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XBOX ONE Reveal: UI faked from the start. Very choppy, and CBoaT

Who gives a shit if it was faked. It was a presentation of things to come.
Well, when an executive is demonstrating the "instant switching" feature to an audience while saying to them, "Yes, [it is] that fast. Did you see how instant that was?" when "it" is being controlled entirely off-stage, it kind of makes him seem pretty goddamned disingenuous and manipulative, no?
 
The video is question, from Wired, shows the UI in real time, it is choppy and slow.

ibqdrfIUSn00AV.gif

You can tell she knows it's going to be like that, look at her face after she speaks. Too fucking GOOD.
 

SPDIF

Member
That GIF gives a bit of a false impression to be fair. It's poorly edited on Wired's part. In the video, she says "Xbox, go home", but instead of actually showing this, it immediately cuts to showing the TV (as you can see in the GIF). She then says (off camera) "Xbox, snap live TV", where to be fair, it does snap very quickly.

Of course this doesn't excuse the fact that the TV picture is running at a ridiculous frame rate, but the GIF gives a very poor, unfair view of what was actually happening.

Apologies if this has already been brought up, but I'm not about to read every page of the thread to see if it has.
 
D

Deleted member 8095

Unconfirmed Member
That GIF gives a bit of a false impression to be fair. It's poorly edited on Wired's part. In the video, she says "Xbox, go home", but instead of actually showing this, it immediately cuts to showing the TV (as you can see in the GIF). She then says (off camera) "Xbox, snap live TV", where to be fair, it does snap very quickly.

Of course this doesn't excuse the fact that the TV picture is running at a ridiculous frame rate, but the GIF gives a very poor, unfair view of what was actually happening.

Apologies if this has already been brought up, but I'm not about to read every page of the thread to see if it has.

It's been brought up and ignored many times. Nothing will stop this hate train.
 

Danthrax

Batteries the CRISIS!
You can tell she knows it's going to be like that, look at her face after she speaks. Too fucking GOOD.

That gif is disingenuous. If you watch the real video, she says "Xbox Home" and then it cuts to the TV screen, which already is showing the Xbox home screen. As soon as the cut is made, she says, "Xbox, snap live TV." Then it takes about a quarter of a second before the new pane shows up on the UI.

So the Xbone actually responds pretty quickly to her voice command. The only problem is the live TV stream running at like 5 FPS.


[edit] Didn't notice SPDIF's post saying the same thing, sorry.
 

th4tguy

Member
My biggest concern is not with the Xbox's responsiveness but my cable box. If I get an Xbone and I hook it up to my cable box, I'm still going to be limited by how slow and shitty my cable box is. I already have a 1-2 second delay when changing channels or pulling up the guide. Won't this add to the delay when you add another layer to that interface? 1-2 second delay from box + 1-2 second delay on xbone. Not really the experience I want.
 
My biggest concern is not with the Xbox's responsiveness but my cable box. If I get an Xbone and I hook it up to my cable box, I'm still going to be limited by how slow and shitty my cable box is. I already have a 1-2 second delay when changing channels or pulling up the guide. Won't this add to the delay when you add another layer to that interface? 1-2 second delay from box + 1-2 second delay on xbone. Not really the experience I want.

You'll do a lot of the stuff through the Xbox One and the only area where you'll see any type of delay is on a channel change. It's probably not going to be any noticeable difference and in many ways it will be faster than what it was before. So at the absolute minimum, it'll be better.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
You'll do a lot of the stuff through the Xbox One and the only area where you'll see any type of delay is on a channel change. It's probably not going to be any noticeable difference and in many ways it will be faster than what it was before. So at the absolute minimum, it'll be better.

This is not necessarily correct. It can make it worse if it does not interact well with the box. We won't know until we see details of cable box control settings, and it will also vary by each cable box people have. Some are infinitely more controllable and interactive than others.
 

Folstern

Member
Microsoft hired the Wizard of Oz for the reveal.

Maybe the "see how fast that was?" was sarcasm? A little joke for the cheering reveal crowd.
 

Bsigg12

Member
Nobody would give a shit it was faked if they didn't actively try to convince people it was not fake during the reveal

C'mon, you can't expect them to come out and reveal their system with what is probably an alpha or earlier build of the OS running.

"Hey guys, this OS is slow and choppy right now, but come this Fall, it'll be blazing!"

No, you show what you're aiming for, not what it's currently at when you're showing the system off as a whole. They're months away from launch and that will easily be fixed. Look at Nintendo, they should of had their OS optimized long before they did but it's better now.
 
This is not necessarily correct. It can make it worse if it does not interact well with the box. We won't know until we see details of cable box control settings, and it will also vary by each cable box people have. Some are infinitely more controllable and interactive than others.

All it's doing is sending IR commands; it shouldn't feel any worse than using your remote control.
 

BigDug13

Member
C'mon, you can't expect them to come out and reveal their system with what is probably an alpha or earlier build of the OS running.

"Hey guys, this OS is slow and choppy right now, but come this Fall, it'll be blazing!"

No, you show what you're aiming for, not what it's currently at when you're showing the system off as a whole. They're months away from launch and that will easily be fixed. Look at Nintendo, they should of had their OS optimized long before they did but it's better now.

No, but you keep your mouth shut when it comes to comments like, "that was fast wasn't it?" You don't make comments specifically to fool people into thinking you were running the real thing if you weren't. That comment wasn't necessary unless fooling people was exactly their aim.
 

Deitus

Member
C'mon, you can't expect them to come out and reveal their system with what is probably an alpha or earlier build of the OS running.

"Hey guys, this OS is slow and choppy right now, but come this Fall, it'll be blazing!"

No, you show what you're aiming for, not what it's currently at when you're showing the system off as a whole. They're months away from launch and that will easily be fixed. Look at Nintendo, they should of had their OS optimized long before they did but it's better now.

How does that logic compute to you?

This UI is crappy now but it will get better before launch, because Nintendo had a crappy UI that was broken at launch and fixed months later. Okay...

In the real world, we will judge the system based on how it actually operates in reality. When that changes, we can adjust our opinion. Saying it will work great, because their faked presentation looked good is a fantasy. Did Killzone 2 ever look as good as the target-render trailer?
 

Eusis

Member
Exactly. Demonstrating a mock-up of your interface to show people what to expect is fine. Repeatedly insisting on pointing out how "fast" that mock-up is is disgusting.
Huh, forgot about that, I guess I and likely others tuned out a lot of that white noise. It's going to be pretty pathetic going "wow look how fast that is" if they can't get the final product that fast, even if it's a hell of a lot smoother. Though maybe they just got Kinect wired up to a standard, similarly spec'd Windows 8 PC to get an idea of how fast they COULD make it and operated from there.
 
How does that logic compute to you?

This UI is crappy now but it will get better before launch, because Nintendo had a crappy UI that was broken at launch and fixed months later. Okay...

In the real world, we will judge the system based on how it actually operates in reality. When that changes, we can adjust our opinion. Saying it will work great, because their faked presentation looked good is a fantasy. Did Killzone 2 ever look as good as the target-render trailer?

Let's have a show of hands who will ever touch this build of the OS. Anyone? Anyone?

Comparing a graphically intense game as Killzone 2 to a GUI to show how complex and hard it is is laughable. It's a GUI that's unoptimized at the moment and I don't have any reason to believe that something like a GUI won't be optimized by the time the system launches.
 
Exactly. Demonstrating a mock-up of your interface to show people what to expect is fine. Repeatedly insisting on pointing out how "fast" that mock-up is is disgusting.

I dunno 'bout disgusting, but the audience of a what is essentially a guided infomercial/tour of their new platform isn't going to understand or appreciate work-in-progress or beta states of an unfinished feature or product. It just means MS drew a line in the sand with performance and now has to match it at release or look completely stupid and full of shit. No one's going to give a shit about some half-truth in a marketing driven moment if reality, in less than six months, matches their pitch. I mean, the public gets non-existent fantasy versions of games all of the time through well-edited CG and controlled 'gameplay' trailers and montages as well as lots of smoke and mirrors on initial presentations with mock-ups of OS and featureset all of the time with new consoles. I don't see the real issue until they fail to live up to their end of the bargain. MS basically put big fat crosshairs on the head of their new platform.
 

Deitus

Member
Let's have a show of hands who will ever touch this build of the OS. Anyone? Anyone?

Comparing a graphically intense game as Killzone 2 to a GUI to show how complex and hard it is is laughable. It's a GUI that's unoptimized at the moment and I don't have any reason to believe that something like a GUI won't be optimized by the time the system launches.

Except the example used for comparison that I replied to was the Wii U, which wasn't optimized at launch. So it happens.

And yes, this is not optimized yet. I wouldn't expect it to run perfect at this point. I don't even mind that their demonstration wasn't real, only that they tried to pretend it was. It is naive to believe that the UI will run exactly as well as the demonstration based on nothing at all. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but even Microsoft doesn't know at this point how well optimized it will be at launch.
 
Except the example used for comparison that I replied to was the Wii U, which wasn't optimized at launch. So it happens.

And yes, this is not optimized yet. I wouldn't expect it to run perfect at this point. I don't even mind that their demonstration wasn't real, only that they tried to pretend it was. It is naive to believe that the UI will run exactly as well as the demonstration based on nothing at all. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but even Microsoft doesn't know at this point how well optimized it will be at launch.

Microsoft has how much experience in OSs? They've done how many refreshes to the dashboard on the 360? Now Nintendo has what experience? I think it's clear that we shouldn't equate the competency in this area of Microsoft to Nintendo. Is there a chance it could run like crap? Sure. I just think it's very unlikely, and at this point in time, I'm not worried given my experience with software development and having access to Microsoft's in development dashboard in the past and seeing how it changed before final release. There's always a chance of anything, but so far I don't see any warning flags that should be causing people to panic about the performance.
 

Deitus

Member
Microsoft has how much experience in OSs? They've done how many refreshes to the dashboard on the 360? Now Nintendo has what experience? I think it's clear that we shouldn't equate the competency in this area of Microsoft to Nintendo. Is there a chance it could run like crap? Sure. I just think it's very unlikely, and at this point in time, I'm not worried given my experience with software development and having access to Microsoft's in development dashboard in the past and seeing how it changed before final release. There's always a chance of anything, but so far I don't see any warning flags that should be causing people to panic about the performance.

Yeah, Microsoft has a lot of experience in making OSs. And yet, not all of them are actually that great. But that's a whole separate topic.

My speculation is that the UI will run somewhere in between what they have actually running now, and what their demonstration showed (not exactly a bold guess, I know). I'm not panicking here, I think it will probably run fine. It just might be less impressive than the demo would have you believe.

My experience with faked stage demos re: Kinect prevents me from automatically assuming every piece of software will work perfectly just because a faked demo looked good.
 
You can tell she knows it's going to be like that, look at her face after she speaks. Too fucking GOOD.

What you arent seeing in the GIF is that she says another phrase before all that stuff starts snapping into place.



-edit I see it has already been brought up numerous times and ignored. Carry on.
 
Yeah, Microsoft has a lot of experience in making OSs. And yet, not all of them are actually that great. But that's a whole separate topic.

My speculation is that the UI will run somewhere in between what they have actually running now, and what their demonstration showed (not exactly a bold guess, I know). I'm not panicking here, I think it will probably run fine. It just might be less impressive than the demo would have you believe.

My experience with faked stage demos re: Kinect prevents me from automatically assuming every piece of software will work perfectly just because a faked demo looked good.

Ya, not all of Microsoft's OSs are great for various reasons, but let's not confuse the core OS and the GUI either. I also think comparing just the basic GUI to the complexity of Killzone 2 or even the Kinect is a bad comparison too; it's a world of a difference on what's going on and how hard it is to get the performance up there. If it looked like this a month from release, then ya, I could see cause for concern but we're so far off, and optimization usually doesn't happen until the end that, this really should be a non issue at this point in time.

I can't decide whether to go with the Wii U or Windows Vista / 8 response here.

I'll help you. You should go with Vista.

1) Nintendo doesn't have the experience or skill with OSs that Microsoft has. This shows in all of Nintendo's efforts just like their Networking effort goes. They're way behind in this department. Despite all that, their GUIs still run at 60 fps.

2) Love or hate Windows 8, the one thing you can't deny is that Windows 8 is highly optimized, uses less resources than Windows 7, and runs at 60fps on low end hardware and is extremely snappy.
 

d0g_bear

Member
A few weeks ago at Google I/O, they were also doing live demos in front of a large audience. An employee was demonstrating Google Now (a voice command contextually aware search). The demo was real, live, running on the laptop she had at the podium. . She was a little nervous at first - saying "I've never tried this in a room with so much ambient noise". She spoke the search queries and it worked perfectly and smoothly.

Another demo at that presentation was playing a multiplayer game (Riptide 2) with android devices. Unfortunately there was some network error and they weren't able to connect the three or four tablets, and had to skip that demo. (They later fixed the issue and the game worked great in private demonstrations)

To me, this contrasts so sharply with Microsoft's exec grinning at us all, telling us how great it's working. This is why Google is awesome - no lies, no smoothing over technical hiccups, just great programming and Do No Evil.
 

Deitus

Member
Ya, not all of Microsoft's OSs are great for various reasons, but let's not confuse the core OS and the GUI either. I also think comparing just the basic GUI to the complexity of Killzone 2 or even the Kinect is a bad comparison too; it's a world of a difference on what's going on and how hard it is to get the performance up there. If it looked like this a month from release, then ya, I could see cause for concern but we're so far off, and optimization usually doesn't happen until the end that, this really should be a non issue at this point in time.

Again, not worried. I'm reserving judgement until it is a real thing.
 
My biggest concern is not with the Xbox's responsiveness but my cable box. If I get an Xbone and I hook it up to my cable box, I'm still going to be limited by how slow and shitty my cable box is. I already have a 1-2 second delay when changing channels or pulling up the guide. Won't this add to the delay when you add another layer to that interface? 1-2 second delay from box + 1-2 second delay on xbone. Not really the experience I want.

Yeah I still don't really understand how it's supposed to interact with the cablebox through HDMI, or how you're supposed to interact with things like DVR if the xbone can't use that, or what happens if the cablebox starts acting up, which happens A LOT with Time Warner.
 
Again, not worried. I'm reserving judgement until it is a real thing.

That's all I'm saying people should do. I think people are jumping the gun on a lot of things regarding the Xbox One at this point in time. I think it's much more fair to reserve judgement till more or even all the details are known to get a fair assessment of what is there. There's plenty of things to focus on to complain about the Xbox One compared to so many things that we don't even know what they'll be like yet.

Yeah I still don't really understand how it's supposed to interact with the cablebox through HDMI, or how you're supposed to interact with things like DVR if the xbone can't use that, or what happens if the cablebox starts acting up, which happens A LOT with Time Warner.

So there are three methods on how this can work.

1) HDMI CEC - this sends commands over HDMI to communicate with the box. This isn't standard in every HDMI based device, so the device would specifically have to have support for this to work
2) IR command - this is pretty much simulating your remote control through the Xbox One. The Xbox One will map it's input to the appropriate IR code to talk to the box and in theory anything you can do with a remote should be able to be done by the Xbox One.
3) Network commands - Some boxes have WiFi or Ethernet built in to connect to the Internet and support commands over the network to control the box from other devices or even from a website. Microsoft would have to work with providers to gain access to that API in order to communicate with boxes that support this.

In the absolute worse case scenario, the Xbox One will just replace the remote control and give you a better interface to control your box.
 

neorej

ERMYGERD!
That's all I'm saying people should do. I think people are jumping the gun on a lot of things regarding the Xbox One at this point in time. I think it's much more fair to reserve judgement till more or even all the details are known to get a fair assessment of what is there. There's plenty of things to focus on to complain about the Xbox One compared to so many things that we don't even know what they'll be like yet.



So there are three methods on how this can work.

1) HDMI CEC - this sends commands over HDMI to communicate with the box. This isn't standard in every HDMI based device, so the device would specifically have to have support for this to work
2) IR command - this is pretty much simulating your remote control through the Xbox One. The Xbox One will map it's input to the appropriate IR code to talk to the box and in theory anything you can do with a remote should be able to be done by the Xbox One.
3) Network commands - Some boxes have WiFi or Ethernet built in to connect to the Internet and support commands over the network to control the box from other devices or even from a website. Microsoft would have to work with providers to gain access to that API in order to communicate with boxes that support this.

In the absolute worse case scenario, the Xbox One will just replace the remote control and give you a better interface to control your box.
Worst case scenario is that the Xbone cannot communicate with your box at all.
 

Deitus

Member
That's all I'm saying people should do. I think people are jumping the gun on a lot of things regarding the Xbox One at this point in time. I think it's much more fair to reserve judgement till more or even all the details are known to get a fair assessment of what is there. There's plenty of things to focus on to complain about the Xbox One compared to so many things that we don't even know what they'll be like yet.

Then we are in agreement.

I just think it's equally misinformed to say "everything will work perfectly always and for ever starting with day one because Microsoft would never mislead people", as it is to say "abandon ship, the software doesn't work perfectly 5 months before launch, so bomba confirmed".

It's important to note that the demonstration was not real, lest it mislead someone. But that doesn't mean it won't get better. We just don't know how much better at this point. Best to wait and see on that bit.

And yes, there are far, far bigger concerns with the XB1 than this.
 
Worst case scenario is that the Xbone cannot communicate with your box at all.

Ok, this is true. If they don't have your IR code set programmed in, then yes, it won't be able to communicate at all and you'll have to pick up your existing remote control to use it within the Xbox One. Having a vast library of devices and their IR codes isn't that big of a deal otherwise the Logitech Harmony wouldn't work at all. I'm actually curious if MS will have a method to learn IR commands from the original remote. Cumbersome, but it could get around the idea of a box not being supported.

Then we are in agreement.

I just think it's equally misinformed to say "everything will work perfectly always and for ever starting with day one because Microsoft would never mislead people", as it is to say "abandon ship, the software doesn't work perfectly 5 months before launch, so bomba confirmed".

It's important to note that the demonstration was not real, lest it mislead someone. But that doesn't mean it won't get better. We just don't know how much better at this point. Best to wait and see on that bit.

And yes, there are far, far bigger concerns with the XB1 than this.

Yep, we're in complete agreement. I agree that it's also premature to make the claim of how great it will work too. All of us really should be focusing our efforts in complaining about what Microsoft has said about their DRM so far. That's the one thing I think complaining about could actually be of great use because it might get Microsoft to back peddle or even push Sony to decide which way they want to go since they haven't announced anything yet and probably have different scenario cards they can play.
 
that's not really possible unless you have a cable box that doesn't support remote controls .

No, it's possible. Microsoft would have to have a database of your IR codes or allow the Xbox One to learn IR codes in order to make sure it works. It's possible to not have either and thus your cable box is not compatible or if you're in another country, your guide data not available.
 

eastmen

Banned
No, it's possible. Microsoft would have to have a database of your IR codes or allow the Xbox One to learn IR codes in order to make sure it works. It's possible to not have either and thus your cable box is not compatible or if you're in another country, your guide data not available.

There are few cable box makers. IT wont be difficult to add support for them and a learning feature.

People are acting like this is new tech but I have a harmony remote that will work on any device I've ever owned even some old stuff like my parents first sony cd player from the 80s.
 
There are few cable box makers. IT wont be difficult to add support for them and a learning feature.

People are acting like this is new tech but I have a harmony remote that will work on any device I've ever owned even some old stuff like my parents first sony cd player from the 80s.

No I agree that it's unlikely, but he's still right, the worst case scenario is if your box isn't supported at all and that is still a possibility. I think unlikely, but I don't think it's impossible. We're talking worse case scenario situation here and you can't say that it's not true.
 
You'll do a lot of the stuff through the Xbox One and the only area where you'll see any type of delay is on a channel change. It's probably not going to be any noticeable difference and in many ways it will be faster than what it was before. So at the absolute minimum, it'll be better.

There's a million ways it can be worse.

Easiest is if the IR Blaster is hooked up poorly and ends up screwing up the signal for channel changing.
 
There's a million ways it can be worse.

Easiest is if the IR Blaster is hooked up poorly and ends up screwing up the signal for channel changing.

I'm assuming they attached the thing appropriately and that's a reasonable assumption. You could also say the power could go out, or that a game sucks because the player keeps dropping the controller, but I don't think those are reasonable things to pin it on.
 

hesido

Member
That GIF gives a bit of a false impression to be fair. It's poorly edited on Wired's part. In the video, she says "Xbox, go home", but instead of actually showing this, it immediately cuts to showing the TV (as you can see in the GIF). She then says (off camera) "Xbox, snap live TV", where to be fair, it does snap very quickly.

Of course this doesn't excuse the fact that the TV picture is running at a ridiculous frame rate, but the GIF gives a very poor, unfair view of what was actually happening.

Apologies if this has already been brought up, but I'm not about to read every page of the thread to see if it has.

The gif is very, very mis-informative indeed. The UI is nowhere near fluent, but the response time is not as bad as this GIF. The Gif should have concentrated on choppy animations and the 5fps TV display.
 

jonezer4

Member
Duh, there wasn't a basketball game at 10am right? And those teams weren't even playing that day?

I thought this was old news?

Using a fake/replica cable feed (which is done all the time when testing anything intended for cable/television) is different from entirely fabricating your interface, under the obvious guise that it was live and interactive.

kvn said:
Who gives a shit if it was faked. It was a presentation of things to come.
If it was a presentation of things to come, simply don't disingenuously present it as if it's a live demo. Show a video with a disclaimer or explicitly state before your live magic (illusion) show, that you're presenting a simulation of the type of interaction you're targeting (i.e. may very well not reach) for launch.
 
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