Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Take 2 has invested money in the project, and there have also been advanced payments made on the title oh so long ago that need to be fufilled, that as the new owners of the IP they are responsible for

I agree with your original quote and I don't expect it to be amazing by any means, but I am willing to bet it can be pretty good.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by merrick97

What were you doing when Duke Nukem Forever was first announced back in 1997!!??

DVD has just barely taken off back then. Lucas hadn't released the SEs of Star Wars yet. The PS2 was probably just getting talked about.

I remember talking with my friend about how long it was taking to make in my junior english class in 1998!

They came out starting in January of 1997 (the 31st).

Duke Nukem Forever was officially announced on April 28th.

[Jeff Kleist]

Ah memories

I was working in the deli of a local convienience store chain at the time, and made the mistake of school 7:30-2, work 3-11 and then empire SE at midnight, having to be back in at 7AM the next morning

I will never did that again

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

They came out starting in January of 1997 (the 31st).

Duke Nukem Forever was officially announced on April 28th.

Long ass time!!

Impressions from people who saw it seem good, but a lot of that is with nostalgia based goggles.

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Nevertheless, DNF is living proof that you do need guys who understand the business side of things who will enforce deadlines and that giving free reign to the artists will bankrupt a company if you let them.

I thought Heaven's Gate already proved that? .
I'm actually kinda curious about the game. I've never played a Duke Nukem game, but as long as I'm interested in video games, I kept reading that Duke Nukem Forever kept getting postponed.

[aygie]

I can see the tagline now; "10 years in the making" lol

[Mr. Cinema]

Jeff,

Do you use a PS3 for playing movies? I usually don't use mine for BD playback. And I'm going to post a picture of why that is. Since the PS3 has launched, I have tried out 2-3 fat versions and a couple different slims, at various retailers, at various times to see if this problem would ever go away. Unfortunately, that's not the case. This picture is what the bottom of a disc looks like upon ejecting it from the PS3. Have you ever seen this before?



This is partly why I've never been a fan of slot loading devices. But those 2 lines are ALWAYS left on the disc after ejecting. No matter what PS3 I've tried out, same result. They rub off using a microfiber cloth, but I would love to finally get to a point to where I can use the PS3 for movies and not have to worry about these markings. I was hoping someone else has noticed this.

[kjacobs03]

I've had my PS3 since launch and have never once had it leave a mark on a Blu-ray disc, game or movie.

[Jeff Kleist]

o you use a PS3 for playing movies? I usually don't use mine for BD playback. And I'm going to post a picture of why that is. Since the PS3 has launched, I have tried out 2-3 fat versions and a couple different slims, at various retailers, at various times to see if this problem would ever go away. Unfortunately, that's not the case. This picture is what the bottom of a disc looks like upon ejecting it from the PS3. Have you ever seen this before?

I don't own a PS3, there aren't enough exclusives I want to play to warrant the purchase at the current price point. I wouldn't use a game console as a playback device anyway regardless of brand. They're built as cheaply as possible and what life they have should be given to games. I also despise slot loading devices, they inevitably scratch, scuff and ruin discs. Hell I have some CDs in the car that I had to run burns of because the bottoms had been worn smooth so they couldn't get a grip to eject any more. The marks I see there definately look like wear from the rollers.

Buy yourself a good dedicated deck. They use 1/10th the power, and way less heat and noise. With the money left over you can buy some games and movies And please PlayStation Defense Force, just leave it lie, the PS3 has many peers in speed, and multimedia features in the dedicated player field now, and not everyone wants a console to do a player's job.

[Vincent Pereira]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I don't own a PS3, there aren't enough exclusives I want to play to warrant the purchase at the current price point. I wouldn't use a game console as a playback device anyway regardless of brand. They're built as cheaply as possible and what life they have should be given to games. I also despise slot loading devices, they inevitably scratch, scuff and ruin discs...
Buy yourself a good dedicated deck. They use 1/10th the power, and way less heat and noise...

Interesting, I have a 2-year old PS3 which I use solely to play Blu-ray movies, and have had NO issues whatsoever with scratched discs, noise, or heat. Also, I'd love to know what heavy material they are using to build it "cheaply" since the machine is f**king heavy as hell. If I bench pressed a couple of these things I figure I could compete in the Olympics.

Vincent

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by Mr. Cinema

Jeff,

Do you use a PS3 for playing movies? I usually don't use mine for BD playback. And I'm going to post a picture of why that is. Since the PS3 has launched, I have tried out 2-3 fat versions and a couple different slims, at various retailers, at various times to see if this problem would ever go away. Unfortunately, that's not the case. This picture is what the bottom of a disc looks like upon ejecting it from the PS3. Have you ever seen this before?



This is partly why I've never been a fan of slot loading devices. But those 2 lines are ALWAYS left on the disc after ejecting. No matter what PS3 I've tried out, same result. They rub off using a microfiber cloth, but I would love to finally get to a point to where I can use the PS3 for movies and not have to worry about these markings. I was hoping someone else has noticed this.

I believe what you are seeing is a combination of the presence of dust / particulates on the fabric "flaps" around the slot-loading drive, and the manner in which you are either placing or retrieving the disc. In the past, I too noticed similar lines on my discs, but only when others were inserting/removing the disc. A microfiber cloth did indeed wipe them away. Curious, I tried a few variations and can now recreate the behavior if I so choose (I do not so choose, however ). I could attempt to describe it if you really wanted, but I'm not sure it would be of use as my "techniques" are entirely muscle-memory dependent.

[Jeff Kleist]

Game systems are typically sold at a loss, and usually at the beginning a heavy loss and after that it floats in the small loss to mild profit zone depending on proximity to a pricedrop. The launch PS3 lost about $300 per unit, and the Slims are now running a slight profit (give or take, it's always changing).

For example, PS1 and 2 were infamous for cheap parts being used in their disc drives
The 360 of course was not properly tested and they cheaped out on the cooling system.

The original Xbox is probably the only exception to the rule cause the thing was essentially an off the shelf PC using parts that had already been run through the ringer, which is a big reason why it was dumped so fast, because there was very little room for cost reduction. The name of the game is always reducing the number of chips, and the fabrication die used to make them. For example the current iteration of the CELL processor and the variant of it that powers the 360 are down to 45 nanometers from 90, which has doubled the number of chips you can make per stamp, (and now costing under half as much per chip to produce) and at the same time this results in a great reduction in power consumption in heat, resulting in further savings on the power supply and cooling systems. Combining the CPU and the GPU in the 360 slims leads to further savings

The "weight" rule doesn't really apply in these circumstances. High end audiophile gear is always heavy because to do the job properly requires heavy things and a lot of room (and because people expect it to be heavy). This myth is also why most white van speakers have bricks in the bottom of them Most of the weight you're feeling in the PS3 is the casing, shielding and cooling system, not the truely expensive parts that are the chips on the boards and the hard discs (a big reason why MS didn't include one (and so they could jack you) is because you can't get much lower than about $40 for a hard drive. It's a fixed cost). The entire business model of consoles is to make your money on the game royalties not the hardware.

Check out the difference between the launch and the slim PS3s

Launch- http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/B...WkbrpS6b2.huge
Slim- http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/H...eXp6yoDPZ.huge

Heck, look at the dedicated players. My BD80 weighs at least half what my BD10A did, carries all the same features (plus BonusView, DTS Master decoding, BD Live, Viera Cast and runs at least 50% faster, probably more), uses about half the juice and has better PQ.

[aygie]

Originally Posted by Vincent Pereira

If I bench pressed a couple of these things I figure I could compete in the Olympics.

Vincent

[Mr. Cinema]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

I believe what you are seeing is a combination of the presence of dust / particulates on the fabric "flaps" around the slot-loading drive, and the manner in which you are either placing or retrieving the disc. In the past, I too noticed similar lines on my discs, but only when others were inserting/removing the disc. A microfiber cloth did indeed wipe them away. Curious, I tried a few variations and can now recreate the behavior if I so choose (I do not so choose, however ). I could attempt to describe it if you really wanted, but I'm not sure it would be of use as my "techniques" are entirely muscle-memory dependent.

Would dust be that apparent, even in brand new systems? Every system I tried, it left markings beginning on day 1 of use, right out of the package. It has boggled my mind that more people haven't complained about this. Obviously the discs will play no problem, but the OCD in me would love to be able to use the PS3 and NOT have to go looking for the microfiber cloth after finishing a film.

As far as loading/unloading the disc, I don't think I'm doing anything incorrectly. I basically add/remove the disc on a straight level. The disc rubs against the little flaps regardless of how the disc is taken out.

It's always the same kind of lines each time. They're pretty much in the same locations. If dust were really an issue, you'd think there'd be multiple lines across the bottom.

In comparison, I don't think I've ever noticed any of these markings when I've removed a game from the Wii.

Had the PS3 contained an actual disc tray, I'd use it for movie playback much more often.

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by Mr. Cinema

Would dust be that apparent, even in brand new systems? Every system I tried, it left markings beginning on day 1 of use, right out of the package. It has boggled my mind that more people haven't complained about this. Obviously the discs will play no problem, but the OCD in me would love to be able to use the PS3 and NOT have to go looking for the microfiber cloth after finishing a film.

As far as loading/unloading the disc, I don't think I'm doing anything incorrectly. I basically add/remove the disc on a straight level. The disc rubs against the little flaps regardless of how the disc is taken out.

It's always the same kind of lines each time. They're pretty much in the same locations. If dust were really an issue, you'd think there'd be multiple lines across the bottom.

In comparison, I don't think I've ever noticed any of these markings when I've removed a game from the Wii.

Had the PS3 contained an actual disc tray, I'd use it for movie playback much more often.

I don't know if it's dust per se, but I don't know how to better describe it. I can cause the same thing with even a brand new microfiber cloth if I rub it the right way on a BD disc (though obviously not a perfect line, I instead get a marking reflecting the shape of the edge of the microfiber cloth). It's not something unique to the PS3's fabric flaps.

As for your disc technique, I'm not saying you're doing it wrong - but it would appear you're doing it in a manner that creates those faint imprints. Most would never notice them, nevermind care, and considering it just wipes away it is hardly a concern in terms of damaging the disc. But if you're OCD, and want to not create those lines, it would appear you need to adjust something. As for why the PS3 causes those and the Wii does not, I suspect it's because either a) the Wii is vertical, so a disc resting in the slot has pressure applied to a small point on the side of the disc, whereas the PS3's slot is horizontal so the disc has pressure along the top of the bottom fabric flap, or b) BD discs have a protective layer that makes them much smoother (and thereby more reflective, allowing for better inspection of finer particulates and markings), and/or creates different static electricity properties that may attract dust and fine particulates to a stronger degree.

Wow, now I look OCD for typing that.

[Jeff Kleist]

The only thing I can say is that if you really want to find out what's causing that, you're going to need to dissassemble your drive to see where it might be rubbing. Doing so will void your warranty and is at your own risk and I take no responsibility for any mishaps that may happen to your deck in the process

[chris0]

I have a 60G launch PS3 and it's never left those marks on a DVD or Blu-ray. I just loaded and ejected a couple different Blu-rays and checked the back of each. No marks.

[Mr. Cinema]

Jeff,

What's your opinion on Samsung players? It seems like out of all the manufacturers, they still seem to have playback related issues, based on the user reviews from various places. And they appear to always be rated lower than Sony, Panasonic, LG, and the other major brands.

[Jeff Kleist]

I like their TVs, I don't know about the current models, but if I were looking for a player I'd look at Panasonics or Sonys, and throw in Oppo if you're willing to put up with the wait for firmware updates. I haven't heard the screaming about the more current Samsungs and LGs (which at least in the past were the same hardware/software) , but after seeing so many people get burned, it's going to take a while longer with a clean track record for me to recommend their decks.

[captveg]

Originally Posted by Oliver_A

What other director am I supposed to "hate" for, after making some significant changes, feverishly holding back the original versions of his films which made him famous?

Chaplin