Size Matters

So Nintendo has finally done it. They've made the jump into the optical era and left cartridges (for consoles, anyway) behind. At the 1999 E3 show, Nintendo announced they'd be partnering with electronics giant, Matsushita (Panasonic), to develop the proprietary DVD format for their next-generation game console. We're sure Nintendo's second and third-party developers were ecstatic with the news. No longer would designers working on Nintendo consoles be limited by small and costly cartridges. Yes, Nintendo was finally saying adios to the 80s. A full 4.7 GB to work with-- this time, Nintendo would be on even tier with Sony.

Of course, Nintendo had other ideas. The company, traditionally cautious in their business approach, was downright terrified of the booming piracy trend associated with disc-based media. Having been burned by rampant piracy in Japan during the mid-80s with the Famicom Disk Drive, the big N had no intention of getting stuck in a similar predicament. Ultimately, Nintendo opted to go with 8 cm (3 inch) proprietary "mini" DVDs. Aside from the futuristic novelty factor (which is sure to draw several "oh cool!" reactions from average consumers) of a miniature DVD, the smaller size makes piracy much more difficult for would be pirates. Trying to shove a full-sized recordable DVD into the NGC would be about as logical as trying to fit a vinyl record into a regular DVD player.

Unfortunately, the drawback here is the 1.5 GB NGC disc stores less than 1/3 of a regular DVD (4.7 GB). While the majority of PS2 games so far only require a CD-ROM (650 MB), there are a few games that are already almost filling up a standard DVD. Koei's Kessen almost eats up an entire full-sized DVD-ROM disc. Such a game on the NGC would require two or maybe even three discs.

Nintendo has thought ahead, however, and the Gamecube features some impressive compression methods. S3 texture compression not only frees up valuable system RAM on the Gamecube hardware, but it also compresses the texture data on the disc so it takes up less room. Factor 5's MORT sound technology can create high-end real-time music and sound effects that take up a fraction of the space of redbook audio. Since the NGC doesn't support Dolby Digital 5.1, developers don't have to worry about sound for cut scenes hogging up massive amounts of disc space.

The real problem here is FMV. While real-time graphics are improving dramatically, they still can't keep pace with high-end pre-rendered video. Take one look at Tekken Tag Tournament's video sequences, for instance, if you require proof. The standard DVD MPEG-2 video eats up a lot of space-- an hour of video would almost automatically require more than one disc. Also, there's a possibility that developers still might want to have optional Dolby Digital 5.1 sound for their cut scenes.

Even though the main NGC console doesn't have a digital sound output, Panasonic's DVD Gamecube combo almost assuredly will. Why not just have multi-disc games? It's true that most games won't even use up the full 1.5 GB capacity, but the multi-disc layout might cause some headaches for 3rd party companies who have designed their games to be on one disc on other platforms..

Nintendo's own Silicon Knights also looks like they have no choice but to go the multi-disc route. Their Too Human project was originally for the Playstation and required four CD-ROM discs (2.6 GB). Of course, there's also Square Soft., and if Nintendo is to woo their old ally back, having a hassle-free format certainly helps. Even Enix has developed a 2 DVD FMV "adventure" game known as O Story for the PS2. In a few years, developers might start filling up regular DVD discs quicker than we could've imagined. So what can Nintendo do?

Dual Layer Discs

DVD is inherently a dual layer medium. Meaning each side of a DVD can store two layers of data. If an NGC disc were dual layered, this would effectively boost the storage capacity of the discs to about 3 GB. There are a few drawbacks with dual layer discs, however.

For starters, when switching layers, there is a noticeable pause in most DVD players. Now the faster CAV (constant-angular-velocity) DVD drive in the NGC and its ample amount of A-Memory should provide a nice buffer for layer switches, but it could cause problems in real time environments. Fortunately, the NGC should be able to handle just about any real-time game on one 1.5 GB layer. If a developer chooses to go with a dual-layer disc, they could stick the FMV on the second layer. You'd have a slight pause in between gameplay and video, but this is hardly a huge problem.

Nintendo has not mentioned anything about dual-layering just yet, and because the NGC format is proprietary (and not standard DVD), one shouldn't assume that dual-layer discs are automatically a possibility. Dual-layered discs also requires better laser focusing; hence a more expensive laser. Although the price difference shouldn't be very large (95% of modern DVD players have no problems with dual-layer discs), it might go against Nintendo's policy of using the most cost-effective parts for the Gamecube. And even with dual layering, you're still stuck with "only" 3 GB storage, which is a good 1.7 GB smaller than a standard DVD.

MPEG 4 And DiVX

A new video compression technology known as MPEG-4 (DiVX) is taking the internet by storm. This technology is touted as the "mp3 of the video world". Using MPEG-4 encoding, almost anyone (provided your PC is fast enough) can compress extremely large video files, such as a 2 hour DVD movie, and squeeze them onto a 700 MB CD-ROM at a 640x480 resolution. In some cases, you can squeeze a video file (such as a large movie) onto 1/12th the space required by MPEG-2 (DVD) standards.

What about video quality? Although MPEG-4 uses a low bitrate, the quality of the resulting picture and resolution is impressive. Have a look for yourself. The following is a comparison of MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4 courtesy of Tom's Hardware. These are thumbnails, so click on the images for a direct comparision between the two:

You'll notice the MPEG-2 version does look slightly sharper and more colorful. It might blow your mind, however, to note that the MPEG-4 version is compressed at roughly an 11:1 ratio. Now, Nintendo wouldn't need video compression this extreme. A compression rate of 4:1 or 5:1 would more than suffice, and allow the video to look even closer to its original MPEG-2 counterpart. Point is, with this encoding, developers can store just as much video on a smaller 1.5 GB NGC disc as they can on the PS2 or XBox discs (both of which require MPEG-2 for DVD playback).

So what are the downsides to MPEG-4? The main knock is it's quite processor intensive. Fluid MPEG-4 playback on a PC requires a Pentium III 700 MHz system in most cases. However, because the Gamecube won't have to process game AI, real time graphics, or anything else, it should be able to handle even MPEG-4/DiVX decoding if a developer wished to use it. That 405 MHz IBM Gekko CPU is no push over, after all.

In the end, the Gamecube should allow developers to work with different video compression routines. MPEG-4 is only one example, and even that technology is quite scalable. And that's good to know, because it's just one less headache for developers to have to worry about. The Gamecube should be able to display video quality very close to a DVD movie, and leave more than enough space for game data and high-end audio on one disc instead of just two discs...or three discs...or (well you get the point).

Pete Deol