Demonstration
http://tv.seas.columbia.edu/videos/545/60/79?file=1&autostart=true

Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnLive

12/28/2009 5:39:19 PM

More like the official thread of bad thread titles.

12/28/2009 6:15:50 PM

seriously, lock this stupid ass thread title.

12/28/2009 6:19:56 PM

how in the world do you start a thread like this and not even link to the homepage?

http://www.onlive.com/

12/28/2009 6:20:43 PM

very cool. will be keeping an eye on this.

12/28/2009 6:31:36 PM

I apologize for the thread title. After my windows 7 thread title, I felt like we need more spice on TWW.

The thing that doesn't make sense to me is that all of these proprietary techs are being used for such a small market, semi-hardcore PC gaming. If this really is as good as its presented, everything will change. It would make more sense to just come up with the patents and lease the new compression techniques, new wireless standard, etc.

Other things missing: no mention of audio formats or how it is compressed. I'm used to playing my games on a DLP through a mid-grade receiver. I know what it's like to experience 66ms video latency with 75ms audio latency. Things like music rhythm games will be impossible. Movies won't take off if there is only 2.0 compressed crap. I guess thats why this is only being marketed for gaming.

12/28/2009 7:35:19 PM

The point is to eliminate the "hardcore PC gaming" market. If everyone can get the same experience for $x/month + the cost of the game, it beats the hell out of $1000 + $200-500/year in upgrade costs to be on the bleeding edge (of course it all depends on the value of "x").

12/28/2009 8:01:29 PM

^ I thought they did that already. It's called consoles.

The point of 'hardcore' is that building the most badass pwning rig is also part of the hobby. Otherwise everyone can just buy an xbox or ps3 and attach a keyboard/mouse to it


At least for me when I was more into PC gaming I enjoyed building it as much as using it. Just like I'm sure some of you, as i did, would do things like buy a new ATX case because it was nicer than the one you had even though it doesn't provide any actual performance upgrades.

[Edited on December 28, 2009 at 8:23 PM. Reason : .]

12/28/2009 8:15:59 PM

^this is going to replace consoles as well.

This is going to be direct competition for Valve, Nintendo, MS, and Sony.

12/28/2009 8:36:56 PM

How? Consoles are more than just for gaming now. Look at the PS3/Xbox360 with features like buying/renting movies, tv shows, music. Netflix streaming, Media Center Extender, etc all while being hooked up to your 60" plasma (or whatever TV you'd have)

12/28/2009 8:39:20 PM

^all of those are features of much less expensive dvd/blu ray players. You dont need the system to play video games and do all that stuff

12/28/2009 8:45:34 PM

^wait what? I must have missed that. I was just looking at bestbuy.com at bluray players that are priced at $299-$399 and none of them mention any of the features I just mentioned except the PS3 if you want to count that.

ok i found one that does netflix/napster for $249...still not the same

[Edited on December 28, 2009 at 10:11 PM. Reason : .]

12/28/2009 10:09:47 PM

^Blu-Ray players start at $99.

You miss the key here. This would replace pretty much ALL streamed content. Forget integration in a blu-ray player or set top box. Think of this just working out of the box with a television.

I would gladly use OnLive if it works to replace our xbox 360. At 14.95 a month, we would save several hundred dollars over the life of the console by playing the games through OnLive versus buying them retail. And it's a hell of a lot less hassle (and cheaper) than GameFly.

It will be interesting to see how they commercialize this though. Pricepoints, game portfolio, and distribution systems are all giant question marks currently.

Nevermind on the distribution, they have a micro-console, and browser plugins for PC and Mac. If it works reasonably well on my HTPC, I'm sold.

[Edited on December 28, 2009 at 10:18 PM. Reason : ,]

12/28/2009 10:16:42 PM

lol...the console controller looks like that shit you get in hotel rooms

[Edited on December 28, 2009 at 10:20 PM. Reason : .]

12/28/2009 10:19:14 PM

so this is cloud gaming?

12/28/2009 10:24:17 PM

^^It has the exact same layout configuration as the Xbox 360. At least they got something right up front

12/28/2009 10:35:16 PM

If you watch the Q&A at the end, he mentions why they couldn't use the ps3/360 controllers. The wireless tech used creates an extra 20ms of lag. The proprietary wireless tech they created is in the nanoseconds. I'm guessing that means that we'll be able to used a wired 360 controller, which is fine by me.

Also, I'm pretty sure that extra features of a console would be rendered moot if you consider the hardware required to run this. You could build a $350 HTPC that could play blu-rays, use the web, stream music, and play the most demanding games at the highest detail possible. It's a 1mb install that can run on an iphone for christ's sake.

[Edited on December 29, 2009 at 12:54 AM. Reason : f]

12/29/2009 12:48:20 AM

^I don't want to build a $350 HTPC...I want to buy something thats good to go that isn't a PC running windows/Mac OS X thats hooked up to my TV. This is why I have a console to do all that for me (xbox/PS3) and a laptop for my computing needs.

12/29/2009 1:37:53 AM

The device you need to run crysis on max settings will come free with a subscription. Or you could just use your precious laptop. The server hardware will be upgraded every 6 months for free.

12/29/2009 2:04:46 AM

So this device is a 'console', yes?

[Edited on December 29, 2009 at 2:24 AM. Reason : forgot the standard ]

12/29/2009 2:24:04 AM

Wow- I'm extremely impressed.

The important question here is, when will they support fbconnect

12/29/2009 3:53:52 AM

How is this not the official thread of HOLY SHIT OLD?

/message_topic.aspx?topic=561887

12/29/2009 4:32:34 AM

What about lag?

12/29/2009 4:45:33 AM

Perlman says that the entire round trip should happen in less than 80 ms: "If you press a button and within 80 ms the screen updates, perceptually, you are controlling that action"

I know that this is faster than average reaction time (though of course reaction != perception), but it still seems kind of slow. Thoughts?


Wow. I never considered how good this is for developers (no piracy).

[Edited on December 29, 2009 at 7:09 AM. Reason : asfasdf]

12/29/2009 7:06:57 AM

I'm extremely skeptical of this actually working outside of a lab

12/29/2009 8:57:06 AM

seems pretty cool..

12/29/2009 10:17:12 AM

AMERICA: land of the horse before the cart



This service would be great, if we had consistent ISPs that provided a not-shit product (lookin at TWC and AT&T's delayed roll-out here)

12/29/2009 10:49:55 AM

maybe they sold this to VC based entirely upon the Korean market

12/29/2009 11:12:48 AM

^^ he mentioned that, did you watch the video?

12/29/2009 11:42:46 AM

You guys should also watch the previous video, explaining how they did the tech for Benjamin Button. This inventor is legit.

12/29/2009 12:18:57 PM

^^ I did.




I'm wondering if this sort of tech will be applied to other fields soon, too.


I'd like to know what sort of virtualization they've got going on.

12/29/2009 1:08:19 PM

If this service sees significant adoption, it's going to kill bandwidth. It's going to bludgeon bandwidth with a spiked mace.

12/29/2009 1:36:37 PM

That's true, but I'm pretty sure that this will be a pretty small market, at least initially.

12/29/2009 2:04:00 PM

I can see it now

TWC will add a fee for OnLive users due to excessive bandwidth usage

OH NOES OUR NETWORK CAN'T HANDLE IT!!1!

12/29/2009 2:08:37 PM

^ exactly.

12/29/2009 2:21:58 PM

super
[old]
sega channel anyone? circa 1994

[Edited on December 29, 2009 at 2:23 PM. Reason : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel]

12/29/2009 2:22:10 PM

i don't think that was cloud-based

12/29/2009 3:27:44 PM

It wasn't. It wasn't on-demand either. Basically it is nothing at all similar to onLive, someone just wanted to swing their ePenis

12/29/2009 4:09:59 PM

80 ms = 5 frames @ 60 fps. This of course is in addition to any processing lag from digital tv. Games with precise timing will be totally unplayable. Good thing band games and fighting games aren't popular or this would not put consoles out of business.

My current conclusion about OnLive is that it's Phantom with slightly better PR. I'll believe it when I see it in action on Roadrunner or Uverse.

12/29/2009 5:52:25 PM

The 360 and PS3 have ~40ms delay on input today. Hasn't been a problem.

And only a handful of top-tier titles run at 60fps in the real world.

12/29/2009 6:12:04 PM

i bet it'd work in korea just fine

here, maaaybe

12/29/2009 6:20:01 PM

Quote :

"i don't think that was cloud-based"

cloud is completely marketing. all you can unilaterally gather about cloud-based is that the computing is centralized or brokered by a central management system.

Quote :

"It wasn't. It wasn't on-demand either. Basically it is nothing at all similar to onLive, someone just wanted to swing their ePenis "

of course it was fucking on-demand. you put in the client cart and you selected the game you wanted to play from the list. the games were small enough that they were downloaded to and run on your local console but that was more a function of sunk cost (you already had the console hardware, why invest in big iron, if your console could already support the full legacy and upcoming library?)

12/29/2009 7:01:19 PM

Noen, please provide info about input lag on a 360 that is not caused by HDTV post-processing.

[Edited on December 29, 2009 at 7:13 PM. Reason : .]

12/29/2009 7:12:37 PM

Quote :

"cloud is completely marketing. all you can unilaterally gather about cloud-based is that the computing is centralized or brokered by a central management system."

which it wasn't, the sega channel was processed by the cable boxes. hence why it wasn't "centrally processed", hence my comment... jeez.

i hate it when people try to tell me what a word means when they know exactly what it means and what is meant by it.

people say cloud because it's a helluva lot easier to say.

[Edited on December 29, 2009 at 7:49 PM. Reason : ,]

12/29/2009 7:47:47 PM

Quote :

"of course it was fucking on-demand. you put in the client cart and you selected the game you wanted to play from the list. the games were small enough that they were downloaded to and run on your local console but that was more a function of sunk cost (you already had the console hardware, why invest in big iron, if your console could already support the full legacy and upcoming library?)"

No it wasn't. You had to DOWNLOAD the games to your local console. This took several minutes per game, and everything was stored in RAM. Turning off the console wiped everything. That is inherently NOT on-demand content. That is downloadable content.

You also had to have a local console to play the thing on. With OnLive, you can play it from ANY video device that has input capabilities. You don't RUN anything locally, there is no download, there is nothing to be stored.

Completely different.

Quote :

"Noen, please provide info about input lag on a 360 that is not caused by HDTV post-processing."

The USB polling rate on the 360 is, I believe 125hz (8ms), the same as the windows standard. The 2.4ghz wireless transceiver adds another ~10ms delay in total processing time. Most 360 games run between 30 and 60fps. At 60 fps you have 16.6ms per frame. At 30fps you have 33.3ms per frame. So worst case scenario you have a 30fps game, and your input triggers at the beginning of a frame render, you can get ~50ms delay between input and screen.

That's not taking into account tv post processing or online play. If you play online (who doesn't?) add 20ms to the delay minimum (25-40 real world average).

[Edited on December 29, 2009 at 8:21 PM. Reason : .]

12/29/2009 8:07:57 PM

Quote :

"More like the official thread of bad thread titles."

12/30/2009 2:54:55 AM

I thought this was interesting. From Wikipedia:

Quote :

"To provide Sega Channel, a cable company would need to install new equipment into their headend, integrate service authorization into their sales center, and purchase the game adapters. Game adapters were manufactured by Scientific-Atlanta and General Instrument, with a cost to the cable operators of approximately $100 per unit. Additionally, many cable operators had to clean their broadcast signal in the head-end and all the way to "the pole" to ensure that the signal could be received. Sega, a gaming company, thus played a major role in improving infrastructure for future digital cable services, as well as broadband Internet access and digital telephone services. At its peak, Sega Channel was available to one-third of the United States and had 250,000 subscribers."

12/30/2009 10:51:25 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Perlman

He created or worked on:
Quicktime
XBAND
WebTV
The CG for Curious Case of Benjamin Button

12/30/2009 11:57:33 AM