4K on PS4 and Xbox One?

[jeff_rigby]

Originally Posted by Frank@Chicago

Many people feel Sony has gotten semi-shady in recent years.

You can't even play a CD (!) in the PS4, but they had time to develop and port an entire music subscription/streaming service to the PS4.

The PS3 could basically do anything (PS1, PS2, CDs) and the cutting-edge PS4 is somehow unable to do much of anything internally.

The PS4 has been gimped by Sony and setup as a digital steaming/download gateway.

Welcome to the PayStation 4.

The delay in implementing even the smallest of media features does make one pause, it's seriously screwed up my guesses as to when things would be implemented. I don't think it's shady beyond Sony is not in a rush to implement features they don't profit from. For example, I believe CD play is coming as it's in the documentation and I can't imagine a media Hub that doesn't support music.

Jan of 2015 ooVoo said they would have ooVoo in the PS4 by mid year. It's now 7 months past that deadline. When ooVoo announced their timetable it made sense since the FCC had a mandate for Vidipath that the Cable industry had to support by June 2015 = mid 2015. Cable supports Vidipath as of June but there are no CE clients that do. I can't find anything on the internet that explains this delay.

Spain is implementing Vidipath but in 2014 they said they were waiting for HEVC/4K. Is everyone waiting for the same?

[sonicyogurt]

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

Jan of 2015 ooVoo said they would have ooVoo in the PS4 by mid year. It's now 7 months past that deadline.

It looks like they've given up.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

Don't think so. The PS3 apps haven't changed since about 2012. Netflix for instance has the DRM as part of the app. That is soon not going to be allowed. DRM has to be embedded and Sony started on this road in 2011 and 11/2014 advertised a software job to implement Playready embedded in the PS3, PS4 and Vita. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=929377

Then you have the PDF Sony sent to the FCC a few months ago showing a PS3 Vidipath streaming from a Cable TV DVR. Vidipath requires embedded Playready.

For the PS3 a PDF on Passage was just released at the latest FCC DSTAC (Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee) meeting. Page 12 has a chart showing a PS3 being used as a Vidipath STB.

Top path is RVU which the PS3 already supports.
Direct Attach End to End (center path) which is all IPTV direct from a cable modem . The future but Cable can't currently support more than a small percentage of their customers going all IPTV.
Sony is definitely supporting Vidipath, page 12 bottom path (Traditional Cable TV with the DLNA CVP2 FCC mandate where a DVR with tuners converts a RF channel to IPTV streams )

Sony want's those millions and millions of PS3s as media STBs that have A Sony store and can support Playstation Vue. They are grandfathered in as far as IPTV power levels (80 watts) but I think a refresh has to support state of the art IPTV levels of about 20 watts or less which the PS4 is supposed to do when it gets the Media Firmware updates ( Full screen video all done in Southbridge with the AMD APU off).

November 15th 2016

3 years will have then been supported since PS4. Also those 80 million units sold.. Most belong to gamestop, game, EB etc etc.. It's like thinking the consumer is hanging onto their iPhone 4 for dear life.

[Richard Paul]

Sony VP Masayasu Ito said in an interview that Ultra HD Blu-ray would require an enhanced PS4 but whether it happens would depend on how much the enhanced PS4 would cost and how many units they believe could be sold.

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

The HEVC codec is not fixed, it's evolving as it has hooks to support upgrading and needs Multi-view (for IPTV on Cable and Antenna TV) then Multi-view plus Depth for 3D. There is currently no such thing as a fixed "hardware" Codec for HEVC.

The first HEVC profiles (Main, Main 10, and Main Still Picture) were finished in early 2013 and it took about 2 years for companies to release products with HEVC hardware decoders.

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

One of the wrong arguments that the PS4 and XB1 couldn't support HEVC was that they didn't have this hardware codec that was developed after the PS4 and XB1 were released, this is so wrong as to be laughable. A fixed hardware codec for HEVC was still not possible in 2015.

There are dozens of HEVC hardware decoders on the market. The GeForce GTX 960 was released in early 2015 and it had a HEVC hardware decoder.

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

Stock that should rocket = AMD and Microsoft & Sony sometime between now and 2018.

Those companies might do well but it would have nothing to do with the theories that you have posted.

[jeff_rigby]

Originally Posted by sonicyogurt

It looks like they've given up.

Maybe. ooVoo to have the features they announce has to be integrated into southbridge in Japan. It will use RealTimeChat which also uses the native library for HTML5 <video> and if Microsoft thinks HEVC is necessary for RTC then likely Sony has to do the same. ooVoo if it's coming will likely come with the HTML5 <video> MSE EME update to the browser and may be part of a PS3 update at the same time. We expected HTML5 <video> without any evidence sometime around June because of ooVoo. No HTML5 <video> in the browser means no ooVoo not the other way around. It can still come but AFTER HTML5 <video> is implemented. The GIVE project announced at CES is about fine tuning Html5 <video> for commercial use so it is not considered a FINISHED/implemented feature.

HTML5 <video> and codecs are all ARM routines running in the PS4 Southbridge's 256 MB of memory and published as APIs to the main OS/Browser. Full screen video for (HD & UHD) TV, Blu-ray, and IPTV has to run 100% in Southbridge with the AMD APU off and GDDR5 in self refresh. It must do this to comply with power modes required by the EU and US Energy Star, it must do this to comply with DRM (Arm Trustzone TEE). Confirming this is the statement in the CES ooVoo video that you can video chat while watching Netflix...both watching the same movie.

I believe there will be a video chat app. Sharing a game without audio chat last generation is as bad as sharing a game without video chat this generation.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

I believe there will be a video chat app. Sharing a game without audio chat last generation is as bad as sharing a game without video chat this generation.

Sorry, I can't follow your logic there. When I play a game, I want to watch what's going on in the game (as I do now with audio chat), not my opponent's face.

[jeff_rigby]

Originally Posted by Richard Paul

Sony VP Masayasu Ito said in an interview that Ultra HD Blu-ray would require an enhanced PS4 but whether it happens would depend on how much the enhanced PS4 would cost and how many units they believe could be sold.

You have to read the interview even the google translation not the interpretations in articles. Ito was ambushed by a very well respected Hardware reviewer who had previously posted that the PS4 hardware and drive should support UHD Blu-ray. When Ito was put on the spot he said that there was no HEVC codec in the PS4 and the Drive can't read three layers. It's true that there is no HEVC codec in the PS4 as it will be a software codec accelerated using Xtensa processors. It's not there now but will come with a firmware update. Drives prior to 2010 could read 3 layers with a firmware update but MAYBE not reliably as there was no published whitepaper for the hardware spec. There is no UHD drive, it's a version 2 drive complying with the 2010 BD-R whitepaper which contained specs to read 4 layers. Again, there is a UHD Blu-ray Test player for Game Consoles.

When Ito was asked if a future more powerful PS4 could play UHD-Blu-ray he said it's possible but Sony would have to run the numbers to see if it would be cost effective. Since UHD Blu-ray has to run 100% in Southbridge, that is the only part that would need upgrading and HEVC needs 1.5 times the processing power (GPGPU) of h.264, it's a tiny bit of additional die or about $1 with software amortized over millions of consoles, it's a negligible cost. HEVC is also needed for IPTV and ATSC 3 and uses exactly the same player and codec.

If you are going to do vision processing you can either use the GPU, taking processing power away from games, or use a GPGPU block with dedicated hardware for vision that can also be used for codecs = Xtensa IVP and it can handle HEVC codecs but it's a low power block that must be on a ARM AXI bus. Gee that works as all video is run through the Southbridge ARM trustzone processor TEE.

The first HEVC profiles (Main, Main 10, and Main Still Picture) were finished in early 2013 and it took about 2 years for companies to release products with HEVC hardware decoders.

Yup, Microsoft released HEVC for the XB1 two years after it was released. IS that because the market was ready for HEVC or Microsoft had to develop a transporter to move additional hardware into already existing XB1 chips in people's homes.

There are dozens of HEVC hardware decoders on the market. The GeForce GTX 960 was released in early 2015 and it had a HEVC hardware decoder.

I believe Nvida uses the same Xtensa DPUs that AMD uses for their UVD (Universal Video Decoder). It's not a hardware codec, it's a software codec using Xtensa processors (DPU) which have dedicated blocks for vision and video. Vision processing and modern codecs have many similar functions and the same hardware can support both. Sony and Microsoft have plans for AR and casual games that require considerable vision processing. The Xtensa IVP can do HEVC and Vision processing.

There are now three generations of the IVP since it was released in 2012 to partners. It's now something over 30 times more power efficient and that third generation is in AMD's Carrizo. Game consoles connected to the mains could use that first generation Xtensa IVP while battery operated chips couldn't.

ARM has released DPUs for both vision and Codecs including HEVC.

[jeff_rigby]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Sorry, I can't follow your logic there. When I play a game, I want to watch what's going on in the game (as I do now with audio chat), not my opponent's face.

As a Grandparent with young Grandchidren (3 & 5) who live 3,000 miles away, I'd like to video chat while they are playing games like Guitar Hero. Video chat on the PS3 gives a wider field of view of the living room that I find better than Skype on the PC. At the present time you must have very good internet connections on both ends and a well lit living room for the PS3 chat to work. With HEVC and the PS4 camera even poor low speed internet connections should give good video chat experiences at higher resolutions.

Our Daughter Playing a home movie of the grandchildren while video chating 3000 miles away allows us to share family moments. This I consider a must have feature I assume Sony is going to provide given they will even allow video chat while sharing a commercial video.

[Doctorossi]

Jeff, you continue to assert that it's possible, but you never fail to evade the question about why, then, it hasn't been announced or implemented. Sony has a reason to delay, being a CE manufacturer with stand-alone hardware on the horizon. Microsoft, though, is trying to stem the PS4's tide and doesn't have to worry about competing with itself. UHD would be a great marketing point to sell Xbox One to potential PS4 buyers.

So, come on, Jeff- if they can do it and they have a great reason to... why don't they?

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

As a Grandparent with young Grandchidren (3 & 5) who live 3,000 miles away, I'd like to video chat while they are playing games like Guitar Hero.

Have you ever tried to video chat while playing Guitar Hero? If that's a must-have feature, so is a toilet in a car.

[jeff_rigby]

Originally Posted by Derb

November 15th 2016

3 years will have then been supported since PS4. Also those 80 million units sold.. Most belong to gamestop, game, EB etc etc.. It's like thinking the consumer is hanging onto their iPhone 4 for dear life.

My PS3 is moving into the Den/family room where it will be the Vidipath STB sharing media with the PS4 and the Cable TV STB/DVR in the living room.

[jeff_rigby]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Jeff, you continue to assert that it's possible, but you never fail to evade the question about why, then, it hasn't been announced or implemented. Sony has a reason to delay, being a CE manufacturer with stand-alone hardware on the horizon. Microsoft, though, is trying to stem the PS4's tide and doesn't have to worry about competing with itself. UHD would be a great marketing point to sell Xbox One to potential PS4 buyers.

So, come on, Jeff- if they can do it and they have a great reason to... why don't they?

While it's a good question I can only give a poor answer, it must be a NDA. Microsoft only announced HEVC profile 10 support for the XB1 October 2015 and they were very careful to not say it would support UHD Blu-ray. They did say it could be used for Netflix. Within a week of the Microsoft HEVC announcement a slide appeared stating that the XB1 could game stream using HEVC to PCs but not PC to XB1. AMD then released a slide stating that they use the same hardware to support HEVC that the XB1 uses.

Netflix will use the same HEVC profile 10 for UHD and HD to reduce bandwidth. HEVC profile 10 is also the same version to be used by UHD Blu-ray. Again, there is a game console test player for UHD blu-ray.

Again, there is a UHD test player for the PC and it leaked from Playready ND training sessions that Windows 10 will support UHD Blu-ray provided there is TEE hardware and trusted boot. Playready has nothing to do with UHD playback other than Playready porting kit 3 uses the same Tee and trusted boot. Playready ND requires Playready porting kit 3 and it is required for the UHD Blu-ray digital bridge 4K streaming over the home network. Microsoft has not officially announced that they will support UHD blu-ray with Windows 10 or that they will be supporting 4K blu-ray in home streaming. Why? shouldn't that increase sales of new computers with Windows 10... Perhaps everyone was waiting for hardware that supported a TEE and trusted boot to be on the market before announcing this? This I think can Also be a modern dGPU with TEE that has the OS for the dGPU booted from an internal ROM. That allows older PC motherboards to support UHD.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

While it's a good question I can only give a poor answer, it must be a NDA.

So, you suspect that they've made a deal with some other party to not do it? In that case, what does it matter whether or not they can?

[sonicyogurt]

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

While it's a good question I can only give a poor answer, it must be a NDA.

What's to hide behind an NDA? The first UHD BD player is already on store shelves. Its existence is not a closely guarded secret.

Besides, you've already publicly cracked the code!

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

Microsoft has not officially announced that they will support UHD blu-ray with Windows 10 or that they will be supporting 4K blu-ray in home streaming. Why? shouldn't that increase sales of new computers with Windows 10..

There's very little interest at large for UHD BD, let alone something as niche of a niche of a niche as that.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

My PS3 is moving into the Den/family room where it will be the Vidipath STB sharing media with the PS4 and the Cable TV STB/DVR in the living room.

Well at least you got 9 more months left to enjoy.

[jeff_rigby]

Originally Posted by sonicyogurt

What's to hide behind an NDA? The first UHD BD player is already on store shelves. Its existence is not a closely guarded secret.

Besides, you've already publicly cracked the code!

There's very little interest at large for UHD BD, let alone something as niche of a niche of a niche as that.

Windows 7 with a right click on Media can PlayTo DLNA platforms. Windows 10 now calls this Cast to because the industry has settled on Cast to avoid confusion. You have to enable this in Network settings. The PS3 does not comply with DLNA standards and with the PS3 on it reports as Other. You have to enable other or ALL media streaming to all platforms for the PS3 to be able to stream from the PC but Cast to and Playto will still not work with the PS3.

Why didn't Sony update the PS3 DLNA to industry standards? You can push media via DLNA to the Xbox 360 but not to the PS3. The PS3 has network standby, 1080P support and was designed to be a media platform to support ATSC 2 so why no firmware updates? My guess is it's all coming with the Playready port to the PS3, a complete rewrite of the PS3 APP framework to support Vidipath as Vidipath uses DLNA.

Sony-Microsoft have known they would use DLNA and a common DRM for this since sometime before 2006 with the Hotchips video on who owns the living room that was NDA kept from the internet till 2013. The 2006 Hotchips video only mentions DLNA and a common DRM. The common DRM (Playready) project was started by Microsoft in 2007 with Sony officially announcing they would use it in all their platforms in 2011 Edit: this is also when Microsoft registered the domain name Microsoft-sony.com. In 2014 Sony posted a job to support Playready embedded in the PS3, PS4 and Vita. As of that date DRMtoday had the PS3 with only Marlin DRM.

Video at that time (2007-201x) streaming was dominated by Adobe with the PS3 supporting Flash server 3.5 features and the video framework using AVM+ (adobe Flash actionscript and player) which Adobe licensed as open source and gave to Mozilla to manage. It's not just the DRM in the PS3 that has to be rewritten, it's the player also to the HTML5 <video> MSE EME standard if it's to support Vidipath. So along with the DRM is the player which is also used by DLNA. That makes DLNA, the video player and DRM that all need a rewrite and you can't do this piecemeal.

So it appeared to us that the PS3 couldn't support or Sony wouldn't support firmware updates to the PS3 which lead many to believe it's End of life. To this point I'm mostly answering Derbs post but if you notice there was a NDA where the panelists in the Hot Chips video allowed the video to be held back from the public from 2006 to 2013...why? The same I think applies now to other coming features of the Media revolution that is the global acceptance of HTML5 <video> MSE EME and a common DRM scheme (playready) which will be used for ATSC 3, the global television standard for 4K and Mobile TV which likely will be mandated by the FCC for Cell phones.

ATSC 3 includes HDR and 3D so we know that the Multi-view and Multi-view plus depth parts of the HEVC codec have to be done by 2018 probably earlier. If you read the Feb 2016 list of standards to be used by ATSC 3 one can get an idea of what is being worked on and what's coming. UHD Blu-ray players should also support 3D by that point.

Sony stated that Cell phones are the future, it's not obvious why this might be true as Sony is loosing money on Cell phones yet they refuse to drop that line. The ATSC 3 mobile TV feature is touted as the biggest opportunity for advertisers to target a new TV market. Since Cell phones use the same modulation scheme ATSC 3 uses it will require little to enable Mobile TV on Smart Cell phones and the FCC may mandate ATSC 3 mobile TV support on Cell phones for emergency alert.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by jeff_rigby

Windows 7 with a right click on Media can PlayTo DLNA platforms. Windows 10 now calls this Cast to because the industry has settled on Cast to avoid confusion. You have to enable this in Network settings. The PS3 does not comply with DLNA standards and with the PS3 on it reports as Other. You have to enable other or ALL media streaming to all platforms for the PS3 to be able to stream from the PC but Cast to and Playto will still not work with the PS3.

Why didn't Sony update the PS3 DLNA to industry standards? You can push media via DLNA to the Xbox 360 but not to the PS3. The PS3 has network standby, 1080P support and was designed to be a media platform to support ATSC 2 so why no firmware updates? My guess is it's all coming with the Playready port to the PS3, a complete rewrite of the PS3 APP framework to support Vidipath as Vidipath uses DLNA.

Sony-Microsoft have known they would use DLNA and a common DRM for this since sometime before 2006 with the Hotchips video on who owns the living room that was NDA kept from the internet till 2013. The 2006 Hotchips video only mentions DLNA and a common DRM. The common DRM (Playready) project was started by Microsoft in 2007 with Sony officially announcing they would use it in all their platforms in 2011 Edit: this is also when Microsoft registered the domain name Microsoft-sony.com. In 2014 Sony posted a job to support Playready embedded in the PS3, PS4 and Vita. As of that date DRMtoday had the PS3 with only Marlin DRM.

Video at that time (2007-201x) streaming was dominated by Adobe with the PS3 supporting Flash server 3.5 features and the video framework using AVM+ (adobe Flash actionscript and player) which Adobe licensed as open source and gave to Mozilla to manage. It's not just the DRM in the PS3 that has to be rewritten, it's the player also to the HTML5 <video> MSE EME standard if it's to support Vidipath. So along with the DRM is the player which is also used by DLNA. That makes DLNA, the video player and DRM that all need a rewrite and you can't do this piecemeal.

So it appeared to us that the PS3 couldn't support or Sony wouldn't support firmware updates to the PS3 which lead many to believe it's End of life. To this point I'm mostly answering Derbs post but if you notice there was a NDA where the panelists in the Hot Chips video allowed the video to be held back from the public from 2006 to 2013...why? The same I think applies now to other coming features of the Media revolution that is the global acceptance of HTML5 <video> MSE EME and a common DRM scheme (playready) which will be used for ATSC 3, the global television standard for 4K and Mobile TV which likely will be mandated by the FCC for Cell phones.

ATSC 3 includes HDR and 3D so we know that the Multi-view and Multi-view plus depth parts of the HEVC codec have to be done by 2018 probably earlier. If you read the Feb 2016 list of standards to be used by ATSC 3 one can get an idea of what is being worked on and what's coming. UHD Blu-ray players should also support 3D by that point.

Sony stated that Cell phones are the future, it's not obvious why this might be true as Sony is loosing money on Cell phones yet they refuse to drop that line. The ATSC 3 mobile TV feature is touted as the biggest opportunity for advertisers to target a new TV market. Since Cell phones use the same modulation scheme ATSC 3 uses it will require little to enable Mobile TV on Smart Cell phones and the FCC may mandate ATSC 3 mobile TV support on Cell phones for emergency alert.

I put this in google translate & it resulted in No.

[jeff_rigby]

Originally Posted by Derb

I put this in google translate & it resulted in No.

DLNA, the video player and DRM all need a rewrite and you can't do this piecemeal.

** for you ** it appeared to us that the PS3 couldn't support or Sony wouldn't support firmware updates to the PS3 which lead many to believe it's End of life.

it's all coming with the Playready port to the PS3, a complete rewrite of the PS3 APP framework to support Vidipath.

For the PS3 a PDF on Passage was just released at the latest FCC DSTAC (Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee) meeting. Page 12 has a chart showing a PS3 being used as a Vidipath STB.

Edit: I got sidetracked, the same PS3 can't be updated piecemeal applies to the PS4. Same for the XB1, it got it's total rewrite to the OS last October. The Beta support site for that XB1 update urged beta testers to thoroughly document any issues as the beta they were using was a completely new kernel/OS.

[jeff_rigby]

Official confirmation in letters from Sony and Microsoft to the EU power board.

UHD Game Consoles shipped in 2013 but won't be firmware updated to support it till 2016.. There is a second paper naming both the XB1 and PS4 as UHD game consoles.

So this is understood as confirmed:

The PS4 has a HDMI 2 port with HDCP taking place in Southbridge and the GPGPU block mentioned by Eurogamer in the PS4 and XB1 are Xtensa DSP accelerators that are used for HEVC and OpenVX (Vision processing and Codecs using GPGPU with special blocks that are 20-100X more efficient than CPU or GPU GPGPU at some tasks.)

And for the Player software and License for UHD Game Console

There is a BDA Licence for UHD Blu-ray game consoles and Sony has a License for a BD-ROM4 Movie Player/BD-ROM Game Console/BD-ROM Test Player and a License for a UHD Blu-ray PC application.. BD-ROM4 is the UHD blu-ray version. What was confusing was that it was for a Category that included all Embedded platforms where the Manufacturer has control over the drive and all DRM; I.E. Stand alone UHD Blu-ray players and Game Consoles.

There is no such thing as a UHD drive; there is no UHD Drive in the PS4 or the coming Neo.

A modern HD Blu-ray drive can be firmware updated to support UHD (Version 2 disks). They must buy a Licence and provide a server for pairing/Key encryption between the drive and Player across the USB or eSATA bus. ALL blu-ray drives can read three or more layers. It's the disk that is special not the drive; this is mentioned in Wiki pages.

[ernestocolon30]

Releases holiday 2016 ,does this bring down 4k movie is player prices?