CES 2006 - Day 2: Blu-ray/HD-DVD, PureVideo H.264, Viiv, Centrino Duo and a lot more
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Manveer Wasson on January 7, 2006 3:07 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Intel's Viiv at the Show
Given how much Intel has been talking about Viiv and how excited they were about it, you would expect to see an overwhelming number of absolutely breathtaking designs; after all, Viiv is supposed to be much more than just a rebranded MCE desktop. We are supposed to see new form factors, out of the box designs and all in all, things you would want to see in your living room. Unfortunately, what was shown off at the show was far from that. There were some nice looking designs, but the vast majority either looked like PCs with a jog dial on the front or bad attempts at disguising a PC as CE hardware.
Before we get to what was well done, let's look at what wasn't. We'll start off with Acer's Viiv PC, which really looks no different than the first generation MCE PCs that came out two years ago:
A number of companies took the same approach as Hisense, however the case just doesn't convince the end user that they are looking at a high end, stylish CE device - instead it looks like something a PC case manufacturer would make:
Shuttle's Viiv PC is a bit more stylish looking:
And Fujitsu also did a fairly decent job with their Viiv offering:
For users who aren't interested in a living room PC and instead want a very capable desktop PC then offerings like the HP pictured below or the Acer from earlier will obviously be a better fit:
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Cygni - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
Each 7800GTX 512 has a fillrate of 8.8 gigapixels. Normal 7800GTX has a 6.8 gigapixels. 4 512's, and full 512 clocks (I dont know if they ARE actually clocked that high, but lets assume), would give a fillrate of 35 gigapixels for 4.Are there many games or displays in the world that can use this power? Hell no! haha
jiulemoigt - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
Could I not simply buy a bluray drive and a hddrive and have both formats in my pc? Also R+ and R- had the same probs but they both sit on drives together, so it is just a matter of time for both to play nice. I like that neither is being forced into a compromise that limits the size or quality of the disks.nomagic - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
Just wait for 6 months. I am sure there will be bluray + HD-DVD combo drives. Unless one of the format dies, we are just going to repeat the old situation, in which a burner would feature both + and - format. Ah, this sucks.Cygni - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
IIRC, the HD laser and Blu Ray laser arent backwards compatabile. However, the HD and normal DVD lasers are. Meaning a combo Blu-ray+Normal DVD drive would need 2 lasers... and a Blu-Ray + HD-DVD + Normal DVD drive would also need 2 lasers.As long as the HD-DVD laser can ramp up fast enough and be cheap enough, HD-DVD could survive by default.
ArneBjarne - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
You are wrong, both Blu-ray and HD-DVD use the same blue laser. The difference between the two is in disc structure. That is what HD-DVD shares with normal DVD, while BD has a totally new structure.Both formats need triple lasers to support either CD/DVD/BD or CD/DVD/HD-DVD, and ALL drives that I have seen so far already have triple lasers.
Cygni - Sunday, January 8, 2006 - link
Your right, same 450nm laser. Which brings up the immediate question, why not a Blu Ray + HD-DVD combo drive? It shouldnt physically require another laser, although i doubt either Blu Ray or HD-DVD are super enthused to make products like that.Pete - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
"Wide color gamut even lager [...]"Mmmm, colorful beer. *Drool*
hoppa - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
1/8" should be thin enough for anyone!Chadder007 - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
Thanks for the great write up. I like the OLED display and the Paper displays. Also on the LCD's with the LED Backlight....couldn't they get some of the LEDs to turn off to give a super high contrast ratio on those? Like instead of the backlight LCDs now which the whole backlight is on and the LCD doesn't represent black that well, wouldn't the LED backlight be able to present a perfect black?Clauzii - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
Basically that sounds like a good idea to me too.. I think thats one of the Upsides with LED backlight.