OnLive

I looked up the Dean Takahashi article and found a really good post from a programmer who works on compression in the comments section.

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Originally Posted by Sean W on the Dean blog article

Alright, people, sit down a second and let's do some math. Read the article: You need a consistent stream of 2 megabits per second to transmit standard-definition. I have a Comcast cable modem, advertised at 6 megs a second, and *sometimes*, depending on the time of day, I get 2 megs a second --- and sometimes I get barely one. Fiber gives you faster, to be sure, but no DSL line is good enough.

So let's say you have a fast connection. What does that 2 megs a second give you? That's 2,000,000 bits per second, or 250,000 bytes per second --- 250 KB per second of incoming data, assuming no sync bits or other internal communication that would be required in a realistic network protocol.

What does 250KB per second give you? Let's say they want you to see a framerate of at least 25 frames per second. (Don't even ask about 60 FPS.) That's then 10KB of data per frame, on average.

Now let's assume they really *do* have a magical compression scheme that will consistently give them 90% compression for every frame. It's possible --- wavelet compression, for example, can give you pretty good images at 90%, and might even be suitable for video if you alternate several delta frames with an occasional sync frame. 90% compression means that every 10KB of compressed data expands out to 100KB of uncompressed data --- or 100,000 bytes.

So what can you do with 100,000 uncompressed bytes per frame? Well, you *can't* do a full frame of data every 1/25 of a second at standard definition. Standard def has a resolution that varies, but it's around 320x240, or 230,400 bytes (RGB color gives 320*240*3 bytes per pixel = 230,400 bytes). Under good compression (90%) that's 23KB of data. Which is bigger than the 10KB per frame that the network connection has room for. That means that for every full frame sent in their scheme, there are probably at least two delta frames --- two frames partially composed of pieces of other full frames they've already sent.

So there you have your answer. If their system works at all (which is possible), your steady two-megabit connection --- if you even have one --- will give you 320x240 resolution with no more than every third frame being a full one. That's lower quality than traditional TV, and much, much lower quality than hi-def or anything you're used to looking at on your PC. And that's assuming there's a *lot* of good-quality magic in their code.

And that doesn't even get into issues like network latency and lag and packet sizes and QoS.

Maybe they've got some secret sauce to get past those bandwidth limits. But I've been coding for 25 years, I have a CompSci degree, and I've heard claims like this before. It's easy to make claims like this because most of the public doesn't really understand things like information complexity theory. My math says their system may work for some users but not for all, and is likely to be crappy quality for most. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope so. But I doubt it.

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H264 can drop to some pretty low bit rates and the picture still looks great but you're a LONG LONG LONG ways away from doing H264 encoding on the fly. Even using Mpeg2 encoding, to get good picture quality with an HD signal you're looking at 15 - 30mb a second.

He's too pessimistic about bandwidth. I know rates with cable service fluctuate, but I very rarely dip as low as 2mb/s. I'm usually closer to 6-8.

Also, they did specify SD was 480p, so there's no need to speculate on the resolution, though that knowledge doesn't help the compression numbers add up any better.

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Originally Posted by Rumpy

A good point about game pricing and publishers brought up by Bill Harris at Dubious Quality:

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I don't know why anyone would even think that if publishers can save money they might pass that savings onto the consumers.

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Originally Posted by Shin Johnpv

Can you really say every game is losing 12 bucks to piracy though? Fuck is the PS3 even modded yet, I don't think it has been. I don't think console piracy this gen is as rampant as PC piracy, DS and PSP not counting. Besides the point that just looking at revenue, the 12 and 7 bucks would still show up under the publishers revenue. Last gen with 50 dollar games publishers were getting around 35 bucks a game. I really don't see it dropping to 27 with a 10 dollar raise in game prices. I would wager publishers are getting 40 - 45 on every game sold. I'm sorry but this just seems like fishy fucking math IMHO to try and make this service seem like the end all be all.

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I'm really annoyed by this honestly. Equating piracy to lost sales is BULLSHIT. Yeah, I pirate games, but only ones I don't care about enough to buy. And if I download something and like it a lot I'll buy it later. Games I pirate are never lost sales as I wouldn't have bought them in the first place. It's the same concept that the music industry has with music piracy and it's retarded.

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Originally Posted by bbobb

I'm really annoyed by this honestly. Equating piracy to lost sales is BULLSHIT. Yeah, I pirate games, but only ones I don't care about enough to buy. And if I download something and like it a lot I'll buy it later. Games I pirate are never lost sales as I wouldn't have bought them in the first place. It's the same concept that the music industry has with music piracy and it's retarded.

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I don't think they're quite counting every pirated game as a lost sale, but there's two major problems with the claim.

1) There is absolutely, positively no way to precisely measure how much is being lost to piracy. None. It's safe to say it's significant, but to quote an exact figure is impossible. To some extent you could argue that freeware and people pirating other games is costing you money too, but how do you prove it?

2) Even if you COULD quantify that number, dividing it up and saying that a portion of each game sale is lost to piracy is an illogical conclusion. No one actually takes the money you made out of your pocket on each transaction, there are just fewer transactions as a result.

The guy doesn't even factor in development costs, nor does he come up with a convincing way that $7 ends up in the consumer's hands from trade-ins since that's a complex issue. Long story, he's full of shit.

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Originally Posted by Nash

I don't know why anyone would even think that if publishers can save money they might pass that savings onto the consumers.

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It's competitive, so it stands to reason they would pass some savings on, obviously not that much though since that's based on bogus numbers to begin with. The problem is that retail gets very pissy if you get bold about this, so as long as they have leverage it won't happen.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

Bill Harris has clearly not bought a computer game this generation if he thinks they cost $60. Nor does it make sense that they're losing money to piracy on a per-unit basis.

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Bill's using console game prices in his discussion because I think the article he refers to is using that as an example (he plays everything btw, lots of PC in what he plays). OnLive is considered a PC like format so I can see how that's weird to start off, but it's assuming that OnLive works and takes off, changing the whole way we get games. It's a screwy angle to start the topic, but I thought it was worth mentioning and haven't seen it brought up yet.

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Originally Posted by Rumpy

Bill's using console game prices in his discussion because I think the article he refers to is using that as an example (he plays everything btw, lots of PC in what he plays). OnLive is considered a PC like format so I can see how that's weird to start off, but it's assuming that OnLive works and takes off, changing the whole way we get games. It's a screwy angle to start the topic, but I thought it was worth mentioning and haven't seen it brought up yet.

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If he's talking console games, then he's forgetting license fees, and either way he's neglecting manufacturing and distribution costs... it's really not a very good argument.

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Originally Posted by Shin Johnpv

Can you really say every game is losing 12 bucks to piracy though? Fuck is the PS3 even modded yet, I don't think it has been. I don't think console piracy this gen is as rampant as PC piracy, DS and PSP not counting. Besides the point that just looking at revenue, the 12 and 7 bucks would still show up under the publishers revenue. Last gen with 50 dollar games publishers were getting around 35 bucks a game. I really don't see it dropping to 27 with a 10 dollar raise in game prices. I would wager publishers are getting 40 - 45 on every game sold. I'm sorry but this just seems like fishy fucking math IMHO to try and make this service seem like the end all be all.

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The Wii and 360 are fucking simple to mod. In the case of the Wii though, there aren't enough "hardcore" Wii gamers, let alone games worth getting to really make a dent in what Nintendo is doing. As long as those millions of casual people keep bying a couple crap games here and there, they can build a planet out of their income. MS on the other hand tends to already attract the modding populace since they have more of the games people actually want.

And it's a MS product so the hackers run head first into it.

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Originally Posted by bbobb

I'm really annoyed by this honestly. Equating piracy to lost sales is BULLSHIT. Yeah, I pirate games, but only ones I don't care about enough to buy. And if I download something and like it a lot I'll buy it later. Games I pirate are never lost sales as I wouldn't have bought them in the first place. It's the same concept that the music industry has with music piracy and it's retarded.

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I still think it's silly with all the games I buy because I like and having next to no time to play/finish them all, that there are people who do THAT plus go through the effort to pirate games they don't even like, because they ain't paying for that shit.

For reals, when does entertainment hit critical mass and people are "done" buying/pirating/collecting stuff they wouldn't even buy/play/finish anyway?