|
Back to the news-page
Xbox 360 HD-DVD Interview
>> From [H]Console:
[QUOTE]
To give you an idea of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player, [H] Console brings you an interview with a Xbox Console & Consumer Software team member, Shaheen Gandhi.
* How long did development take?
* We went from no hardware and no software on 360 to a full product in about 8 months. It was a super-compressed development schedule and the quality is just spectacular. There's a longer timeframe when you consider the codecs had existed in code quite a while ago.
* All 4.7 million lines of code not only have to work, they have to be integrated into the Xbox 360 system without breaking anything. How does it all work together?
* The HD DVD playback software is a separate application, just like a game. It lives on the HD DVD player. As such, the player code doesn't affect the rest of the system (other than when it's running). We made some changes to the dashboard to recognize the HD DVD player.
* What prevents someone from using this drive on a PC?
* We have designed and tested the Xbox 360 HD DVD player to be a completely plug-and-play experience when used with an Xbox 360 console. We recognize that certain hard-core users have been able to enable HD DVD playback on a PC using SW and drivers from a variety of non-Microsoft sources. Consumers interested in using the HD DVD player on their PC's should understand this is an un-tested and unsupported configuration, and we will not be providing customer support for any PC scenario around HD DVD playback.
* Hardware wise, how much CPU utilization / overhead is there for a software based HD-DVD player like this? The Xbox 360's multiple core design should handle HD-DVD playback easily, shouldn't it?
* In general, there is always some piece of software that pushes hardware farther than other software has done. The HD DVD player happens to be a stepping stone here. There's still a lot of raw hardware power that's untapped. So, the amount of CPU time we are throwing at HD DVD fits fairly well into the time afforded us by 360's CPU. That hardly means, however, that every piece of code is as efficient as it could be.
[/QUOTE]
Full Interview: console.hardocp.com (2 pages)
Discuss this news item on our forums: forums.xbox-scene.com
Back to the news-page
| |
|
|
|
|
|
XboxMediaCenter at
|
