Topic: USB 2.0. and 480p (Techie Help)

[Nile Boogie]

My sorry for starting a new thred if there is another...

Is USB 2.0. a fast enough port to play the RevOlution in 480p through you computer with no lag time. The reason I ask is I remember it was said the RevOlution will hook up to the computer or television. Also why don't any of the Next Gen Systems support FireWire400/800?  

[Strell]

Firewire requires licensing fees, or it did, or it will.  Since it a technology wholely created by Apple, they retain rights to it.  So that would cause companies to shy away from FW.  Of course I could be wrong but the basic idea at play here is that USB is almost as fast as FW and is more heavily supported by the PC audience.  Hence why console makers would endorse it.  

As for the port's speed, from what I know USB *cannot* handle video data.  Therefore there's no way it can play on a monitor.  I mean this in real time.  Obviously it can transfer data, including video, but I don't think it can handle it in real time.  But I have to ask - where in the world does one get a USB enabled monitor?  I don't think they are available at this time and I can't think of a way to transfer data Rev->USB device->Monitor.  That would have terrible bus speeds and I doubt it would work feasibly.

Nintendo is basically stating that the Rev can prolly be played with a VGA box, or that their cables (whenever they surface) might have this ability built in.  From what I understand this is hardly anything new.  You could do the same with the SNES if you had the proper components.

Anyone more savvy than me, feel free to correct me.  

[Nile Boogie]

LINK
USB 2.0 can handle lower res. video but I was unsure about higher end stuff such as 480p. The link takes you the Elgato eyeTV for mac. It hooks you gaming system to your mac via USB 2.0 and it records TV to your harddrive so I guess I still don't have the answer I'm looking for but that I almost got something but not really. *sigh*

[Strell]

Yea, but that's an external component that you'd need in order to do it on a computer.

In other words, Rev won't be any different.  You'd need something in addition to normal hookups.

I don't know all the tech specs in and out but I'm still answering your question, which is no, the Rev will not allow video output via the USB drive unless you have the hardware to do it.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

nile:

You're confusing digital video data (good ol' computer bits & bytes) with video feeds/signals (color information for TVs/monitors).

What you're looking at is a video capture device that hooks up to a computer via USB 2.0.  The description on that site is somewhat misleading.  Traditionally, one would buy some kind of TV Tuner/vidcap add-in card, which would receive the cableTV/gameconsole/vcr/camcorder video feed and convert&combine that with the normal video feed that your graphics card would generate, allowing you to watch tv inside windows/mac environment.  USB 2.0 comes into the picture as a means of connecting external devices -- transferring data, NOT video signals.  That USB 2.0 (or Firewire) connection is required for devices like the eyeTV because it took the incoming video signal and encoded it as digital video data, which then gets sent to your computer thru the usb/firewire connection.  Since high-quality video data takes up A LOT of space, a fast connection is needed by the eyeTV if you want to view the live video in real-time.  More importantly, a fast connection is needed for copying the digital video to your harddrive.  USB1.1 can barely keep up with 320x240 @ 30fps (depending on the codec), while USB2.0 and Firewire are sufficient for 720x480i @ 30fps (depending on the codec).

DV-format video (like from miniDV cameras) has a bandwidth of roughly 3-4MB/sec... requiring 1GB for just over 4min of video+audio.  That's where the Firewire interface comes in -- it's dominantly used for transferring DV video.

"480p" (720x480p) has little to do with all that.  Just as Strell said, we're expecting Rev to connect to TVs as well as computer *monitors*, not the computer itself -- simply using the monitor for displaying.  So the Rev might use VGA boxes or DVI or component output, etc for monitor display.  Those are the kinds of connections we need if we wish to view 480p video.

(viewing/capturing 480p video feeds within windows/mac is a whole different ballpark.  There are no consumer-level devices that will capture 480p video -- you'd have to get broadcast industry hardware that sells for thousands of dollars)  

[anubis6789]

From what I understand USB 2.0 is Technicaly 480mbps, while Firewire/IEEE 1394 runs at 400mbps. The main difference is that USB has a master-slave relationship and has the processor on the master end run the bus, thus making it have higher overhead for the computer to run. In the case of IEEE1394 a peer-to-peer relationship is established, much like an ehternet connection, and as an added bonus it tends to run faster than USB 2.0. Infact Firewire is used as a connection to run live HD video feeds from Digital Camcorders and D-VHS to TVs as well as being used as a way to network computers together with a faster connection then T-Base 100 ethernet (this was more important before Gigabit ethernet became so widespread). USB 2.0 has not been used for any digital video functions that I know of yet, but that does not mean it will not ever be used for such purposes.

According to what I have read, HD needs at most 30mbps, so technicaly USB 2.0 could be used as a way to send out a 480p signal, but it may make the CPU work harder than a dedicated port or IEEE1394 would. I doubt Nintendo would us this setup though seeing as how when IGN got to look at the proto-type REV they said it had a port on the back that was the same as the Digital A/V out on older GCNs. Not to say that the port would be the same but it shows that Nintendo is at least going to have a standard way for connecting the REV to a TV/Monitor by either Component or VGA.

As for why no next-gen systems have Firewire, its because Apple charges a liscensing fee, which most of the other posters have said already.

[Nile Boogie]

Thank a million, I understand now why I was confused.

Anubis, doesn't my Ps2 have a FireWire/iEEE1394/ i-link for linking systems. Come to think of it wasn't there an iLink on the PS1 (Armor Core), isn't that FireWire by a different name or am I confused again?

[Galford]

USB was an Intel backed standard.  As with all things that come from Intel(AC97, USB, Azaila), they are designed to do one thing, sell CPUs.

[anubis6789]

Yes older PS2s do infact have a Firewire/IEEE1394/i-link (Sony's name for the standard) port for both networking and to connect digital cameras. It was taken out because, I believe, not many games used it and they still had to pay the liscensing fee.

The PS1 on the other hand had a serial port for connecting two systems which was also taken out in later revisions of the hardware.

[trip1eX]

USb 2.0 won't be used to hook up the Revolution to pc monitors.  

There will either be a port on the back of it or you'll have to buy an external vga converter box/cable like are available now for the GAmecube and other consoles

[Obiyo]

My understanding of this feature would be that you would directly hook it up to the monitor and bypass the computer altogether.  If is indeed a Nintendo supported feature it will probably come with a hookup of somekind to connect it to a monitor.  Hopefully it will be DVI (DVI supports HD signals), but as that is not something that everyone has on their monitor it may be VGA, or possibly both via an adapter such as the one a lot of newer video cards have.

[jasonditz]

The licensing fee for a system with any Firewire ports on it is $0.25... that's not really a factor.

The reason they probably won't have one is because they probably won't use it for anything. Nintendo's model here is "simplicity"... there's just no reason to stick extra ports on the thing.

[anubis6789]

Funny you should mention the $0.25 liscensing fee thing since I just read that today and wondered about what I said in this very topic.

I have just discovered Wikipedia, which is a great site. Must have spent six hours strait reading about different things a couple of nights ago when I first found it. That was were I read about how small the fee is.