Reverend Slim

Since this is the campaign edition, did they add an actual end to the campaign? Because I gotta tell you... That game just ends out of nowhere, right after they introduce a new weapon and new enemy type. And there's no actual catharsis to the 15 second cutscene they show when you're done. It's like they ran out of money and just decided to stop.

@jsx92 Well, I'm sure it works in some manner... but myself and several others sent both Eurogamer articles in and Joystiq curiously never covered it until now. Fortunately, other sites like Kotaku did.

Of course, I can't even get my damn comment account to stop saying UNVERIFIED, so who knows?

@baby sea tuna Every Xbox 360 with the update is affected by this bug, regardless of model or region. Whether it's a problem you'd notice is the question. There are defined video standards that the previous dashboard's video playback was compliant with that the new dashboard no longer maintains. The result is that black in video is now a dull gray and whites are compressed into the gray range as well, giving the overall video quality a horrible washed-out look. Most people are so accustomed to streaming video looking bad that they didn't notice (or didn't care), or they set their television's brightness/contrast by eye, ignoring the correct defined levels. However, black/white level test patterns played back on the dashboard's video player (which is NOT streaming) clearly show that the new method of rendering on the Metro dashboard is altering the video levels such that they are inconsistent (and woefully incorrect) from the rest of the dashboard and gameplay. And worse, the Reference Level control in the system settings no longer complies with the 0IRE/7.5IRE standards AND often seems to change for no apparent reason.

If you don't notice it, don't look for it. Ignorance is bliss. Once you know what you're looking for, it will bug the hell out of you. I'm glad Microsoft is FINALLY owning up to it, because it was only reported to them MONTHS AGO.

Oh, so NOW Joystiq decides to cover this? Really? We've been sending you the Eurogamer story for over a month now to try to call attention to this issue!

@CaramelZappa Whether those differences are minute or not, they DO make the Xbox 360 non-compliant with existing video standards. The problem is that your average person doesn't know those standards even exist, or even what to look for when things aren't right. But in the age of digital television especially, a device is either digitally correct or it isn't... and since the new dashboard, the Xbox 360's video playback is digitally incorrect. Minute or not, Microsoft randomly broke something that previously was digitally correct on their box... not just for the new streaming apps, but for local video playback as well. And whether you think the differences are minute or not, you should be pissed that they exist at all, because there's no excuse when an "update" breaks something as basic as proper video playback levels.

That just goes to show you... Reduce video quality on the new dashboard and people will blissfully ignorantly keep biting.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-what-went-wrong-with-the-360-dash

I have an '05 Chevy Impala... and I have about an hour commute per day during my work week, so I'm always in it. Fortunately, the stereo rocks.

@Ordeith He's right that you don't understand the issue. My display is calibrated with a colorimeter to very strict specs. The issue isn't "displaying the "missing" RGB information as it is not present in the TV broadcast standards anyway." That's EXACTLY our point! Video is encoded for digital 16-235. However, with the new dashboard, even if the dashboard itself is properly displaying at those levels, when you play a video, it doesn't play at the same levels (as the histograms in Digital Foundry's tests clearly show). So even if your display is calibrated so 16 = black like it should for broadcast standards, a black level test pattern played on the 360 will now show the information below 16 because it is altering the video levels (whereas it didn't with the NXE dashboard). It should NOT be showing that information, and shouldn't be showing video at a different level from the dashboard when set to Standard reference level in the system settings. Worse, if you set it to Intermediate or Extended, it throws away info above 16 and truncates white levels, making video look even worse. And because the video levels are now different than the dashboard/games with no consistency, you can't even adjust your TV around it.

@Ordeith Oh, so if your Blu-ray player or PS3 got an update that made it non-HDMI compliant and gave anything black a gray caste because the video levels were incorrect, you wouldn't consider that a big issue? And if the black level changed every time you started/stopped a video, you wouldn't consider that a major bug? The fact of the matter is that this worked correctly in the NXE dashboard... and doesn't now. And there have been HUNDREDS of complaints about it, all of which of been ignored thus far.

If you're happy having to change brightness and contrast on your TV every time you watch a video on your 360 just to get the same video quality of the previous dashboard, then more power to you. It isn't a "mountain out of a molehill" when the "update" downscales all your 1080p video to below 720p and messes with the black/white levels. The bottom line is that there is a video standard by which all video sources are supposed to be compliant... and whereas it was compliant before, now the Xbox 360 is not. Not even close. Worse, with all the new video apps, Microsoft's focus on video content is greatly sullied by the fact that none of those video apps display video at the correct levels. Any Reference Level you select in the system settings is objectively incorrect based on the hardware standards for video output.

The bottom line is that this update was not ready for release. These problems that Microsoft is having to respond to were not surprises to them, but they released it to the public anyway so they could push their new video apps. Fingers crossed that they fix all of these issues quickly, because I can't even watch Netflix on my 360 anymore thanks to it being a washed out horrible looking mess with the new dash.

I'm curious why Joystiq is covering THIS story when they've ignored the Eurogamer story that most of the other gaming sites have reposted.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-new-dash-borks-video-playback

If you can get Microsoft to respond to THIS issue, why don't you get them to tell us when the hell they're going to fix the video output so that it's digitally correct again? Because the NXE dashboard at least displayed videos at the proper levels, whereas not only does the Metro dashboard NOT show the proper levels, it actually CHANGES reference levels if you start a video, stop it, then resume it. And it seems to be an issue across all of the new video apps, as well as the dashboard's video player and reportedly some video-based cutscenes in games, but Microsoft has ignored or deleted every single report of it thus far. Ridiculous. Why do they even have a preview program if they're going to ignore the people who reported these bugs?