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The PC As Theater: THX comes to the PC
Talespinner writes: "Wired has this article on THX certification being ready for the PC. Lucasfilm, in combination with Dell, created the new THX-certification standard for the PC. The new systems for Dell start around $2000 and come ready with "multimedia speakers, Dolby Digital surround sound and integrated audio and video systems."
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Yes and no. There is no such thing as a THX "solution". But there is such a thing as THX certified components. In the (non-theater) world, there are 2 levels of THX- select and something else whose name evades me for the moment.
Each component type, say a receiver, must meet certain technical details such as power per channel, types of decoding, dB rolloff at certain frequencies, etc. If a component meets all the specs it is then THX certified. Due to the requirements, certified equipment tends to cost more. Of course, the pretty logo will probably increase sales.
Now, all of this is well and good; but, it doesn't automatically mean that some THX equipment will sound great. A great receiver with $3 speakers is just gonna blow. Plus such things as room size, speaker placement, acoustics, etc., are important to the final sound of the system.
Which brings me to my main point (finally!). It's great and all to have equipment that meet certain technical requirements, but watching a DVD on a PC is most likely to be 1/10th as good as watching a DVD on a mid-sized TV with an ok stereo system.
Analysis- a bunch of technical specs aimed at a less than suitable platform to generate marketing hype. Yes, better than the standard PC with average monitor and speakers, but I'll take my home theatre (such as it is) any day.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
DVD fans have known for a while that THX certification is basically a sticker you can buy. If you pay Lucas enough money, he'll give you THX certification for your DVD. My guess is this applies to these systems too. read this little rant on dvdfile.com for info about what I'm talking about.
What I'd really like is a sound card that does no analog processing and has coaxial and optical outputs for dolby digital(AC3) and possibly DTS streams. I've got an audio system that can take it from there.
Besides DVD support, I'd also like the sound card (or the drivers for it) to support the OpenAL 3d audio standard - besides support for games, there are other uses. I am writing software for data visualization, and that data has an audio component. 3d sound support would be a great addition to the current OpenGL app I have right now.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
on Sharky Extreme. He basically says it is nothing special.
-Jay Thomas
http://www.uiuc.edu/~jthomas2
Don't get me wrong, I like hearing my mp3s at "good enough" quality and various honks and tweets from first person shooters, but I'm also an audiophile. Even if you could somehow get standalone-amplifier sound quality from a computer card (hint: it ain't happening any time soon; decoding is one thing but amplification with clarity is entirely another), most computer speaker setups I've seen are just _wrong_. They all seem to revolve around 2 to n small, tweeter-sized speaker boxes, and one "big" subwoofer. The problem is this completely b0rks the midrange sound reproduction of the system (the more different speaker sizes (for cone speakers), the more discrete bands of sound you can reproduce at a time).
So if this new THX system has just a good, line-out only, decoder-only card, with a pamplet telling the end user how to buy a good amplifier (go Onkyo! :-) ) and good speakers (personal preference here, but practically anything mainstream home audio is better than the crap the computer manufacturers pawn off on people), then they're doing the right thing. Otherwise it's just a marketing gimmick. (Note also that THX certification is highly overrated, in that it is possible to qet audio kit that meets or exceeds the THX certifcation standards, but lacks the logo because the manufacturer didn't want to pony up the USD$100K (IIRC) that logo cost.)
If they aren't shielding the audio subsystem from EMF they're definitely doing it as a marketing gimmick. EMF does not do nice things to audio reproduction, and the inside of a computer case isn't exactly a low EMF area... ;-)
To do surround sound _well_, your're probably looking at USD$600-1200 for a good amp and $500-1500 for speakers; with virtually unlimited upward headroom for cost expansion (e.g. vapor deposition speakers, which a really cool, and really expensive (saw a set once of 4 speakers a center and a sub that cost $60K)). This is for a system that would do a DVD encoded in 5.1 justice; that changes it from watching a movie to _feeling_ the movie. It sounds like a lot of money, but then once you've heard it it's hard to go back. :-)
One last random note for those of you who're contemplating hooking up your computer to your stereo: use the absolute minimum cable length you can -- noise increases with cable length (c.f. SCSI).
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