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Toshiba Unveils Laptop With Instant-On TV & DVR

Posted by timothy on from the sure-hope-it's-better-than-near-tv-quality dept.

Patik writes "Toshiba has unveiled a new laptop, Qosmio, that allows users to watch TV or a DVD without booting the OS. The laptop turns on instantly for these functions and has a 15" near-TV quality screen. To use DVR functions like time shifting and recording, the user must boot the Windows Media Center OS."

5 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Re:15" near-TV quality screen by ComaVN · · Score: 4, Informative

    Think viewing angle and refreshrate/fade

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  2. Near-TV quality means... by argent · · Score: 4, Informative

    Brightness, contrast, color accuracy and stability, viewing angle, there's a lot more than pixel size and area to a screen.

  3. Instant-on isn't anything new by drewhearle · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Instant-on" PCs aren't new. Take a look at the Soyo SY-P4VAL version M (I think this was on Slashdot before but I don't have a link). The built-in BIOS "media center" software lets you play MP3 CDs, audio CDs, VCDs, DVDs, and watch TV. It's only ~$130, as opposed to $2500 - $2600.
    Granted, this article is about a laptop with instant-on capabilities, which is of course cooler and more expensive.

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  4. Re:Wow! by scrm · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's some speculation that the all-new Apple iMac G5 (announced for September) will include TV functionality

    I think this would rock, as it's rather a waste to have those nice wide LCD screens off at any time (that and the fact that my apartment is of the aforementioned shoebox type).

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    ---- scrm
  5. Re:"15" near-TV quality screen" by Phreakiture · · Score: 4, Informative

    regular tv is 800x600 hdtv is 1024x768

    Wrong!

    Regular TV is nX480, where n is determined by available analogue bandwidth, or by the defined digital value, whichever is less. If composite video is involved, n is less than 300, with colour resolution less than 150. If the narrowest analog link is S-Video, then image resolution may be as high as you can muster, but colour resolution is less constrained to about 400 pixels. Component can go as high as you want.

    Digital modes include 352x240 (0.1 megapixels; VCD), 352x480 (0.2 megapixels; TiVo), 480x480 (0.2 megapixels; SVCD), 640x480 (0.3 megapixels; DTV/VGA), 704x480 (0.3 megapixels; DTV) and 720x480 (0.3 megapixels; DV/DVD). Note that in no case does X approach 800 nor Y approach 600. 800x600 would be 0.5 megapixels.

    Now, if you've been paying attention, you've noticed that VCD is not nX480, byt nX240. To present this on an NTSC monitor, either each line is repeated, or the picture is scaled and smoothed, depending on your playback hardware.

    HDTV, on the other hand, is firmly defined as 1280x720 (0.9 megapixels) or 1920x1080 (2.1 megapixels), both higher than 1024x768 (0.8 megapixels).

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