Major Nelson Podcast Thread!!- New one is up 1/2

[JoeyN]

The new one is now up at Major Nelson's blog

[bendak]

Cool, listening now. I like this show. Last week's Kameo interview was awesome...

[Angel P]

It was and I found the interview with the Xbox connectivity project manager

to be very interesting. I really look forward and enjoy these podcasts.

[JoeyN]

Yeah this weeks was good as well. he talked with the person in charge of live arcade, as well as the man in charge of backwards compatibility

[JoeyN]

New Cast is up with some more interviews

 

Interview: Xbox 360 Accessories

Interview: The True Skill system

Xbox Week in Review

Name the game

…and much more

[GrumpyElf]

I usually look forward to his casts, but after I woke up and still heard the German guys talking about "stat tracking skills", I couldn't take anymore. I like when he talks to the game testers the best

 

Gamingsteve.com has a really good, if not too long cast as well, he's very much worth hearing if you haven't tried him yet... and now IGN started one as well.

[LimeyYankee]

Thanks for the update, downloading now. Even though he can ramble a bit, there's lots of good info in his podcasts (or blogcasts as he calls them) for anyone with a 360 in there, although there isn't much info for folks with an Xbox 1:confused: I know that Microsoft isn't doing anymore first part titles, but you would think they would give a little love to those folks.

 

Matt

[foogledricks]

Gamingsteve

That is my new favorite cast. Though he does talk out of his arse here and there, and comes off as very knowledgeble, sincere, and a very nice guy. I feel the same way about Major Nelson. Both these guys seem like someone I'd like to know.

[Dave C]

That is my new favorite cast. Though he does talk out of his arse here and there, and comes off as very knowledgeble, sincere, and a very nice guy. I feel the same way about Major Nelson. Both these guys seem like someone I'd like to know.

 

Yeah, gamingsteve is a really nice guy. He interviewed me for his midnight 360 launch podcast at the midtown, NYC Best Buy:

 

http://www.gamingsteve.com/archives/2005/11/xbox_360_launch.php

[bendak]

He now has a 21 minute pre-CES interview with Peter Moore up.

[foogledricks]

Major Nelson has a very interesting interview up with Microsoft's resident HD expert. People here will enjoy it very much, regardless of whether you care about the 360, Blu-Ray, or whatever. This podcast didn't so much teach me anything new, but it reinforced what I already understood, and made it clearer.

 

Here is the summary of the difference between 1080p, 1080i, and 720p as I see it.

 

To understand video resolution, you need to include temporal information in you calculations. So here are how all the formats break down in pixels per second depending on framerate:

 

60fps by the numbers

1080p 1920x1080x60 124,416,000 pixels per second

1080i 1920x540x60 62,208,000 pixels per second

720p 1280x720x60 55,296,000 pixels per second

It is important to point out a few things about the above numbers:

• 60fps implies that there is a unique image every 1/60th of a second. This may not be the case depending on the source. For example, Film is shot at 24fps, so it is inaccurate to use the above numbers to describe a film source.
  
• Because 1080i is interlaced, every unique image in a 60fps source has a maximum possible resolution of 540. As you'll see below though, at 30fps, 1080i can display the full 1080 lines.

30fps by the numbers

1080p 1920x1080x30 62,208,000 pixels per second

1080i 1920x1080x30* 62,208,000 pixels per second

720p 1280x720x30 27,648,000 pixels per second

*1080i cannot be displayed at 30fps unless it is deinterlaced. However, the total pixels per second is the same whether interlaced at 60fps, or deinterlaced at 30fps. Again, this assumes that the source material is 30fps which is the assumption for the above numbers.

 

Conclusions

 

1080p (King of 60fps and 30fps)

Obviously this is by far the best format at 60fps. At 30fps, 1080i can be deinterlaced into 1080p (just as 480i DVDs are deinterlaced into 480p). So in that case, 1080i material is only worse to the extent that the deinterlacing process makes it worse. 720p is significantly inferior to 1080p with all material by virtue of basic math.

 

1080i (Queen of 30fps)

1080i excels with 30fps material, because it can display its full 1080 lines for every image. Through deinterlacing a 1080i image can be just about as good as 1080p. Even with interlacing, at 30fps, 1080i has so much more resolution than 720p that it is fair to say that it is a better format. Still though, many believe interlacing artifacts make 1080i inferior to 720p regardless of the large discrepency in resolution.

 

720p (Queen of 60fps)

720p resolution cannot match up to 1080p at any framerate. However, at 60fps, it matches up well with 1080i in resolution. And because the resolution is so close, the lack of interlace artifacts (flicker) arguably makes 720p superior. Though not definitively.

 

720p versus 1080i for Gaming

It all depends on framerates as shown above. A game like Ninja Gaiden which runs at 60fps would look better in 720p in theory. While a game like Halo 2 that runs at 30fps would look better at 1080i. But we as gamers don't have control over what developers make our games. And since 360 games will be output at 720p, it is a moot point for that console.

 

720p versus 1080i for Movies

Since movies are shot at 24fps then converted to 30fps via 3:2 pulldown, they will look better at 1080i, no question. Not to mention that with the prospect of deinterlacing to 1080p, 1080i is best format for your eventual 1080p television sets.

 

Alright, I am done. I have been as honest and clear as I could possibly be for this complicated subject. I did not touch on many ancillary topics like how most of our HDTVs don't even display full 1920x1080 anyway, nor did I cover what happens to a 720p Xbox 360 image that is scaled to 1080i - I don't know, and I really want to know.

 

Interested in your thoughts.

[foogledricks]

One more thing. Beyond the numbers, I think the reason why 720p is generally considered superior to 1080i, is because people assume 60fps source material (i.e. A football game, or anything not film-based), and consider vertical resolution (540 versus 720) more important than horizontal (1920 versus 1280). If one subscribes to these assumptions, 720p would indeed appear to be clearly superior to 1080i. But I don't think you can discount horizontal resolution (unless your TV throws it, or the broadcast doesn't have it), and I think you have to consider whether you're watching a 60fps source, or a 30fps source.

[Magness]

I agree with most of this in that (of the 2 resolutions) action games will probably look better at 720p and 60fps and adventure games and other, similiar genres will look better at 1080i and 30fps. This is evident in games like X-Men Legends (720p) and Syberia (1080i) which both looked great on the original Xbox in their respective resolutions.

 

The problem with this though, is that this assumes you can't get 1080p and other resolutions at 60fps. In my opinion its all dependent on the game type (action/adventure/fighter/etc) as to what fps you need for smooth gameplay. Once you have your "fps target" the developers need to get it running at the highest resolution they can while maintaining that fps target. If that means your game needs 60fps and the best you can do at that speed is 1280x720 - thats fine. If your game only needs 30fps and you can run it at 1080i - thats o.k. too. What concerns me though is when developers worry more about resolution than gameplay and try to get a title to run at 1080i and sacrificing framerate for it. I hope we don't see that but, who knows? It depends on how important those bullet points on the back of case are to the marketing people...

[ChrisBardon]

I just listened to this the other day, and really thought they did a great job of explaining the resolutions. I'm actually really looking forward to the 1080p sources just to see whether my Sony SXRD accepts the 1080p signal or not. I know that the native resolution of the projector is 1920x1080, but I really can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080i on the 360. Maybe if I saw them side by side, but both look amazing.

 

If I'm understanding things right though, then the 360 really shouldn't be interpolating resolutions (i.e. converting 720p to 1080i) if the game doesn't support it. This means that games that support 720p should output in 720p, and 1080i in 1080i, rather than force all content to the same resolution. Hopefully this will be an option with the ps3, especially for blu-ray movies. If my TV can't accept 1080p/60 (which I don't think it can), I might want to run games at 720p/60 and movies at 1080i/30.

[Magness]

As I understand it the Xbox360 scales the content to whatever resolution you choose in the settings. So if the game content is created at 720p but your Xbox360 is set to 1080i, it takes the 1280x720 data and line doubles it to 1920x1080. If thats correct then anyting created at 720p and 60fps will still play at 60fps even when scaled up to 1080i resolution. Vice/versa if the game was created at 1920x1080 and 30fps you don't automatically get 60fps by downsampling it to 1280x720 - it will still only play at 30fps unless of course the developer actually creates mutiple source files for different resolutions. At least thats how most scalers work...

 

From the rumors we've all seen posted on the web, thats what the PS3 will be doing as well. Most game content will be created at 1280x720 wether its for Xbox360 or PS3 and will then be scaled to whatever resolution the console is set for.

[foogledricks]

I think what he was talking about was pass-through. Where if your TV supports all the resolutions, you'd prefer it to pass-through rather than forcing you to make a choice. My TV only does 1080i, so I have my DVR set to always display in that resolution. But if my TV also supported 720p, I'd want my DVR to pass-through whatever the native resolution was. Does the Xbox 360 support pass-through? Not that I care at the moment. And not that it matters much because the 360 appparently renders everything at 720p anyway. But I thought there were some arcade games that were at 1080i and 480p.

[Magness]

O.k. my bad for the misinterpretation As far as the pass-through I don't know but that would be a cool feature for sure. Just like on a PC where you can let the application dictate wether you use VSync or AA etc... Let the 360 game decide the resolution and only force it to 1080i or 720p in settings if required by your TV. As long as your TV supported the native resolution then the 360 would just pass the signal on - I like that

[JoeyN]

New show is up

 

Talks to the head of Garage Games (Marble Blast Ultra), and takes some listener calls

 

Next weeks show he will interview Josh Robinson who was the guy fired from sony about his little web article about comparing the Xbox 360 to PS3

[dogbert]

Next weeks show he will interview Josh Robinson who was the guy fired from sony about his little web article about comparing the Xbox 360 to PS3

 

So will a Microsoft marketing piece talk to him about the legalities of breaking NDAs & spouting off based on internal rumours & hearsays, or will it concentrate on his anti-Sony rants?

[foogledricks]

So will a Microsoft marketing piece talk to him about the legalities of breaking NDAs & spouting off based on internal rumours & hearsays, or will it concentrate on his anti-Sony rants?

The greatest thing that makes this guy of interest (to me) is his knowledge of an area 51 product (PS3) and his willingness to talk about it. I doubt Major Nelson is having him on to talk about the semantics of his contract.

[JoeyN]

Actually Major Nelson said at the end of his cast, he isnt not going to go into the PS3 tech itself, and is not going to make it a bash the PS3 interview. Larry Hyrb has never said a bad thing about the PS3 yet. He's not a fan of the PSP but he mentioned it once and moved on

[foogledricks]

Actually Major Nelson said at the end of his cast, he isnt not going to go into the PS3 tech itself, and is not going to make it a bash the PS3 interview. Larry Hyrb has never said a bad thing about the PS3 yet. He's not a fan of the PSP but he mentioned it once and moved on

He seems to be a straight shooter. He talks about how cool the DS is at times and mentions competitor products like the Mac and Ipod all the time. Not a typical PR arm of a big company.

[JoeyN]

Yeah he really likes the DS, and has praised it on my occasions. He even went to meet Reggie to get it signed as a Nintendo events .

[dogbert]

Not a typical PR arm of a big company.

 

But he is a PR source for Microsoft - Microsoft are using his blog/podcast as a way to spread information & get interest from gamers. It's most definitely orchestrated with Microsoft PR.

[stillfastasleep]

So will a Microsoft marketing piece talk to him about the legalities of breaking NDAs & spouting off based on internal rumours & hearsays, or will it concentrate on his anti-Sony rants?

 

From what I've read, josh robinson apparently had everything cleared at sony with respect to NDAs. But, the piece created such a firestorm of controversy that sony decide to employ bully tactics and give him the boot anyway.

 

And I don't think that anecdotal evidence is necessarily heresay. If I talk to several engineers and they're telling me that they prefer the way one prouduct is engineered over another, its something to consider.

 

The guy didn't say anything bad about the ps3. He spoke of the difficulties of development in general and that, at this point in time, there wasn't a great deal to differentiate the ps3 from the 360. Basically, he wasn't on the same page as the sony disinformation campaign that wants everybody to believe that the ps3 is a generation ahead despite offering no evidence to support such a conclusion. The guy was straightforward and honest and admitted that technical matters can fly over his head.

 

Also, I haven't heard anti-sony rants from Larry Hyrb. He brought on two MS engineers to rebut some of sony's claims post E3. What they offered was a rebuttal to many of sony's contentions. Their arguments were well reasoned and made a lot of sense. It was one of the most informative interviews I've listened to.

 

Larry Hyrb was formerly in radio, his show is his own private endeavor. Its his show, his thing, its not like MS is funding the show. He even talked about how he considered shutting down his blog post 360 launch. He's also mentioned more than once his suprise that nobody on the sony side has bothered to do a simllar style blog/podcast.