Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

[Malacite]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

So you're calling IBM liars?

Excuse me if I take the word of IBM's website over your own.

[Telera]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Oh don't give me that, you were throwing punches at the beautiful PS3 too like you were jealous the PS3 was prettier than you.

It's not hard for a machine to be prettier. It doesn't have to work out.

But in any case, no, recently I wasn't throwing punches at it. I was throwing punches at Sony's marketing decisions, not the system itself. That's all I've ever been upset with is the company not the machine. The system itself I couldn't care less about. Nothing current or coming up for it really interests me. So I don't see a reason to get it.

If anything I threw punches at Square Enix, because a FF is the only thing that could convince me, and I'm really not that impressed with XIII and it's insane Latin name. </3

I think I've outgrown Final Fantasies. Owell. That's ok. There's two more Mass Effects coming, I'll be alright.

(And for the record, prior to the current generation of consoles, I have owned one of every producer. But not this time, mostly due to lack of intriguing games.)

[jwalton]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

So you're calling IBM liars?
Excuse me if I take the word of IBM's website over your own.

Nah. I don't put lying on the same spectrum as exaggeration. Besides, it's not my word at all. I linked you to Folding@Home stats and showed you some math. Last generation GPUs can process more GFLOPS than the Cell can, based on Folding@Home results. Calling the PS3 a supercomputer because it can process lots of GFLOPS when last generation ATI GPUs have proven to do it even faster kind of devalues the word supercomputer, you know?

Here's the link again. Do the math yourself. Take the number of TFLOPS and divide it by the number of clients.

Edit: Also, I call for a truce. I'm no longer interested in arguing any further. I'll let you have the last word and we can move on to something more interesting, like games.

[Malacite]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3

Now in 2006, we are looking forward to another major advance in capabilities. This advance utilizes the new Cell processor in Sony’s PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) to achieve performance previously only possible on supercomputers. With this new technology (as well as new advances with GPUs), we will likely be able to attain performance on the 20 gigaflop scale per computer. With about 50,000 such machines, we would be able to achieve performance on the petaflop scale. With software from Sony, the PlayStation 3 will now be able to contribute to the Folding@Home project, pushing Folding@Home a major step forward.

Take note also that the PS3's workloads assigned to it are smaller, which skews the comparisons since they're not all doing the same workloads.

In a nutshell, the PS3 takes the middle ground between GPU's (extreme speed, but at limited types of WU's) and CPU's (less speed, but more flexibility in types of WU's).

We stress that one should not divide "current TFLOPS" by "active CPU" to estimate the performance of that CPU running without interruption. Note that if donors suspend the FAH client (e.g. to play a game, watch a movie, etc) they enlarge the time between getting the WU and delivering the result. This in turn reduces the FLOPS value, as more time was needed to deliver the result.

Finally;

It seems that the PS3 is more than 10X powerful as an average PC. Why doesn't it get 10X PPD as well?

We balance the points based on both speed and the flexibility of the client. The GPU client is still the fastest, but it is the least flexible and can only run a very, very limited set of WU's. Thus, its points are not linearly proportional to the speed increase. The PS3 takes the middle ground between GPU's (extreme speed, but at limited types of WU's) and CPU's (less speed, but more flexibility in types of WU's). We have picked the PS3 as the natural benchmark machine for PS3 calculations and set its points per day to 900 to reflect this middle ground between speed (faster than CPU, but slower than GPU) and flexibility (more flexible than GPU, less than CPU).

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Once again, it's just hyping it up. The PS3 is in no way a full-fledged "supercomputer" of any sort. When the machine was first debuted as a "supercomputer" by Kutaragi, he claimed it would output visuals on-par with what we were seeing from Hollywood at the time...the kind of visuals that required the processing power of true supercomputers.

I don't know about you, but I haven't seen the equivalent of that Alfred Molina tech demo in a PS3 game just yet. If it happens, I'll eat my HDMI cable.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

I don't know about you, but I haven't seen the equivalent of that Alfred Molina tech demo in a PS3 game just yet. If it happens, I'll eat my HDMI cable.

I think Taskmage just got 1-up'd.

[Telera]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

I think Taskmage just got 1-up'd.

Oshi.

He'll hold you to it, Pai. He'll demand Youtube-age of you ingesting cables. I don't think those are the kind of fiber the dietary specialists had in mind.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Oshi.

He'll hold you to it, Pai. He'll demand Youtube-age of you ingesting cables. I don't think those are the kind of fiber the dietary specialists had in mind.

Though, to be honest, Burnt Spaghetti will do fine. For all I care, it just has to look like his HDMI cable. And this is just assuming the PS3 actually does something super-computer-like.

Also, Oshi?

[Telera]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Despite it being my mashing of 'Oh shit' to sound less offensive, that definition could fit, if we apply it to demanding Youtube-age of poor unfortunate souls who make boasts as some kind of exercise in demonstrating that influence is power.

...ok that was a massive stretch. But it sounded good. In my head. ..sort of.

[Malacite]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

XD that is a pretty good one-liner. And I intend to hold you to that PaiPai :D

Kutaragi has also gone on record as saying it won't be for 5-6 years after PS3's launch that we'll see what it can really do.

That's... not the most assuring thing to say, but I'm inclined to believe the guy. Not because I'm a fanboy (which I'm not), but because this is the man behind PS 1, 2 and 3. All consoles that I have cherished and so I can't help but give the guy a bit of blind faith.

Worse case scenario: He's wrong, and we all just live with it and accept it and move on to the next batch of consoles (ugh... then the whole ugly cycle of fanboy console wars begins anew)

Or we may end up getting what was promised in the beginning (albeit rather late >_>) and all will be well. Personally, I figure we win either way as PS3 has already proven itself to be a great console with huge potential. Just gotta get more of those killer aps out.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Do the people arguing over whether PS3 is a supercomputer or not have any idea what is a supercomputer?

AFAIK, supercomputers have been build from PS3's cell process, true. That doesn't make PS3 a supercomputer--after all, many super computing class devices were also build from Intel's commodity processors, and no one would mistake an ordinary PC as a supercomputer.

To simplify, a supercomputer is about two things: 1) computational power, and 2) the bandwidth to push data around to make use of the computational power. A single PS3 has neither, as far as the world of super computing is concerned. (These days, the most advanced technology in supercomputers tend to be the CPU interconnections--not the CPUs. As nice as Cell is, it is the second fiddle inside of a supercomputer designed for it.)

Every supercomputer is custom built, BTW. No commodity computational device--including PS3--can be called a "supercomputer" in anything but marketing gibberish.

[Icemage]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Can we at least try to get back on topic? If you want to babble about the PS3, the video game forum section is over here -> VIDEO GAME SECTION

---

Ripples from the Warner Blu-ray exclusivity decision continue to roll in this week.

Bonver, a major distributor of movie discs in Norway and Sweden goes Blu-ray exclusive (link in Swedish).
http://www.blu-rayforum.se/index.php...=253&offset=28

German studio Constantin shifts from format neutral to Blu-ray exclusive as of March:
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/12498.cfm

Following Constantin's move, another formerly neutral German studio, Highlight Video, also declares Blu-ray exclusivity (link in German)
http://www.cinefacts.de/news/news.php?newsid=10173


Icemage

[jwalton]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Now that we're back on track with the thread title... you know what would sell me on Blu-Ray? Just one thing. Make the prices the same as DVD. That's it. The MSRP on Blu-Ray titles is $38. HD-DVD is just as ridiculous, and their combo discs are even worse. I am not paying those kinds of prices per 2 hour-ish movie. They charged those kinds of prices for LaserDisc back in the day. I bought the whole first season of Heroes on DVD for that price at Target when it debuted, and that was like, 18 hours of entertainment or something. It's just like Microsoft's video marketplace charging almost two bucks more for the HD versions of downloadable movies. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not going to pay two dollars more for a freakin' rental movie just so I can see it in a higher resolution. Microsoft can bite me on that one.

I know about Amazon's current Blu-Ray sale, which is awesome and puts almost the entire lineup at $19 or less per title... but it's a sale that's temporary. Make it permanent and we'll talk. $38 for a movie is total lol.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

I usually pick up my BDs on sale at Fry's Electronics for $19.99. Most every title retails around $24.99 there and usually drop to $19.99 after a few weeks. It's definitely a lifesaver for the HD enthusiast if you have one nearby.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Yep, same here Pai. I won't pay over $20 for a movie so I hit up Fry's and wait a few weeks till all the hoopla has died down and they are cheaper. If I waited this long for the movie to be on DVD then I can wait a couple more weeks.

A good place to watch for game deals and deals on lots of other stuff is www.dealnews.com . During Christmas I got my husband a butt load of Blu Ray movies for $10 each. If you want to expand your collection, just hit up that site every day and check out the sales. Over on the right hand side of the page there is a Category list and there is Movies, Music, Books section. (Games are under Gaming and Toys obviously.) Today they have up 2 sites that are selling Blu Ray discs for $15.