Microsoft are looking for beta testers for the next Xbox 360 system update, which will include support for an “updated 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,” says community chap Major Nelson on his blog.
“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.” Quite.
The real treat for signing up for the trial? A copy of Halo: Reach, which is probably worth the effort. Shame it’s US only, but that’ll be those “disc distribution limitations” at play again.
Applications from Gold members (so to speak) will be prioritised.
m61726b
Rather than a new disc format it may a new way of the firmware reading the drive key. Probably just combatting priracy.
m61726b
Or a new filesystem, again, to stop pirarcy.
poulter653
well it cant be blu ray by the fact that the current drive in the 360 cant read the discs
gazzagb
I imagine it’ll be something like a DVD 2.0 with increased capacity, although not sure why the need beta testers for that.
squashme
if it was a higher capacity DVD it would need a new laser in the drive to read them the current red lasers can only read upto the dual layer DVD9 anything above that needs a new laser
cc_star
Think it will be just another version of DVD9, maybe with a different type of copy protection
MXZ
It cant be BluRay because A) thats sonys dick of choice (im pretty sure they own it as well). and B) MS have already said that Bluray discs were unnecessary so they would be shooting themselves in the foot using them now.
but then theres the fact that Sony’s Vaio computers use the Windows OS which leads me to believe that Sony and MS may have some partnership (however small) but im doubtful.
(perhaps this is all XboX720 related more then it is 360 related, meaning the 720 will use a different disc format)
cc_star
Sony are just one of many companies with an interest in Blu-ray.
anyone who stumps up $50,000 can be on the board of directors & receive benefit (licence fees etc) in proportion to the their level of investment, interests etc
Members of the Blu-ray association:
Board of Directors
Dolby Laboratories, Inc.
Hewlett-Packard Company
Hitachi, Ltd.
Intel Corporation
LG Electronics Inc.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Panasonic Corporation
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
Pioneer Corporation
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
TDK Corporation
Technicolor
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
The Walt Disney Studios
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Contributors
Acer Incorporated
Advanced Micro Devices
Almedio Inc.
Alticast Corp.
Apple, Inc.
AudioDev AB
BluFocus, Inc
Broadcom
Canon Inc.
CESI Technology Co., Ltd.
China Hualu Group Co., Ltd.
Cinram Manufacturing Inc.
CMC Magnetics Corporation
Corel Corporation
CyberLink Corporation
Dell, Inc.
Deluxe Digital Studios, Inc.
DTS, Inc.
Eclipse Data Technologies
FUJIFILM Corporation
Fujitsu Limited
Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
Industrial Technology Research Institute
JVC Kenwood Holdings, Inc.
Lionsgate Entertainment
LITE-ON IT Corporation
Marvell International Ltd
MediaTek Inc.
Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd.
MY EYE MEDIA LLC
Nero
NVIDIA
Paramount Pictures Corporation
Pulstec Industrial Co., Ltd.
RealD
Renesas Electronics Corporation
Ritek Corporation
Rovi Corporation
Sigma Designs, Inc.
Singulus Technologies AG
Sonic Solutions
Sunext
Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd.
Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd.
Testronic Laboratories
Toshiba Corp.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Verance Corporation
Videon Central
Warner Music Group
General Members
3rd i Q.C. Inc.
Adobe Systems
Alpine Electronics, Inc.
Apacer Technology, Inc.
Aplix Corporation
ArcSoft, Inc.
ashampoo GmbH & Co. KG
Avid Development GmbH
Bang & Olufsen
BBK AV Electronics
Brickbox Digital Media
Custom Technology Corporation
D&M Holdings, Inc.
D-Box Technologies
Daikin Industries, Ltd.
DAT H.K. Limited
DCA Inc.
dr. Schwab Inspection Technology GmbH
Emfasys Corporation
Expert Magnetics Corp
Falcon Technologies International
flag Co., Ltd
Fraunhofer IIS
Fujitsu Ten Limited
Gear Software Inc.
Hie Electronics, Inc.
IM Co., Ltd.
Imagica Corp.
Imation Corp.
Info Source Multi Media Korea
Intersil Corporation
Jiangxi Huawen Photo-Electric Co.,Ltd
Kenmec Mechanical Engineering
Kobe Steel, Ltd.
Lauda Co., Ltd.
LINTEC Corporation
MainConcept AG
MIT Technology Co., Ltd.
Moser Baer India Limited
Motorola Mobility, Inc.
MX Production Services
Myriad Group AG
Naskercraft Inc.
NEC Personal Products
NetBlender, Inc.
NHK Media Technology
Novatek Microelectronics Corp.
NTI Corporation
NTT Electronics Corporation
Omnibus Japan Inc.
On-Demand Publishing, LLC.
One-K Studios, LLC
Onkyo Corporation
OPPO Digital, Inc.
OPT Corporation
Origin Electric Co., Ltd.
Pico House
Pixela Corporation
Prodisc Technology
Pony Canyon Enterprise, Inc.
Q-TEC, INC.
Quanta Storage
RayOne Inc
Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Seiko Epson Corp.
Shenzhen Giec Electronics Co., LTD
Shenzhen Sansui Audio-Video Co., Ltd.
sMedio, Inc.
TEAC Corporation
THX Ltd.
Toei Video Co., Ltd.
Toho Company, Ltd.
Toyo Recording Co., Ltd.
Trident Microsystems (Far East) Ltd.
UmeDisc Ltd.
Vinpower Digital, Inc.
Visionare Corporation
Yamaha Corporation
Zoran Corporation
Zylux Acoustic Corporation
cc_star
Sony are just one of many companies with an interest in Blu-ray.
anyone who stumps up $50,000 can be on the board of directors & receive benefit (licence fees etc) in proportion to the their level of investment, interests etc
Members of the Blu-ray association:
Board of Directors
Dolby Laboratories, Inc.
Hewlett-Packard Company
Hitachi, Ltd.
Intel Corporation
LG Electronics Inc.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Panasonic Corporation
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
Pioneer Corporation
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
TDK Corporation
Technicolor
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
The Walt Disney Studios
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Contributors
Acer Incorporated
Advanced Micro Devices
Almedio Inc.
Alticast Corp.
Apple, Inc.
AudioDev AB
BluFocus, Inc
Broadcom
Canon Inc.
CESI Technology Co., Ltd.
China Hualu Group Co., Ltd.
Cinram Manufacturing Inc.
CMC Magnetics Corporation
Corel Corporation
CyberLink Corporation
Dell, Inc.
Deluxe Digital Studios, Inc.
DTS, Inc.
Eclipse Data Technologies
FUJIFILM Corporation
Fujitsu Limited
Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
Industrial Technology Research Institute
JVC Kenwood Holdings, Inc.
Lionsgate Entertainment
LITE-ON IT Corporation
Marvell International Ltd
MediaTek Inc.
Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd.
MY EYE MEDIA LLC
Nero
NVIDIA
Paramount Pictures Corporation
Pulstec Industrial Co., Ltd.
RealD
Renesas Electronics Corporation
Ritek Corporation
Rovi Corporation
Sigma Designs, Inc.
Singulus Technologies AG
Sonic Solutions
Sunext
Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd.
Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd.
Testronic Laboratories
Toshiba Corp.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Verance Corporation
Videon Central
Warner Music Group
General Members
100’s of companies…
cc_star
Sony are just one of many companies with an interest in Blu-ray.
anyone who stumps up $50,000 can be on the board of directors & receive benefit (licence fees etc) in proportion to the their level of investment, interests etc
Members of the Blu-ray association:
Board of Directors
Dolby Laboratories, Inc.
Hewlett-Packard Company
Hitachi, Ltd.
Intel Corporation
LG Electronics Inc.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Panasonic Corporation
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
Pioneer Corporation
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
TDK Corporation
Technicolor
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
The Walt Disney Studios
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Contributors
10’s & 10’s of companies
General Members
100’s of companies…
cc_star
lol, the site was down for a split second…. sozzers
Tienpawa
OKAY, WE GET IT!!!!!
cc_star
errrm yeah – the site was down or something, so obviously hammering Submit fixes it, right?
colmshan1990
BAN THE SPAMMER! :P
Thought you staff had an edit button? ;)
Seriously though, that is a lot of different members…
Do they all meet up to vote on a new device getting blu-ray or what? (Obviously not, but what exactly do they DO?
Darksidesystems
If they call it the 720 I’m quitting gaming. Official!
squashme
Sony made blu-ray and they own most of the shares in the BDA bu they dont own the BDA out right tho even tho they created it
jayjay119
They didn’t create it, they were a major factor in it’s creation. There was a committee of which LG were a part of to help create it… which is why I don’t fully inderstand how LG can have the gaul to be trying to sue Sony, but there you go.
gordon_strange
Dick of choice?
Kevling
Just one thought no-one else as picked up on, if it’s to test an “updated disc format”, presumably testers will need an “updated disc” to test – what’s the betting that’s what the Halo Reach giveaway is – a special reprint on the new DVD format.
Peter Rushton
Signs perhaps that 360’s sequel won’t be entirely digital…
quinkill
super VHS, I know it!