Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1409 Agreement

The game console developed by Nintendo is based on CD-ROM. Ken Kutaragi is eager to know if he can cooperate with Clover to develop a game console based on DVD-ROM.

If successful, game discs could theoretically be reduced to one-fifth the diameter of CD discs, from the size of a plate to the size of a saucer.

If the disc size is not modified, then a DVD format disc can hold the data amount of five CD discs in the past, and the game's graphics, scenes, plots, rendering effects, and props can all usher in a revolutionary leap.

A CD-ROM game console is actually a small computer system. In the final analysis, it is composed of underlying chip support, operating system architecture, and upper-layer game software. The process of playing games is actually a player reading, operating, storing, and computing data. , the output process.

Therefore, the revolutionary design ideas of the MiniCos universal platform can be used for reference and cooperation in the research and development of PS-X. Although the computing and processing capabilities of this platform are not powerful enough at present, the rendering and output capabilities of digital audio and video signals, But it has become world-class.

Today's games actually do not have high requirements for the computing power of the machine, but the requirements for audio and video, that is, gorgeous pictures and realistic sound effects, are the main ways to improve the player experience, and the results are immediate.

Then there is the cache. Although the game console reads the disc, the reading method is to read the content and related programs required for the current game stage from the disc and store them in the cache for system use. Large capacity and low cost The memory is also a key factor in determining the market price of PS-X.

Sony's emerging business is actually based on these technologies, and has many overlaps with Clover's technology. However, Sony is more "high-end", so the research and development time required is relatively long, and Clover seems to be eager to monetize its technology, so it takes a short and fast path, and the products it produces are also products with low technical difficulty.

It's just that these products are making Sony uncomfortable now. For example, Clover is currently using the money from selling VCDs to develop DVDs and develop them on the basis of a universal operating platform. Sony doesn't dare to say that its speed will be slower than its own. If In terms of content, piracy is everywhere like VCD, so Sony's previous investment in this area has been completely wasted.

Fortunately, according to the information sent back by Matsui Zuo, because Clover is eager to realize its technology, it is also looking for partners everywhere. China's investment environment is also very good now, and various places are formulating various very generous discounts for attracting investment. measure.

Negotiations start with the easiest place to reach agreement.

Therefore, just like Samsung, China and Sony negotiate first and then decide on the content of the visit based on the outcome of the negotiation.

Sony and Clover have become the industry leaders today, and each has its own advantages. Sony is better because it has strong strength, but it has no specific products; while Clover is better because it has launched a VCD with "DVD-like" functions, and even launched its own VCD. It has developed decoding chips, but its R&D capabilities are far behind Sony.

Now both parties are focused on developing their respective application technologies based on the MPEG-2 encoding protocol. This is the first time they have come together to discuss preliminary DVD specifications.

That is about the unification of DVD protocol standards.

Sony can also fully seize the opportunity and strive for a win-win situation.

In fact, DVD was originally intended to serve the entertainment industry. In the early 135s, the American Film Production Industry Advisory Committee drafted a wish list representing the seven major Hollywood film production companies. One of the requirements was to have it on a CD. Record a video program with a standard length of minutes, and require higher image and sound quality than LD.

This request was made in 1990, and three years later, Clover Company first came up with VCD.

However, VCD is a "castrated" product. The image resolution is only 352×240 under the NTSC format, or 352×288 under the PAL format. This obviously cannot meet the requirements of the Hollywood film and television group and even the world's entertainment industry. Therefore, Clover It is destined to only use VCD to dominate the home entertainment industry in developing countries, but it is difficult to enter the markets of developed countries. However, during the discussion, Kutaragi Ken was pleasantly surprised to find that Clover's technical standards were very similar to Sony's. The two sides compared the technical indicators and found that many places were close or even identical.

After intense discussions, the two parties finally reached an agreement. The first step was to unify the DVD standard format. DVD Video used the MPEG2 standard to compress the picture, with a picture resolution of 720×480 and a bit rate of 1M to 10Mbps.

The resolution is more than four times higher than that of VCD, and the amount of data has certainly increased a lot.

With careful insistence, the audio standard adopts AC3 and DTS dual decoding.

AC3 is a traditional audio standard launched by DOLBY Laboratory, which itself is specially designed for cinemas. Pioneer worked with DOLBY to improve it and now supports 5.1 channels.

The AC3 standard with the highest detail has a bit rate of 448kbps, but due to reasonable compression, it is not large in size and is very suitable for use as a home theater-level sound source.

It is also compatible with two-channel stereo and mono. When using two channels, the bit rate is only 128kbps, which is actually the sound data bit rate of MP3. Clover has a first-mover advantage in this regard, which is what Zhou Zhi insists on. Reasons and confidence.

The addition of video and audio indicators finally allows the DVD data stream to reach the 24bit/96kHz standard, and supports external subtitles and audio channels, as well as digital control functions such as multi-angle viewing. The peak data traffic increases from 1.15Mbps of VCD to 10Mbps.

Then there are the parameters, including disk diameter, disk thickness, laser wavelength, aperture, track spacing and other parameters.

Disk surface utilization: 86.6 square centimeters, number of bytes per sector: 2048-2060 bytes/sector, single disc capacity 4.7G.

In addition, there are various interface standards for connecting external devices.

The two parties quickly agreed on the details of the agreement and then held a joint press conference, calling the technical standard "Format and Technical Specifications of Single-Sided Double-Layer 12cm/5.25-inch High-Density Multimedia CD", or Multi Media Compact Disc for short. , that is, the technical specifications of the multimedia optical disc system MMCD.

This is the world's first DVD technical specification.

At the press conference, Sony and Clover also jointly proposed several initiatives.

The first is to establish a DVD forum, similar to the UNICODE organization. This will be an international organization voluntarily composed of hardware manufacturers, software companies and other DVD users. The purpose of the forum is two-fold: first, to develop a unified standard format for each DVD product , to ensure the best interests of consumers and users. The second is to promote the acceptance and application of DVD products to the greatest extent, such as the entertainment industry, consumer electronics, IT industry and other industries.

Secondly, it issued an initiative calling for the protection of intellectual property rights through technology to protect the vital interests of content parties when legal protection is weak.

(End of this chapter)