Microsoft Chooses ATI's H.264 Decoder for Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player

[fitbabits]

TeamXbox (http://www.teamxbox.com) is reporting that Microsoft has chosen ATI's H.264 decoder for the upcoming Xbox 360 HD-DVD player.

You can read the details here (http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11336/ATIs-H264-Decoder-Chosen-for-Xbox-360-HD-DVD-player/).

ATI Technologies today announced that Microsoft Corp. has chosen ATI's H.264 decoder for the Xbox 360 HD DVD player, bringing users sharper, more true-to-life visuals and smoother playback of high-definition content. HD DVDs encoded using one of three approved codecs deliver up to six times the resolution of traditional DVDs all on a single disc.

"The Xbox 360 gives consumers access to a world of high-definition games and video content through Xbox Live Marketplace. With the new Xbox 360 HD DVD player using ATI's decoder technology, we're giving consumers the choice to playback the latest in high-definition movies," said Todd Holmdahl, corporate vice president of Xbox 360 hardware development.

"HD DVD brings new meaning to the term home theater. When people see the visual clarity and realism that Microsoft and ATI are delivering through the Xbox 360 this holiday, they will be blown away."

To enable the smoothest H.264 video playback possible, the ATI decoder technology makes use of the Xbox 360's graphics processing unit (GPU) to accelerate video processing. The unified shader design of the GPU enables high-end processing techniques such as comb filtering and automatic gain control to ensure that video artifacts such as blockiness or color bands don't disrupt playback.
It's all pretty much Greek to me, but I'm hopeful that some of the more HD-savvy readers will be quick to chime in with their opinions (in '...for dummies' terminology, please :) ).

[Siraris]

REALLY? I was sure they were going to go with Nvidias. There's egg on my face now :(

[fitbabits]

REALLY? I was sure they were going to go with Nvidias. There's egg on my face now :(
Quick, wash it off before it goes sour.

[Busted_Astromech]

How do you "choose" a decoder? I thought that the media was encoded in a certain codec and players had to be able to decode all relevant types. I was under the impression that the codec for a given title was chosen at the time of the disc's printing. Why would they announce that they have a codec?

[NoName]

Eh, from all the praise that the H.264 codec has been getting this sounds like a good thing to me.

[Zeal]

What this means is the highest quality video.

[digitalErich]

How do you "choose" a decoder? I thought that the media was encoded in a certain codec and players had to be able to decode all relevant types. I was under the impression that the codec for a given title was chosen at the time of the disc's printing. Why would they announce that they have a codec?
This is only true for proprietary media formats. For HD-DVD, just like DVD, there a number of decoders available. Just as with .mp3 decoders, different decoders run better than others or have different hardware requirements. Although I am no expert, I've heard in more than one place that the ATI HD-DVD decoder is the best available at the moment. Please take that with a grain of salt, given my knowledge of the subject matter.

[dimsumx]

REALLY? I was sure they were going to go with Nvidias. There's egg on my face now :(

That may be more than egg on your face, considering all the Sony love you've been giving... :D

[torrefaction]

Okay, but when the fuck can I have one of these? :(

[Xerxes]

How much for the thing HD-DVD addon already...

[Busted_Astromech]

This is only true for proprietary media formats. For HD-DVD, just like DVD, there a number of decoders available. Just as with .mp3 decoders, different decoders run better than others or have different hardware requirements. Although I am no expert, I've heard in more than one place that the ATI HD-DVD decoder is the best available at the moment. Please take that with a grain of salt, given my knowledge of the subject matter.
Yeah, but I thought that was a choice made by the movie company, not the hardware company: the player doesn't decide the codec, it just decodes whatever the disc is written in, as I understand it.

[Zurik]

I guess it makes sense, they do have ATI video cards in the machine, why would they use Nvidia over that?

[TrackZero]

No surprise they went with the ATI one, considering the 360 is using ATI tech for it's graphics.

[Yeti2005]

How much for the thing HD-DVD addon already...
$199...ok I really don't know but I think they'll try and sell at that price claiming that $300-400 360 + $200 HD add-on = $500-600 Price of the PS3.

If it's $100 I'll buy even though I'm not stoked for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.

[saneman]

Yeah, but I thought that was a choice made by the movie company, not the hardware company: the player doesn't decide the codec, it just decodes whatever the disc is written in, as I understand it.

I think what digitalerich was saying was that there are multiple suppliers of H.264 decoders. Yes, the movie company encodes it in H.264, and yes the decoder has to be an H.264 decoder. There are just several different H.264 decoders with different hardware requirements, costs, and quality. They still all decode H.264 though.

I'm guessing. I'm not familiar with the tech. This just seems to be the case.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

Yes, that's exactly it. I'm guessing this particular decoder is based on the Avivo tech (you can read about it and various other H.264 decoders at the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC)). At the moment, though, hardly anyone is using H.264 for HD DVD -- there's a few H.264-encoded discs available in Japan, but I think everything released in the U.S. so far has used VC-1. But H.264 is a pretty flexible spec and there's a lot of room for improvement, so that could change.

[51|RandoM]

Yeah, but I thought that was a choice made by the movie company, not the hardware company: the player doesn't decide the codec, it just decodes whatever the disc is written in, as I understand it.

they didn't decide the codec, they decided the decoder.

sorta like picking winamp instead of wmp to decode and play your .mp3 files.

They could've written the software themselves, but since a) the video hardware is an ATI part, and b) ATI has long been known for excellent video software for their cards, it probably made sense to buy something from ATI instead of starting from scratch.

[Busted_Astromech]

Got it. Thanks for your explanations, guys.