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3-D Apps, Self-Identifying Content and D-Box Motion Simulator Highlight CEDIA Gaming
There wasn't a lot of gaming A/V on display at the CEDIA Expo, but the gaming equipment there was very cool.
Current estimates put the gaming market as a $33 billion business worldwide. Furthermore, a recent Parks Study predicts the custom installation business will be a $20 billion dollar industry by the year 2012.
These statistics suggest that the combination of the two industries in the next five years may represent close to a $65 billion gaming industry.
A recent gaming industry report says that online gaming is now outselling online video and audio. Given that, some may ask why there weren't more gamer-specific products at the CEDIA Expo. Nevertheless, the equipment that was there did not disappoint.
In the past, game consoles and many gaming-specific PCs were tasked with only needing to play games, and as integrators, we could set up specific optimized video settings for these devices based on the input of the display attached to the console.
Today's consoles, however, have game, video and film content residing on a single machine. The machines, typically plugged into a single input on a display device, store varied content types that require different settings on the monitor display device in order to deliver an optimized picture for our customers.
The solution to this problem was addressed at the show by the Anchor Bay VP50 Pro THX video processor. Now you can plug your console video output into any of its four HDMI 1.3 inputs.
You can also set up specific memory presets for your console's games, including two game modes that provide sub-one frame rate of latency with adaptive processing for current HD games or a 2 frame delay rate with edge and motion adaptive processing for older, less than stellar titles and last-generation consoles.
The demonstration that DVDO had in their booth, comparing the longer processing of games with that of their game processing mode, was effective. The demo showed that a typical display device's video processing circuits can introduce four to seven frames of delay -- sometimes as many as 17 -- in order to properly de-interlace an incoming gaming video signal.
This means that a players' reaction time and the time between the execution of an action on screen are minimized to the lowest level possible. That split second of delay, as any gamer can tell you, can be the difference in winning or losing an online or system link match.
What about your film- and video-based content from Xbox Live Marketplace and other online sources? They require a different set of processing methods, such as proper 3-2 pull-down and the addition of mosquito noise reduction to make them clearer.
With a simple change of the memory preset for that same console source, you can allow your customers to have a much better movie and video experience. In order to accomplish this, preset specific macros must be set up on the customer's remote or control system panel -- they have to remember to change to that preset mode when they change content sources.
Wouldn't it be great if somehow the content itself had a way of telling the device what it was and how it should be processed and handled?
Well, with THX's Blackbird initiative, media can have metadata associated with it that can inform devices in the same HDMI chain about its content, its ideal aspect ratio, video parameters and appropriate audio surround sound mode.
Leading the pack in supporting Blackbird is the DVDO VP50 Pro processor. All of the memory presets for content can be changed on the fly with this product, based on the content metadata that the VP50 HD sees at its HDMI inputs.
This enhanced intelligent switching will be especially important as consoles are utilized more as extenders and IPTV devices in addition to their traditional gaming roles.
These statistics suggest that the combination of the two industries in the next five years may represent close to a $65 billion gaming industry.
A recent gaming industry report says that online gaming is now outselling online video and audio. Given that, some may ask why there weren't more gamer-specific products at the CEDIA Expo. Nevertheless, the equipment that was there did not disappoint.
Providing 'Console'-ation
In the past, game consoles and many gaming-specific PCs were tasked with only needing to play games, and as integrators, we could set up specific optimized video settings for these devices based on the input of the display attached to the console.
Today's consoles, however, have game, video and film content residing on a single machine. The machines, typically plugged into a single input on a display device, store varied content types that require different settings on the monitor display device in order to deliver an optimized picture for our customers.
Gaming Goes 3-D
Radio and television scientists often talk about the difficulty involved in exploiting the often-elusive "Z" axis effect of images seeming to come off the two-dimensional TV screen.
There have been many attempts to demonstrate viable three-dimensional (3-D) imaging systems at past CEDIA Expos. Texas Instruments choose to dispel that notion about 3-D gaming not being ready as a mass market technology by allocating a majority of its CEDIA DLP booth for the demonstration of 3-D DLP TV applications, based on stereoscopic glasses and an emitter box that plugs into a special jack on the back of rear projection DLP TV's.
The emitter jack sends synchronization signals to a transmitter that then sends an IR signal to the special glasses that tell the shutters in the glasses when to open and close based on the cues that have been encoded on the content at 60 frames per second for each eye or 120 Hz for both eyes, which TI claims its DMD mirror system is able to easily handle.
There are also kits available from companies like DDD that allow for real time encoding of non-encoded video and games as well as more elaborate offerings from SimpliFi that include an optimized entertainment PC and two sets of the glasses.
All of Samsung's 88 and 89 series of rear projection DLPs have the ability to display 3-D images and have the requisite 3-D port -- the 88 series utilizing a standard color wheel-based light engine and the 89 series utilizing their new LED backlighting system.
All Mitsubishi's Diamond series DLP RP sets have the capability to produce 3-D video content and use their 6 Color DLP light engine as a backlighting source in models from 57 inches to 73 inches in size.
It is important to note that all the current DLP models from Samsung and Mitsubishi accept encoded 3-D content only through the HDMI or PC input jacks.
Having 1080 HD content plus inexpensive transmitter/glasses packages and displays that can input the HD content on now standard HDMI and PC jacks (married to a DLP DMD engine that can handle the 120HZ frame rate) makes this technology poised to take off in the next several years.
In fact, Insight Media's most recent 3-D Technology and Markets study cites growth of the current 3-D display market, currently at $180 million dollars this year, to $325 million in five years.
Radio and television scientists often talk about the difficulty involved in exploiting the often-elusive "Z" axis effect of images seeming to come off the two-dimensional TV screen.
There have been many attempts to demonstrate viable three-dimensional (3-D) imaging systems at past CEDIA Expos. Texas Instruments choose to dispel that notion about 3-D gaming not being ready as a mass market technology by allocating a majority of its CEDIA DLP booth for the demonstration of 3-D DLP TV applications, based on stereoscopic glasses and an emitter box that plugs into a special jack on the back of rear projection DLP TV's.
The emitter jack sends synchronization signals to a transmitter that then sends an IR signal to the special glasses that tell the shutters in the glasses when to open and close based on the cues that have been encoded on the content at 60 frames per second for each eye or 120 Hz for both eyes, which TI claims its DMD mirror system is able to easily handle.
There are also kits available from companies like DDD that allow for real time encoding of non-encoded video and games as well as more elaborate offerings from SimpliFi that include an optimized entertainment PC and two sets of the glasses.
All of Samsung's 88 and 89 series of rear projection DLPs have the ability to display 3-D images and have the requisite 3-D port -- the 88 series utilizing a standard color wheel-based light engine and the 89 series utilizing their new LED backlighting system.
All Mitsubishi's Diamond series DLP RP sets have the capability to produce 3-D video content and use their 6 Color DLP light engine as a backlighting source in models from 57 inches to 73 inches in size.
It is important to note that all the current DLP models from Samsung and Mitsubishi accept encoded 3-D content only through the HDMI or PC input jacks.
Having 1080 HD content plus inexpensive transmitter/glasses packages and displays that can input the HD content on now standard HDMI and PC jacks (married to a DLP DMD engine that can handle the 120HZ frame rate) makes this technology poised to take off in the next several years.
In fact, Insight Media's most recent 3-D Technology and Markets study cites growth of the current 3-D display market, currently at $180 million dollars this year, to $325 million in five years.
The solution to this problem was addressed at the show by the Anchor Bay VP50 Pro THX video processor. Now you can plug your console video output into any of its four HDMI 1.3 inputs.
You can also set up specific memory presets for your console's games, including two game modes that provide sub-one frame rate of latency with adaptive processing for current HD games or a 2 frame delay rate with edge and motion adaptive processing for older, less than stellar titles and last-generation consoles.
The demonstration that DVDO had in their booth, comparing the longer processing of games with that of their game processing mode, was effective. The demo showed that a typical display device's video processing circuits can introduce four to seven frames of delay -- sometimes as many as 17 -- in order to properly de-interlace an incoming gaming video signal.
This means that a players' reaction time and the time between the execution of an action on screen are minimized to the lowest level possible. That split second of delay, as any gamer can tell you, can be the difference in winning or losing an online or system link match.
Self-Identifying Content
What about your film- and video-based content from Xbox Live Marketplace and other online sources? They require a different set of processing methods, such as proper 3-2 pull-down and the addition of mosquito noise reduction to make them clearer.
With a simple change of the memory preset for that same console source, you can allow your customers to have a much better movie and video experience. In order to accomplish this, preset specific macros must be set up on the customer's remote or control system panel -- they have to remember to change to that preset mode when they change content sources.
Wouldn't it be great if somehow the content itself had a way of telling the device what it was and how it should be processed and handled?
Well, with THX's Blackbird initiative, media can have metadata associated with it that can inform devices in the same HDMI chain about its content, its ideal aspect ratio, video parameters and appropriate audio surround sound mode.
Leading the pack in supporting Blackbird is the DVDO VP50 Pro processor. All of the memory presets for content can be changed on the fly with this product, based on the content metadata that the VP50 HD sees at its HDMI inputs.
This enhanced intelligent switching will be especially important as consoles are utilized more as extenders and IPTV devices in addition to their traditional gaming roles.
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About the Author
Andrew Finkel is an avid gamer as well as the principal of Synergistic Wellness Technologies, a cross industries gaming, consumer, and home healthcare electronics consultancy company. He can be reached at 410-486-4999 or andrew@synergisticwt.com. His Xbox Live Gamertag is CEProgamer and his Playstation Network name is Remixer.
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