Wow, it's certainly been a wild and crazy day, with all manner of questions and even accusations floating about concerning our Battlefield 4 coverage. Time to take stock and comprehensively address the queries surrounding our article:
The big question - did Digital Foundry botch its Battlefield 4 captures?
We've now examined Xbox One and PlayStation 4 game and UI/dashboard elements and have concluded that the equipment did exactly what was asked of it - it acquired digital video in a mathematically lossless format at 1080p60, in the full range RGB (0-255) colourspace. Dashboards and control panels were all set accordingly to match the requirements of the equipment. We're now satisfied that the captures on PS4 and PC are exactly as they should be - digitally lossless transmissions of what came out of the hardware.
So what's going on with Xbox One?
Xbox One was also acquired at full range 0-255 RGB with the dash set accordingly, in line with the other versions - exactly how we approach every Face-Off. We have now had informal confirmation from a very good source that current Xbox One hardware has issues with full-range RGB output that are not present on either PC or PS4. We asked DICE for comment and were told that they are "investigating the video output range and settings for Xbox One".
Is this the result of you processing the footage to make it look better compared to PlayStation 4?
Um, you don't make a game look better by crushing subtle detail. The lowering of dynamic range like this physically can't make a game look better - it can only look worse. The only regret here is that the drive for the best possible assets has resulted in captures that do not fully represent how DICE wants the game to be played.
Why isn't anyone else's footage from the same event showing the crushed blacks?
EA provided Elgato Game Capture HD consumer-level devices at the Stockholm event. They're great little units but they are unsuitable for DF work because they cannot acquire 1080p at 60 frames per second and they do not provide lossless video. The reason they do not show crushed blacks on Xbox One is because they operate at limited range RGB (16-235) and the XO dashes were set accordingly. We are told that the current Xbox One appears to be fine operating in limited range RGB, so this is a good match for the unit. We also know that both PS4 and XO hardware at the EA event was set by default to limited range RGB, so other attendees were good to go straight off the bat while we had to make changes to suit our more specialised equipment.
Does the Xbox One issue change any of your observations about Battlefield 4?
No, though we would like to see how the apparent sharpening of detail looks in the proper colourspace. The only change - which we have made already - is the comment from DICE's Johan Andersson that ambient occlusion (missing in the XO review build we tested) will be present in the game you play at launch, using the same algorithm as the PS4 and PC versions.
Did a Digital Foundry employee admit that you botched the captures?
New freelancer John Linneman made comments online suggesting that the workflow was in error and that there wasn't time to correct it. We love John, but he wasn't privy to the workflow of last week's events, nor involved in any of the internal discussions we had. While his heart was in the right place, his post doesn't accurately reflect the facts as they stand and they are certainly not official comment from Digital Foundry.
If you are sitting on 3TB of 1080p60 video, will we see any of it?
Yes.
