Today's (1.12.2004) news comment

[Lord_KiRon]

The comments about DP-600 is especially funny when everyone who keeps track on industry know that KiSS haven't even started designing DP-600. (that by the way was supposed to be released in May )

They are curently too busy with finishing DP-558 analogue TV recorder with DivX playback capabilities on old chip (EM8560 , no QPel , no WMV) . It was too anounsed to be released in January 2004 but got released only at the end of October and with unfinished firmware (no FTP promised, no AC3 audio in audio files and AVIs ,no subtitles support , a lot of problems) . So currently they added FTP ,AC3, fixed some problems but even now it's not 100% finished (but sells for 550 euro - fall of almost 200 euro in price in two months !) . So they working even now mostly on finishing it.

On my personal opinion they will start working on DP-600 in about January so this means either another release with unfinished firmware in April-May or more robust and full featured version in June-July.

IO-Data player however allready sells both in Japan in US , it have it's own problems but according to most user posts on AVS forums quete good and problems gets fixed one by one by IO-DATA with their very frequent firmware releases (about 5 or 6 in first month after release) .
And they introduced very interesting concept - their PC server software have run-time transcoding capabilities so even player can't play some format but you have right codecs installed on your PC - you can play it !

[Doom9]

The comments about DP-600 is especially funny when everyone who keeps track on industry know that KiSS haven't even started designing DP-600.Do you have any more info on that? I'm not looking forward to the KISS players.. the delays on previous products have me concerned as well. I suppose I'd get the IO-Data player if they sold it with a DVI output (I know I don't need it, but why get the analogue crap if you can have it digitally?).

[Lord_KiRon]

We will have more info on KiSS and DP-6xx series status in 2-3 days when Hi-Jack, admin of the MPC site ( http://www.mpeg-playcenter.com ) will return from his visit to KiSS.

But in general the KiSS software team was up until now busy with DP-558 and they continue to do so , they added 2nd software team about a 2 months ago , but the rummor is that they are just learning and working on retrofitting older players with new GUI.

Not sure about hardware team, may be they do have DP-600 already but without software ...

So that's the way things look like now , but again we will have much up to date information just in a couple of days.

[SeeMoreDigital]

How odd....

Especially, in the light of what Keith Jack (of Sigma) announced yesterday, over on the AVS forum: -

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4738621#post4738621


Cheers

[Doom9]

but CES starts in 2005, and you can perfectly show an incomplete product at a trade show ;)


But since no player based on the new sigma chipset was out when it was supposed to, I guess Sigma had something to do with the delays as well. And now there'a already a new chipset on the horizon. Maybe we should take bets on whether any chipset will ever do 3 warppoint GMC and in case that happens, which company will be the first.

[Lord_KiRon]

I had PM exchange with one of the Sigma's engeneers , their new chip deals mostly with HD-DVD playback , mostly they now conentrate on AAC HC audio and protections.
I am not sure about video part , I think they aiming for H.264 too , does it means 3-point GMC will be supported as well ?
If I am not mistaken H.264 uses not only QPel but 1/8 pixel too.

About "show something on CES" - it's not so hard, Sigma have developers boards that work , make a 2 week worth work of changes, put logo and stuff and assuming you have a box ready you have "something to show" .

On the other hand may be they hiding something :) as I said we will know it 2-3 days .

[virus]

Originally posted by Lord_KiRon
I think they aiming for H.264 too , does it means 3-point GMC will be supported as well ?
They're unrelated, H.264 does not include GMC at all.
If I am not mistaken H.264 uses not only QPel but 1/8 pixel too.
AFAIK 1/8-Pel has been in the reference encoder for a while during the development of H.264, but later it was dropped due to the large computational requirements, compared with the very small efficiency gain it brings.

[LordRPI]

Originally posted by Doom9
but CES starts in 2005, and you can perfectly show an incomplete product at a trade show ;)


It's pretty do-able, as long as it doesn't do it's form of a BSOD. MS has pulled it off in more ways than one :) But then again, with MS, that's to be expected. Gates signed the IBM deal with vaporware and was lucky enough to buy QDos from GK. I'm surprised those men in dress code at the IBM Armonk facility bought it hook line and sinker. It at least shows stuff like that can be pulled off well :)

On a funny note, I think I remember seeing a BSOD on a Saab dashboard at the NY auto show once.

[Lord_KiRon]

Well it looks like there is hope after all , according to Sigma engeneer it actually saw DP-600 playing :)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=4750872#post4750872

On the other hand it still raises posibility of release with unfinished firmware as they did with DP-558 .

[Lord_KiRon]

So what you think about this ugly duck :
http://www.mpeg-playcenter.com/dp-600_design.jpg ?

Hi-Jack is back and he says he saw DP-600 working too , sales date April-March .

[SeeMoreDigital]

Why does it say "DP 700" on the front left of the unit?


Cheers

[Lord_KiRon]

That was the first question I asked :)
According to Hi-Jack , KiSS was developing it for future players (DP-700) but then they decided that people grew tired of "old" design and decided to introduce new design in DP-600.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I guess like a lot of people here... I'm more interested to know, what's around the "back" of the player?

Personally speaking, I'm not interesed in buying any high-def stand-alone player unless it has, ethernet, component and DVI video, 6Ch analogue and digital audio outputs.


Cheers

[Lord_KiRon]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
I guess like a lot of people here... I'm more interested to know, what's around the "back" of the player?

Me too but then imagine this "corfin" sitting near your TV :)

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital

Personally speaking, I'm not interesed in buying any high-def stand-alone player unless it has, ethernet, component and DVI video, 6Ch analogue and digital audio outputs.
Cheers

I like to have more outputs too but WHY would you need BOTH 6ch analogue and digital ?
If you have old reciever or just speaker you could use analogue , with any "new" reciever digital , but why both ?

Ethernet it will have for sure , probably even WiFi "g" too, DVI - don't know yet , "VGA" (RGBHV) thru SCART for sure , 6ch digital oyut for sure , analogue - don't know yet .

But for me the main issues is playability , I am too think it will take a lot of time before most thing I watch will be Hi-Def :) but if someone brings me one I preffer it to play it :)
Same with WMV , I do not need it as a rule but if I get WMV from somewhere I preffer it played :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Lord_KiRon
I like to have more outputs too but WHY would you need BOTH 6ch analogue and digital ?
If you have old reciever or just speaker you could use analogue , with any "new" reciever digital , but why both ? Because, unless you have an DSS amplifier that includes a chip-set that can decode 2Ch and 6Ch AAC (and god forbid 2Ch/6Ch WMA) streams via "digital" output.... then I'm all ears ;)

As far as I'm aware there's only a couple of DSS amps (one of them by Sony) that can decode AAC streams. So the only way to listen to such streams is via analogue - like you can do now via a PC's sound card!


Cheers

[Lord_KiRon]

In that case we need AAC 5.1 -> AC3 5.1 "decoding" in the player , not more outputs :)

[Mug Funky]

couldn't it output PCM from decoded AAC?

transcoding a good format (aac) to a shit format (ac3) isn't my idea of a good solution.

analog output is always good - more flexible that way.

[Lord_KiRon]

Don't want to start another war here :) , but do you really can here difference ? I am not .

Also what you mean by PCM ? Stereo downmix ? Or all 6 chennels in PCM WAV format ? If last then it OK with me :) the problem is who/what gona play it ?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Lord_KiRon
In that case we need AAC 5.1 -> AC3 5.1 "decoding" in the player , not more outputs :) I think I remember reading about an ESS chip-set that can be upgraded to do this.

When Keith Jack (of Sigma) was asked if such an implementation could be added to the EM8620L chip-set, he said... it was not!


Cheers

[Mug Funky]

oh, well i don't have a receiver with digital inputs, but i was under the impression you could send multichannel PCM to them. maybe you can't?

and yes, i can hear the difference :) i think you can too with a blind test. it's just a golden rule not to transcode lossy to lossy with audio (video is more forgiving).

[SeeMoreDigital]

Unfortunately, I don't think there are any DSS amps that can decode multichannel PCM streams either!

If it ever became possible to transcode 6Ch AAC audio streams in real time, maybe a better compromise solution would be to convert them to DTS instead of Dolby Digital streams!

Not forgetting that any such technique would require permission and licensing anyway :(


Cheers

[Lord_KiRon]

OK , guys , Hi-Jack just released his report on his visit at KiSS ( http://www.mpeg-playcenter.com/banner_log.php?id=27 ) it's quet long so here are few things from the area that interest us summorized :) :


- DP-1100 in February/March 8560 based (networked chip in not networked player ?) .

- MP4 (Nero) support for DP-558 and DP-1100 (but not for older players) .

- KiSS "hope" for DP-600 in April-March .

- Sigma develops EM8630 and EM8640 chips, one of them (or both) will have 3D graphics .

- DP-600 MS MediaCenter compatibility at some point in future.

- In addition to TTA , FLAC support is investigated.

- Sigma owns 8% of KiSS and co-develop chip microcode with KiSS (at some level) .


- KiSS already shipped 1600 DP-600 prototypes with modified DVD drive (secured,not regular DVD) to MPAA internal use (hate them ) for Academy awards (because of DRM support).

- DP-600 have 10bit video DAC , can handle 300fps decoding (on what resolution ? with 1x1 anyone can :) )

- DP-600 will have HDMI connector .

- DP-600 will be able to output S-Video, composite, Scart and HDMI at the same time (6 RamDacs) .

-Different versions will be made available, with HDD (DP-608 or DP-6120), a HDD-recorder (DP-658) and eventually also a DP-668 with a DVD Burner inside.

-The Audio Dac inside the player is very strong :).
When it does Windows Media 9 and HD, including DRM, it uses 22% CPU power. (A bit unclear what HD have to do with audio DAC and what CPU is talked about - the one that runs middleware ?)