Microsoft to beta test new Xbox 360 disc format

Microsoft is seeking volunteers for a beta of a new Xbox 360 disc format.

"We are conducting an open call for US based participants for a public preview to help us prepare for an updated Xbox 360 disc format," Major Nelson (Larry Hryb) announced today.

The Xbox 360 currently uses the DVD format for its video game titles. Sony opted for Blu-ray for the PS3, which can hold vastly more content than a standard DVD. Some Xbox 360 games comes on multiple discs due to a capacity limit of about 8.5GB on a standard dual-layer DVD.

"This is an important update as we continually strive to improve our products and we could not do so without the help of our great Xbox community," Hryb wrote. "As part of the preview program, you will receive a copy of Halo: Reach along with other possible rewards."

Of course, the announcement is very light on details so its unclear exactly what Microsoft is looking to introduce at this time. The company is seeking thousands of participants, and will give priority to Xbox Live Gold members (though Silver members can apply too.)

If you are interested, check this link.

Written by: James Delahunty @ 29 Mar 2011 17:37

biglo30

Hmm I wonder what they are planning.

29.3.2011 19:17 #1

dcmorrow

I applied, crossing fingers.

29.3.2011 19:34 #2

DarthMopar

Gotta be going to Blu Ray. Unless they are gonna try and push HD-DVD AGAIN...

29.3.2011 19:47 #3

xaznboitx

Hm.. I wonder how this going to work because you need blu ray drive for this to work because dvd drive uses red laser and blu ray drive uses blue and red lasers... and if I'm correct, there's no blue laser bultin the dvd drive... if it's not blu ray then I wonder what format they would be using.

The Xbox 360 currently uses DVD-9 format discs, which are single-side discs capable of holding 7.95 gigabytes of data. Nelson would not say what disc format Microsoft is moving to, but it's possible the company would like to upgrade to DVD-18, which is a basically a two-sided DVD-9

Googled it..

29.3.2011 20:14 #4

scorpNZ

Originally posted by DarthMopar: Gotta be going to Blu Ray. Unless they are gonna try and push HD-DVD AGAIN... They want current xbox owners to test a new format that rules bl out as it would require ms to provide a blu ray player of some sort & then you'd need an update to the 360 so it would know how to drive it then theirs the output factor,they also mentioned they would never use hd dvd as a game disc only for movies ,so if they want testers to use their current 360's it has to be a media it can read with it's current rom right now which to me is a new version of a dl disc of some sort maybe a 3 layer disc ? well that's my 5c worth & i'll throw that in the ring anyway

29.3.2011 20:27 #5

DarkJello

Probably a more than dual layer dvd.

29.3.2011 21:18 #6

g_slide

I think they are doing this to make it harder for people to backup their games by using their consumers as lab rats. I bet if they do give people out a disc, it will probably brick their systems like ACB did. Who cares about getting a free copy of Halo Reach, most people already bought it.

I might be far fetch because I'm a skeptical person, but it seems very odd on why they are doing this because we know it's not for Blu-ray since their competitors (sony) has that and HD-DVD is long gone years ago so I'm not sure why anyone would bring that up.

29.3.2011 21:40 #7

bobiroc

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29.3.2011 21:58 #8

marcusj0015

it WILL NOT be a DVD 18, there cost more than two double layer DVD's, offer the same amount of storage sppace, and one side will ALWAYS be getting scratched, and the user would have a hell of a time figuring out which side is side one, and no one would know which game is printed on each disc, as there are no labels, it's a big fat bag of, Hell No!

an external BD drive? possible, but unlikely

Microsoft using Quad Layer DVD, possible.

Microsoft moving the Layer Break and compressing the SystemUpdates, so they can access unused space before, Higly Likely

29.3.2011 22:12 #9

marcusj0015

i'm thinking all the dots connect, DVD's are VERY Rearely sold, by themself, now there being sold in "Combo Pack's" which include the BD aswell, Microsoft partnered with Samsung, for The Xbox 360 Slim DVD Drive (i'm not sure which drive, i think it's the new slim drives) who happens to be the biggest Blu Ray Player Manufacturer, they recently said for the millionth time, that there will be now blu Ray player for the Xbox 360, but there are no rumors of an Xbox 360 DVD Drive, AND sony put in ALOT of money pushing Blu Ray, i'm thinking they handed MS a nice check, to include BD in the current Xbox, which leads me to speculate, that they *MIGHT* release a External BD Drive

but regardless, i'm finda wondering if there testing the waters for the Xbox 720, but they would do that, in there locked down labs, so idk

29.3.2011 22:21 #10

KillerBug

They are probably just going to a quad layer DVD...it would be very hard to sell games on blueray if 90% of your owners did not have a blueray drive.

29.3.2011 22:36 #11

keebles

Maybe they might be doing like sega did with the dreamcast's gdrom.

"GD-ROM (an abbreviation of "giga disk read-only memory") is the proprietary optical disc format used by the Dreamcast home console, as well as its arcade counterparts and the Sega/Nintendo/Namco Triforce arcade system. It is similar to the standard CD-ROM except that the pits on the disc are packed more closely together, resulting in a higher storage capacity: around 1.2 gigabytes, which is almost double the storage capacity of a typical CD-ROM."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD-ROM

By doing this, they would be able to make more room on the discs.

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29.3.2011 22:43 #12

marcusj0015

yes, but the disc's would have to be custom made, and which DVD Drives would be able to read it?

29.3.2011 22:48 #13

keebles

GD-ROMS use red laser just like dvds/cds do. The only reason why GD-ROMS are not readable by any drive but the dreamcast is because Sega made it where the disc's have a ring half way through them. The ring say's produced by or under license from sega on it. The dreamcast is programed to skip this sector and continue on to where game data is kept.

29.3.2011 22:57 #14

marcusj0015

ok dude, go ahead and continue talking about how awesome the dreamcast disc, i doubt Microsoft will do that, it would be MUCH easier to make a 4 layer DVD,

regardless of opinions, we won;t know until new disc's are pressed with this new format, or until someone leaks an image of the Halo reach disc, with this new tech

29.3.2011 23:01 #15

keebles

It actually might be cheaper for MS to do something familiar to what sega did. They could use the same dvd discs that they are using now, they would just be encoded differently. By doing this, the disc would still be readable by the 360(with a system update), but be a hell of a lot harder to duplicate by any one else but MS due to the fact that the disc would have a toc that is not normal for a ordinary dvd disc. Sanyo found away to this with standard cdr's in 2002. They made it where anyone with there program, could create a cdr with 1.4gb worth of data on it. The disc could be read by anyone with there program. http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2002/09/25/sanyo_doubles_cd-r_capacity_with_hd-burn

29.3.2011 23:31 #16

Pop_Smith

Originally posted by KillerBug: They are probably just going to a quad layer DVD...it would be very hard to sell games on blueray if 90% of your owners did not have a blueray drive. This is 100% correct, it wouldn't make any business sense; plus Microsoft has said on several occasions that they won't do Blu-Ray on the 360. If they can firmware update all 360s to read quad-layer DVDs that would give them almost the same amount of storage as a SL Blu-Ray.

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29.3.2011 23:43 #17

21Q

If it weren't for AD I'd miss out on so many offers :] Hopefully they accept me. I just like to try out new stuff. I never did get a chrome notebook =[

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30.3.2011 00:49 #18

bobiroc

Originally posted by 21Q: If it weren't for AD I'd miss out on so many offers :] Hopefully they accept me. I just like to try out new stuff. I never did get a chrome notebook =[ I always sign up for Microsoft promotions. Got Windows XP Pro, Vista Ultimate, Windows 7 Ultimate all for free and Office 2007 Pro for free through their promotions. People can call them greedy money grubbers all they want but it takes me very little effort to get stuff free or at low cost from them.

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30.3.2011 01:07 #19

DXR88

on the fly compression, no doubt. it requires no new hardware, and is as simple as a firmware update.

i foresee a shit storm of issues on older x360's, the newer ones should be able to handle it, though.

30.3.2011 01:41 #20

TBandit

Thanks for the heads up, I was curious as to what format it would be in so I applied. I knew it couldn't be BluRay or HD DVD because they need separate drives for those.

30.3.2011 01:55 #21

Mik3h

inb4 new disc protection, seeing as they are losing the piracy war, badly.

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30.3.2011 04:08 #22

lissenup3

From a practical view and sensible one........MS should just bite the bullet and use Blu-ray. Just because HD-DVD got stomped (sadly I might add) doesn't mean a business sense of practicality can't be used.

30.3.2011 10:40 #23

ZippyDSM

Would not be too hard to do a triple layer disc that can be read on normal dual layer players. You could get 2-4GB out of it I would be surprised if they could do a 4 layer DVD at around 18GB.

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30.3.2011 11:49 #24

lissenup3

Originally posted by ZippyDSM: Would not be too hard to do a triple layer disc that can be read on normal dual layer players. You could get 2-4GB out of it I would be surprised if they could do a 4 layer DVD at around 18GB. In theory yes but I'm guessing that's harder than you think because it would have probably been implemented by now rather than using blue lasers.

30.3.2011 11:56 #25

Interestx

Actually for the next gen Xbox the triple layer 51gb HD DVD disc (as a game only disc) would make a lot of sense
(this disc has been developed and DVD Forum minutes show it was continuing in development even after HD DVD was withdrawn).

It would deny Sony any hope of a royalty and slam the door on Blu-ray for good.
It would be completely secure because nobody has triple layer HD DVD burners or blank media.
Finally Microsoft already own the tech (or a major chunk of it).

As for this particular story it is all about getting more data on an existing DVD9 in my opinion.

One thing that does make me laugh/groan is how come the blank disc manufacturers deny CD & DVD buyers the decent anti-scratch coating they use on Blu-rays.
It's a joke.
That's all it is, just a coating and it could be used on all discs.
But the fact that they hold it back like they do tells us everything we need to know about the true contempt they hold their paying customers in.

....and the fact the Blu-ray fans can be relied upon to always ignore this & go on to trumpet this coating as some sort of 'good thing' just goes to show how ridiculously blind and counter-productive some deluded people can be.

30.3.2011 11:57 #26

ZippyDSM

Originally posted by lissenup3: Originally posted by ZippyDSM: Would not be too hard to do a triple layer disc that can be read on normal dual layer players. You could get 2-4GB out of it I would be surprised if they could do a 4 layer DVD at around 18GB. In theory yes but I'm guessing that's harder than you think because it would have probably been implemented by now rather than using blue lasers. Well cost vrs price, the reason why they went with a new format was to double storage 3 to 5 times, just expanding the DVD format was not enough.

This is a rather good way to do it, you have at the most 6 drive units which can be tuned to read deeper layers. Sure its hard on the drive but from MS's point of view its cheaper and more effective to do this than bring in blu ray for the 360.

===================
Interestx

I dunno blu ray is a must to for the multi purpose media demogrphic, even if you put in HDDVD in a hybrid drive with blu ray it will be easily patched once the protection is cracked, so its un needed cost.

30.3.2011 12:04 #27