite a few surprising names on that list. It is not a promoter of just HD DVD, but DVD standards in general.
The two that should stand out the most are Royal Dutch Phillips, and yes, even Sony!
Going by that list is deceiving. Apple is a backer of BR not HD DVD.
If HD DVD somehow, unlikely as it is, wins the battle, Apple can be expected to use that product. Until the air is clear about that, they have to tell their dealers what you saw lest they worry them .
Apple is committed to both emerging high definition DVD standards?Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. Apple is an active member of the DVD Forum which developed the HD DVD standard, and last month joined the Board of Directors of the Blu-ray Disc Association.
My emphasis added.
Again statements pertaining to Apple being a Blu-Ray exclusive company are blatantly false. Yes Steve did a little gladhanding with the Sony exec during his keynote but Apple is clearly neutral.
But then again Blu-Ray fans have never really been keen on having correct data IMO.
Again statements pertaining to Apple being a Blu-Ray exclusive company are blatantly false. Yes Steve did a little gladhanding with the Sony exec during his keynote but Apple is clearly neutral.
But then again Blu-Ray fans have never really been keen on having correct data IMO.
I read that when it first came out.
It's not surprising that Apple, a company that is in a war with MS at this time involving audio and video standards, would be interested in getting its own developed software to be included in both systems. It's interesting that every article that you can find anywhere states that Apple is a backer of BR, but none state that they are a backer of HD DVD.
Apple would be run by fools if they failed to try to get their own standards included in as many different content delivery devices as possible. But they are not considered to be a backer of HD DVD. And they are conspicuously absent from the organization that was formed expressly to promote it. You are not bothering to address that.
Even Sony was in talks with the HD DVD members, does that mean that they back it, or are on the fence?
The point is that ATI's chips are highly programmable, Nvidia's, much less so.
What? Whereever you heard that, I would stop relying on that source. The two are roughly equivalent, with nVidia currently supporting slightly more advance shader capabilities.
The whole comparison tends to get wrapped up in benchmarks and a lot of phrases like "hands so-and-so their ass" get tossed around. The reality is that both company's products are very fast, very capable cards and most of the comparisons are splitting hairs and making mountains out of molehills. Even the graphs tends to be deceptive, with many of them starting from a non-zero frame rate and thus giving the incorrect impression that the slower card is enormously slower when in reality we're typically talking about 10-20% differences at the most. There are a few pathalogical cases where one card (or driver) does something significantly better that a specific application or game uses (Doom being case in point), but often this can be addressed with a driver update.
The PC vs Mac comparisons suffer from this too, although the Mac often does get the short end of the stick because the original software was tuned for the PC without giving consideration to the Mac's performance. Doom is an interesting case, and I await console versions of that engine to see just how much re-working of the engine needs to be done to make it reasonable for non-PC platforms. Previous versions of Doom needed a serious overhaul before being competitive console games.
The fact that apple keeps requiring mac spesific cards is propably going to stay. It's efficient and cheap way to keep people from running OSX and Windows parallel on dell boxes. Even if they allowed the flashing, who bothers to flash their graphics card every time they change os.
This is absolutely false. I spoke with ATI, Nvidia, and Apple on this subject. Apple especially made it clear that with the x86 architecture they intend to do away with mac or pc specific video cards, they also stressed how writing drivers will be easier. This will allow for Macs to use the same great video cards that windows users get way in advance, and make for the most optimized drivers, meaning they should perform the same in Windows or Mac.
Quote:
Originally posted by Project2501
The fact that apple keeps requiring mac spesific cards is propably going to stay. It's efficient and cheap way to keep people from running OSX and Windows parallel on dell boxes. Even if they allowed the flashing, who bothers to flash their graphics card every time they change os.
What? Whereever you heard that, I would stop relying on that source. The two are roughly equivalent, with nVidia currently supporting slightly more advance shader capabilities.
The whole comparison tends to get wrapped up in benchmarks and a lot of phrases like "hands so-and-so their ass" get tossed around. The reality is that both company's products are very fast, very capable cards and most of the comparisons are splitting hairs and making mountains out of molehills. Even the graphs tends to be deceptive, with many of them starting from a non-zero frame rate and thus giving the incorrect impression that the slower card is enormously slower when in reality we're typically talking about 10-20% differences at the most. There are a few pathalogical cases where one card (or driver) does something significantly better that a specific application or game uses (Doom being case in point), but often this can be addressed with a driver update.
The PC vs Mac comparisons suffer from this too, although the Mac often does get the short end of the stick because the original software was tuned for the PC without giving consideration to the Mac's performance. Doom is an interesting case, and I await console versions of that engine to see just how much re-working of the engine needs to be done to make it reasonable for non-PC platforms. Previous versions of Doom needed a serious overhaul before being competitive console games.
I've read similar statements. Are you familiar with both of their designs in enough detail to know? Or are you just guessing yourself?
While I agree that those differences aren't much, and often aren't even noticable under most circumstances, they are what sells a certain product. As such, they do have meanings, though not the ones that are often brought up.
Apple won't include HD DVD . They are on the board of directors of the Blu-Ray advisory panel.
They would put BR in if it were made available to them in sufficient quantities. Apple, more than other computer companies, has an interest in the entertainment industry, as you know.
If they put this in their machines, there could very well be discussions with those companies for content. Apple putting this in their machines, given their position in the industry, would have weight. This has been said by a number of people in the industry.
I would imagine that both Disney and Pixar, both long time supporters of BR would provide content. Just as they are supplying content for Apple's video offerings now. This would help to jump start the BR bandwagon.
It would be good for all concerned.
Not to belabor this point, but ArsTechnica reports that PC Blu-Ray drives will be available next month. Just in time for Apple to ship them...
Now, hot off the press, there is a report that AOpen, a Taiwanese computer and peripheral maker will announce shipping Blu-Ray drives for computers in November.
This is a shock to everyone! (The drive announcement that is, not the fact that you beat my post, though come to think of it...)
I asked a question in the discussion area about this. We'll see if Eric has more info on this. - Are these new drive designs, or are they the old, expensive drives that have been floating around for some time? If they are the old ones, there won't be too many, and they will cost a Hell of a lot.
It's hard to figure how AOpen could beat Panasonic, Sony and other companies. They haven't even shown a drive at the shows.
This is a shock to everyone! (The drive announcement that is, not the fact that you beat my post, though come to think of it...)
I asked a question in the discussion area about this. We'll see if Eric has more info on this. - Are these new drive designs, or are they the old, expensive drives that have been floating around for some time? If they are the old ones, there won't be too many, and they will cost a Hell of a lot.
It's hard to figure how AOpen could beat Panasonic, Sony and other companies. They haven't even shown a drive at the shows.
Is the speed or slowness of the bigger companies related to their technical ability to deliver drives or the lack of a market if they did?
If Sony released drives and marketed them directly, they'd need thousands just to have one in every BestBuy. If Apple distributes them for $1000 each, Sony only needs to deliver the few that are actually ordered.
Is the speed or slowness of the bigger companies related to their technical ability to deliver drives or the lack of a market if they did?
If Sony released drives and marketed them directly, they'd need thousands just to have one in every BestBuy. If Apple distributes them for $1000 each, Sony only needs to deliver the few that are actually ordered.
It's the R&D capabilities that the large companies have in these highly technical product lines that matter. AOpen is not known for their R&D.
The production lines are also involved. AOpen is a fairly small company. Their entire years production could be delivered in a few days by Sony or Panasonic. So the capability to have the right line available is also important.
If Sony starts production they could deliver 25 thousand drives a week after the lines were stabilized. And that would be just the beginning. The same for Panasonic. After a month or so the production could quadruple if the customer base required it.
The drives haven't been approved for production or in most cases even customer testing. No one has announced 12.5mm drives for testing either.
Comments
Originally posted by dh87
Apple wouldn't include HD-DVD or Blu-Ray to facilitate distribution of HD movies. They would do it because they need higher capacity removable media. The fact that an HD movie could be (easily?) encoded by a 2x2x2.5 G5 PM for playback on some systems somewhere would be an added benefit. The drive manufacturers would rush their products to market if someone would buy them. No one will buy a stand alone player because there's nothing to play on them. As others have pointed out, there could be considerable value in being first to have any sort of high definition recorder on the market.
Apple won't include HD DVD . They are on the board of directors of the Blu-Ray advisory panel.
They would put BR in if it were made available to them in sufficient quantities. Apple, more than other computer companies, has an interest in the entertainment industry, as you know.
If they put this in their machines, there could very well be discussions with those companies for content. Apple putting this in their machines, given their position in the industry, would have weight. This has been said by a number of people in the industry.
I would imagine that both Disney and Pixar, both long time supporters of BR would provide content. Just as they are supplying content for Apple's video offerings now. This would help to jump start the BR bandwagon.
It would be good for all concerned.
Originally posted by imiloa
Early reports suggest the ATI x1800 XL (w/ recent driver update) bests the nVidia 7800. Sadly, I can't find the link I read right now.
In my PC experience, nVidia has been much more reliable driver-wise, while ATI has had the edge visually. Regardless of opinion, one things is certain. Their frantic arms race is a blessing for all of us in user land.
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3668
Originally posted by ChevalierMalFet
I just saw it recently; and it doesn't best the NVidia so much as level the playing field a bit. The driver update as far as I saw was an optimization specific to OpenGL games, and doesn't effect other games' performance. Also, while Doom3 performance was higher (assuming AA was on and at res higher than 1024x768, without AA the 7800 was still faster), other recent OpenGL games showed NVdia still had a small lead.
In many other games the ATI cards beat the Nvidia cards. It's games based on the Doom game engine that the ATI cards fall down. In fact, Nvidia has been accused of biasing their cards towards Doom since it's difficult for most any machine and therefore is used often as a test.
ATI also said there that this was not finished.
"The fix will shortly be rolled into CATALYST 5.11 according to ATI sources and a beta drop of that driver will be made available for testing in due course, before the final WHQL driver from Terry Makedon's CATALYST team is made available for public download in November."
We will probably see some more improvment when it's released. That's normal.
Apple won't include HD DVD . They are on the board of directors of the Blu-Ray advisory panel.
Please stop perpetuating this fallacy. Apple is a member of the DVD Forum as well. I watched a webinar of their engineers discussing DVD Studio Pro 4 and other Pro apps and they clearly stated Apple is neutral and will support both products. I realize this is a training video for Apple resellers only but Apple has never gone on record ever claiming they were Blu-Ray exclusive. However there is ample information stating they are happy to support both.
Originally posted by ChevalierMalFet
I suspect you are correct, that driver cost (and it's a cost spread over a smaller market) is the defining difference. The two platform's cards really are quite similar, to the point were you can firmware flash some PC cards to work on Macs. Also note I believe the ATI 9600 or some such similar model had a hardware switch that would allow either Mac or Windows functionality.
ATI just came out with a card (I forget which one) that works with the Mac and PC out of the box.
I keep telling everyone that it doesn't matter which chip Apple uses, if the board manufacturers want to, they can do this. They just haven't wanted to.
The firmware change is a small one. It's the drivers that are the big issue. These aren't simple drivers, they are fair sized pieces of software. The difference is not just the chip, but the OS. As long as the Mac uses OS X rather than XP or Vista this problem will exist no matter which chip is in the machine.
If the Powermac can increase its marketshare enough, we will see more boards.
Remember that when Apple went to mostly all in ones and Mini computers, Apple's presence in the upgradable market dropped like a stone. Apple sold something like 125,000 PM's last quarter. That's, as they say, a drop in the bucket. And so you are absolutely correct, the small (tiny), (very tiny), marketshare Apple has with upgradable machines makes any board cost more, and may not even viable in certain categories.
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
Well, I saw plenty of sites. Nvidia was comfortably ahead. That's what I said. I've never heard of Hexus by the way.
The Ati is a good card. But it's late. And expensive compared to the Nvidia's retail price which has settled below RRP.
Sure, the ATI card is innovative. It is being tweaked for Doom 3 and GL performance in the leak you gave. Pulls it ahead in DOom for the first time but not in theother GL game. So they have to tweak on a GL game by game basis. Hmmm. But it will cost you more. You'll get the same or better GL performance from Nvidia judging from those benches. And cheaper too. IN fact, the Nvidia 7800 GT is the sweet spot. Most of the performance of the GTX for lots less. No doubt stuffing ATI's number 2 card in the process.
On the Mac, things aren't so cut and dried. Because GL performance sucks and we don't have years of GL Intel optimisation or decent clockspeeds or optimisation then both cards will probably perform the same...low 60fps... at all resolutions. Seems to be some weird performance cap on PowerMac Doom 3 on ATi/Nvidia cards.
On a Mac. Either card would do.
On the PC. Nvidia still seem ahead in GL in general to me. Direct X scores look nice. But...the Nvidia cards are cheaper. They've been out longer.
Lemon Bon Bon
HEXUS is pretty well known in the gaming world. That's why ATI, Nvidia and others give them previews.
Their top board is selling for $439 at Egghead. That's not more. The prices are already coming down. The card was $499 a week ago. It will drop farther. Nvidias cards have been out for a while and so have had the advantage of getting past the initial high prices new cards command.
Sure, it will likely cost more on the Mac, but so will the Nvidia.
There are lots of games where ATI's cards are faster. Both companies made a choice as to how they were going to go. If you check these tests, remember that they were done before the new driver upgrade. Many games are better, and even much better with the ATI cards. The ones that are worse are now better or much better than they were before. Remember that as well. The price statements at the end of the article are also no longer as valid as they were when the article was written, and will go away after some fairly short time.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2556
The point is that ATI's chips are highly programmable, Nvidia's, much less so.
What I've read since is that we may see the game programmers themselves doing the tweeks. They already tweek for each chip to a certain extent as the board manufacturers do for the types of game engines.
At any rate, this upgrade is not even in beta yet. We will most likely see further improvement when it comes out.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Please stop perpetuating this fallacy. Apple is a member of the DVD Forum as well. I watched a webinar of their engineers discussing DVD Studio Pro 4 and other Pro apps and they clearly stated Apple is neutral and will support both products. I realize this is a training video for Apple resellers only but Apple has never gone on record ever claiming they were Blu-Ray exclusive. However there is ample information stating they are happy to support both.
No they are not.
This is the membership list of those companies who have announced support for HD DVD and joined the association.
http://www.hddvdprg.com/about/member.html
If you find Apple's name there please let me know.
The membership of the DVD forum is very different. If you look closely, you will notice quite a few surprising names on that list. It is not a promoter of just HD DVD, but DVD standards in general.
The two that should stand out the most are Royal Dutch Phillips, and yes, even Sony!
Going by that list is deceiving. Apple is a backer of BR not HD DVD.
If HD DVD somehow, unlikely as it is, wins the battle, Apple can be expected to use that product. Until the air is clear about that, they have to tell their dealers what you saw lest they worry them .
as does this photo on their DVD Studio Pro 4 page
as does their wording in this press release.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/17hd.html
Apple is committed to both emerging high definition DVD standards?Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. Apple is an active member of the DVD Forum which developed the HD DVD standard, and last month joined the Board of Directors of the Blu-ray Disc Association.
My emphasis added.
Again statements pertaining to Apple being a Blu-Ray exclusive company are blatantly false. Yes Steve did a little gladhanding with the Sony exec during his keynote but Apple is clearly neutral.
But then again Blu-Ray fans have never really been keen on having correct data IMO.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Their Engineers say otherwise
as does this photo on their DVD Studio Pro 4 page
as does their wording in this press release.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/apr/17hd.html
My emphasis added.
Again statements pertaining to Apple being a Blu-Ray exclusive company are blatantly false. Yes Steve did a little gladhanding with the Sony exec during his keynote but Apple is clearly neutral.
But then again Blu-Ray fans have never really been keen on having correct data IMO.
I read that when it first came out.
It's not surprising that Apple, a company that is in a war with MS at this time involving audio and video standards, would be interested in getting its own developed software to be included in both systems. It's interesting that every article that you can find anywhere states that Apple is a backer of BR, but none state that they are a backer of HD DVD.
Apple would be run by fools if they failed to try to get their own standards included in as many different content delivery devices as possible. But they are not considered to be a backer of HD DVD. And they are conspicuously absent from the organization that was formed expressly to promote it. You are not bothering to address that.
Even Sony was in talks with the HD DVD members, does that mean that they back it, or are on the fence?
Originally posted by melgross
The point is that ATI's chips are highly programmable, Nvidia's, much less so.
What? Whereever you heard that, I would stop relying on that source. The two are roughly equivalent, with nVidia currently supporting slightly more advance shader capabilities.
The whole comparison tends to get wrapped up in benchmarks and a lot of phrases like "hands so-and-so their ass" get tossed around. The reality is that both company's products are very fast, very capable cards and most of the comparisons are splitting hairs and making mountains out of molehills. Even the graphs tends to be deceptive, with many of them starting from a non-zero frame rate and thus giving the incorrect impression that the slower card is enormously slower when in reality we're typically talking about 10-20% differences at the most. There are a few pathalogical cases where one card (or driver) does something significantly better that a specific application or game uses (Doom being case in point), but often this can be addressed with a driver update.
The PC vs Mac comparisons suffer from this too, although the Mac often does get the short end of the stick because the original software was tuned for the PC without giving consideration to the Mac's performance. Doom is an interesting case, and I await console versions of that engine to see just how much re-working of the engine needs to be done to make it reasonable for non-PC platforms. Previous versions of Doom needed a serious overhaul before being competitive console games.
Originally posted by Project2501
The fact that apple keeps requiring mac spesific cards is propably going to stay. It's efficient and cheap way to keep people from running OSX and Windows parallel on dell boxes. Even if they allowed the flashing, who bothers to flash their graphics card every time they change os.
Originally posted by Programmer
What? Whereever you heard that, I would stop relying on that source. The two are roughly equivalent, with nVidia currently supporting slightly more advance shader capabilities.
The whole comparison tends to get wrapped up in benchmarks and a lot of phrases like "hands so-and-so their ass" get tossed around. The reality is that both company's products are very fast, very capable cards and most of the comparisons are splitting hairs and making mountains out of molehills. Even the graphs tends to be deceptive, with many of them starting from a non-zero frame rate and thus giving the incorrect impression that the slower card is enormously slower when in reality we're typically talking about 10-20% differences at the most. There are a few pathalogical cases where one card (or driver) does something significantly better that a specific application or game uses (Doom being case in point), but often this can be addressed with a driver update.
The PC vs Mac comparisons suffer from this too, although the Mac often does get the short end of the stick because the original software was tuned for the PC without giving consideration to the Mac's performance. Doom is an interesting case, and I await console versions of that engine to see just how much re-working of the engine needs to be done to make it reasonable for non-PC platforms. Previous versions of Doom needed a serious overhaul before being competitive console games.
I've read similar statements. Are you familiar with both of their designs in enough detail to know? Or are you just guessing yourself?
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3668
and further back to the earlier article which most here had already read.
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/8887
EDIT to add:
While I agree that those differences aren't much, and often aren't even noticable under most circumstances, they are what sells a certain product. As such, they do have meanings, though not the ones that are often brought up.
Originally posted by melgross
I've read similar statements. Are you familiar with both of their designs in enough detail to know? Or are you just guessing yourself?
Well I'm familiar enough that I can't tell you what I know due to NDA.
1. Yes. They are. Their delivery problems are well documented.
and...
2. 'Probably'.
They have been before.
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by melgross
Apple won't include HD DVD . They are on the board of directors of the Blu-Ray advisory panel.
They would put BR in if it were made available to them in sufficient quantities. Apple, more than other computer companies, has an interest in the entertainment industry, as you know.
If they put this in their machines, there could very well be discussions with those companies for content. Apple putting this in their machines, given their position in the industry, would have weight. This has been said by a number of people in the industry.
I would imagine that both Disney and Pixar, both long time supporters of BR would provide content. Just as they are supplying content for Apple's video offerings now. This would help to jump start the BR bandwagon.
It would be good for all concerned.
Not to belabor this point, but ArsTechnica reports that PC Blu-Ray drives will be available next month. Just in time for Apple to ship them...
Ars Story
Is it true?
Go here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051016-5439.html
go to disscussion .
Originally posted by dh87
Not to belabor this point, but ArsTechnica reports that PC Blu-Ray drives will be available next month. Just in time for Apple to ship them...
Ars Story
You beat my post by a minute or so.
This is a shock to everyone! (The drive announcement that is, not the fact that you beat my post, though come to think of it...)
I asked a question in the discussion area about this. We'll see if Eric has more info on this. - Are these new drive designs, or are they the old, expensive drives that have been floating around for some time? If they are the old ones, there won't be too many, and they will cost a Hell of a lot.
It's hard to figure how AOpen could beat Panasonic, Sony and other companies. They haven't even shown a drive at the shows.
Originally posted by melgross
You beat my post by a minute or so.
This is a shock to everyone! (The drive announcement that is, not the fact that you beat my post, though come to think of it...)
I asked a question in the discussion area about this. We'll see if Eric has more info on this. - Are these new drive designs, or are they the old, expensive drives that have been floating around for some time? If they are the old ones, there won't be too many, and they will cost a Hell of a lot.
It's hard to figure how AOpen could beat Panasonic, Sony and other companies. They haven't even shown a drive at the shows.
Is the speed or slowness of the bigger companies related to their technical ability to deliver drives or the lack of a market if they did?
If Sony released drives and marketed them directly, they'd need thousands just to have one in every BestBuy. If Apple distributes them for $1000 each, Sony only needs to deliver the few that are actually ordered.
Originally posted by dh87
Is the speed or slowness of the bigger companies related to their technical ability to deliver drives or the lack of a market if they did?
If Sony released drives and marketed them directly, they'd need thousands just to have one in every BestBuy. If Apple distributes them for $1000 each, Sony only needs to deliver the few that are actually ordered.
It's the R&D capabilities that the large companies have in these highly technical product lines that matter. AOpen is not known for their R&D.
The production lines are also involved. AOpen is a fairly small company. Their entire years production could be delivered in a few days by Sony or Panasonic. So the capability to have the right line available is also important.
If Sony starts production they could deliver 25 thousand drives a week after the lines were stabilized. And that would be just the beginning. The same for Panasonic. After a month or so the production could quadruple if the customer base required it.
The drives haven't been approved for production or in most cases even customer testing. No one has announced 12.5mm drives for testing either.