Toshiba Unveils Laptop With Instant-On TV & DVR

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."

Comments

"15" near-TV quality screen"

[mirko]

near-TV...
Is this HDTV, or older PAL/SECAM or NTSC quality ?

Re:"15" near-TV quality screen"

[nametaken]

I like the idea of the bundled remote too. I don't know about this "near-TV" thing though. How can that be? The whole deal sounds pretty nice for $2500.

Re:"15" near-TV quality screen"

[WegianWarrior]

A 15" screen has, at least the ones I've seen, usually a resolution of 1024x768 pixels. As far as TV goes... well:
PAL: 625 scanlines, at 4:3 this will give 833 pixels in the horisontal plane
NTSC: 480 scanlines, and the same 4:3 ratio giving 640 pixels horisontaly
HDTV has different meanings depending on who makes them, but is often used for sets having a refreshrate twice the normal and a resolution of either 1920x1080 or 1280x720. mind you, the actuall signall recived over the antenna will be the same as in an old PAL/NTSC set...

I guess 'near-TV' in this case don't refer to the actuall resolution - since it could be argued that it's better than the telly - but perhaps to lightlevel or contrast. Kinda hard to tell, and rather subjective to.

Re:"15" near-TV quality screen"

[Technician]

regular tv is 800x600
hdtv is 1024x768

NTSC video bandwidth is 4.2 MHZ. 525 lines including retrace. How do you get 800 X 600 out of that?

Check the spec. Only the 3 X 4 aspect ratio matches. Everything else is stretched to fit. Lines that are not there are generated, not sent from the source.

A very brief spec for NTSC is found here;
http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/NTSC.html

Re:"15" near-TV quality screen"

[Phreakiture]

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).

Re:"15" near-TV quality screen"

[Phreakiture]

TiVo is not 352x480, it supports three resolutions, and that happens to be the lowest one. If I recall correctly only if your Tivo is set to record over the air in basic quality does it use that low. Its usually 544x480.

Thank you for the correction.

NTSC transmission is 720x486 set your TV to overscan and you'll see all sorts of interesting things broadcasters use in those two 'hidden' 3-pix areas

I did not count that area because it is part of the oversacan, not part of the picture. If I were counting overscan, I would have said 525 rather than 480, but your point is valid.

What about regular coax? what would the resolution be for that?

Analog RF carries composite, so composite rules apply. Either one will top out at about 300X480. If the coax is carrying digital RF, then digital and/or HDTV rules apply.

Re:"15" near-TV quality screen"

[Phreakiture]

So, NTSC is really "n * 525", not "n * 480" and *certainly* not "n * 486"

I re-assert that it is 480, because only 480 lines appear on the screen, and, in the event of a fixed-pixel screen (LCD, plasma, DLT), 480 is the appropriate Y resolution.

Additionally, in digitizing NTSC, it is digitized to 480 (VCD exception noted), because to do so is entirely aprporiate.

In a similar vein, I assert that PAL/SECAM is 576 (288 for VCD), despite that there are 625 scan lines. The lines beyond 576 are not shown, and are not part of the picture, they therefore contribute nothing to the resolution of the PICTURE.

Wow!

[shepd]

I wonder what Apple will do to play catchup? It'll be nice to see direct video capture on a laptop without any added hardware!

Re:Wow!

[torpor]

Why do they need to catchup? I very rarely turn my systems off, they're sleeping in low-power mode pretty much most of the time, and everything is available to me whenever I need it.

This "Not-An-OS" hack/trick of Toshiba is a way to get away Windows' (The OS) horrific boot-loading/suspend/power-management stability issue.

In OSX, no such problem exists: the system is stable, and manages its power in such a way that it need not interfere with instant-on operation.

Re:Wow!

[scrm]

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).

Re:Wow!

[garethwi]

From the spymac link

What do you guys think of the new imac also being a tv?? I mean think of that awsome 20in screen you could have a computer and tv all in one. For those small rooms or even say dorms. You could also hook your console and vcr up to it. I do not have any true info about this it just came out of my head.


Speculation or shooting the breeze?

15" near-TV quality screen

[myster0n]

uhm .... that's bad, isn't it. I thought VGA screens have always been BETTER than TV screens.

Re:15" near-TV quality screen

[ComaVN]

Think viewing angle and refreshrate/fade

Re:15" near-TV quality screen

[jesup]

Those are standards for digitizing NTSC/PAL video. Note however that NTSC (broadcast/cable) has a maximum (best-case) luma bandwidth of 4.2 MHz, and max chroma bandwidth of circa 1 MHz (I forget the exact value). So while 600+ pixels are needed to represent 4.2 Mhz, chroma information is FAR more limited - best case around 150. (All numbers from memory.) Also, realize that 4.2 MHz is an upper limit that is rarely reached by an actual TV/signal combination.

Re:15" near-TV quality screen

[magarity]

Sure, VGA CRT's are better than a TV quality CRT but laptop LCD screens are fixed resolution and look mediocre at TV resolutions.

As a side note, this is just the next logical step. My older Toshiba already plays audio CDs at the flip of a switch without being booted up as a computer.

uh oh.

[torpor]

This is an interesting dis-info exercise. People think "OS = Microsoft".

It is "not booting -the- OS", no. Its not booting "Windows OS".

There -is- an OS being loaded, just that its only going to support Toshiba's Apps... and nobody elses.

Re:uh oh.

[jerith]

Umm, not necessarily. The TV watching mode could be done entirely in hardware. The DVD player would have to have the usual firmware, of course, but not necessarily a full OS. Most of the more advanced options would be done using the PC, as noted in the article.

Not quite so nice

[LiquidCoooled]

Its only got half the functionality.

Consider yourself turning this thing on and watching, you get carried away and want to record something.

You have to reboot, LOAD WINDOWS, start the tv thingy and get recording.

from the article:

If users want to pause live TV or record TV shows onto the 80-gigabyte hard disk, however, they'll need to do so with the Windows software.

Re:Not quite so nice

[wisdom_brewing]

maybe if they could somehow incorporate simultanious bootup?

without booting the OS

[manavendra]

without booting the OS

So its a laptop built into a TV then, not the other way around, eh?

Re:without booting the OS

[Metamediarich]

Naive and/or ignoarnat as I may be - Why do we still tolerate "booting" as a necessary part of the process? Aren't there enough solid state options available that the OS could reside in a separate (from the hard drive) space, always running, always available? So you might still have to re-start after modifications to the OS - like security updates? - but otherwise, why do we still have this in our lives?

Improvement on the 2 in 1 problem

[peterdaly]

Many "2 in 1 devices" offer either a poor version of both components, or at least one of them.

This is a great step in improving the tv on computer experience.

That being said, I don't understand why they say "near tv quality" when the laptop screen is so much better than a normal TV. Does it have to do with the scaling?

-Pete

Windows Media Center Edition?

[argent]

Wonder if it'll run anything less funky, for the folks who want something with fewer frills.

Why widescreen laptops?

[oshy]

Why are laptops going widescreen? Shouldnt PCs be streaching the other way.

Lets take an example of some poor sod using MSOffice

They have the task bar down the bottom.
They may have a scrolling news bar across the top.
The will have menu bars at the top of word.
All sorts of tool bars docked with the menu.
What way up to we normally edit a page? Portrait, not landscape.

I saw a secerterys PC once that had so many extra toolbars, that using Word was like working through a letterbox.

Re:Why widescreen laptops?

[CommanderData]

I agree completely. I have a "convertable" Tablet PC, a Toshiba M200. When at my desk I use it on a stand in portrait mode ALL the time (with an external keyboard plugged in). The beautiful resolution in portrait (1400 vertical x 1050 horizontal) is great for editing in Word or reading PDF files. You can see a full page as it was meant to be seen, even with taskbars and toolbars.

Of course it's also an awesome way to read and post to /. too :)

Re:Why widescreen laptops?

[Snaapy]

Why are laptops going widescreen? Shouldnt PCs be streaching the other way.

Laptops aren't used only as text editors anymore. Gaming and multimedia takes advantage of widescreen. Sooner or later all DVD/TV broadcasts will be 16:9. Natural image, unlike text, is better to be bigger in horizontal direction than vertical direction. This is simply because our eyes are located next to each other sideways :)

Re:Why widescreen laptops?

[TheRaven64]

I don't know about you, but I am a member of the species homo sapiens. We have two eyes on the front of our heads giving two horizontally overlapping fields of vision. These are interpreted by the brain and stitched together to give a field of view that is considerably wider than it is high. A laptop screen (or a desktop screen, for that matter) that is wider than it is tall fits in our field of vision better than on that is taller.

Now, consider the UI I usually interact with:

OS X dock on the right hand side of the screen.
Menu bar at the top (no clutter by having visible menu bars for inactive windows. Easier target to hit according to Fitt's law.)
Document window the height of the screen.
Tool pallets floating around it.
Preview window floating next to it.

When using something like LaTeX (or even editing HTML) widescreen is very useful, since you can have a preview window and an editing window on screen next to each other at the same time. The same is true of writing code, since it is possible to put a code window and a document window on screen next to each other easily.

Near-TV quality means...

[argent]

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

Re:Near-TV quality means...

[pmsr]

And don't forget switching speed for each pixel. The higher the speed the less blur you will see in fast paced scenes.

/Pedro

Re:Near-TV quality means...

[kavau]

..and, most importantly, dynamic range.

TV / laptop combinations

[davejenkins]

Combining a TV with a notebook is a big point here in Japan. Many young people live in single room apartments (literally 15 sq metre boxes) where space is at an extreme premium. As such, many just cannot afford the space of having both a computer monitor and a television.

Dell Japan offers TV tuners for their desktops only in Japan. All the Japanese manufacturers (Fujitsu, Toshiba, NEC, Hitachi, Sony, et al) pack TV tuners in their machines as defaults. Toshiba has made the jump by avoiding the 20-seconds of boot-up time when someone just wants to watch the latest episode of Gundam reruns...

While we're on the subject of japanese notebooks, the US notebooks suck in terms of case design and overall size/weight.

Atari on the road!

[L-Wave]

Cool, hopefully I can hook up my Atari to it for a portable system! =)

How small is Windows Media Center?

[192939495969798999]

There are really only a few functions a TV + DVR would need to perform in the context of having a computer, so couldn't the OS be really, really tiny? If it records, plays back, pauses, saves, deletes and schedules, that ought to about do it, right? Why all the extra junk, or is there any extra junk? (I assumed that there was probably a LOT of extra junk on that OS)

buttons on the side

[Anonymous Coward]

My last 2 laptops have been Toshiba Satellites, and they are excellent machines.

I can only assume Qosmio will be nice as well, however I really dislike the trend of putting buttons all over the front and sides of the laptop. About twice a month my Toshiba 5202-S703 gets turned on accidentally because I hit one of the DVD buttons on the front, or a button gets pressed due to the shifting inside my carrying case.

It's really pleasant to take it out of the case when I have work to do and find it hot as hell with half the battery drained... ...of course the ultimate insult is opening the lid to find Windows Media Player sitting there waiting for me to open a file or insert a DVD.

article title

[dj245]

"Toshiba Unveils Laptop With Instant-On TV & DVR

The DVR isn't instant on, only the TV is. I suppose if you took the "&" symbol to mean a pause, like a comma, they would be separate and only the TV would be instant on. But to me, "&" means "and" and "inclusive" and this article title implies that the DVR is also instant on.

Re:gimmick

[Technician]

It does not take that long thesed ays to boot up a machine

I don't think the issue is the boot time. For a laptop, the issue may be battery life. If you can run a 15 watt display and tuner and leave the 60 watt CPU, HD, Memory, and interfaces un-powered, it may greatly extend the battery life. Too bad the extra time gets eaten by long adverts on over the air TV.

On second thought, this may have trouble selling. NTSC is scheduled to go away. There is very little worth watching on over the air TV. Why bother?

Instant-on isn't anything new

[drewhearle]

"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.

ob linux comment

[gregmac]

There -is- an OS being loaded, just that its only going to support Toshiba's Apps... and nobody elses.

It's possible this is just some firmware on a chip that displays tv signals.. but say it is an OS, it leads to the question .. why bother with windows at all? Linux would have the capability to boot instantly, if you used some kind of suspend/hibernate feature.. so 'instant-on' basically just revives it from memory and lets you have full DVR, etc. No switching modes, and having to wait for windows to boot to get the enhanced features.

Now, by "has the ability" I mean it would be possible for Toshiba to add it in. I'm not totally sure of the APCI stuff that's in Linux now, but due to the nature of being open, the vendor can add whatever they want, as long as they have the know-how. Contrast to Windows, where they're stuck with the way Microsoft made it work.

Toshiba PR release?

[tehcyder]

Why is this important news?

If you're going to watch a DVD movie, does it really matter that you have to start the OS?

I mean, you're sitting down ready to spend two hours or whatever watching your film, does it really matter that you have to wait 30 seconds for the OS to boot?

Just go to the kitchen and get a bag of popcorn or something.

Re:hmm

[Schrambo]

However, with these new devices being built into laptops, wouldnt they be slightly more heavier?

Not very likely. If there is any addtional weight it would be insignificant to notice the difference from a similar model without the feature. Nothing that will break the camels back.

Two words: region-free?

[Do I exist]

Is it possible to liberate this laptop from its DVD region chains?

Re:huh???

[jcostantino]

The problem with viewing TV on LCD panels is that it looks like, well, it looks like shit. The pixels are too precise for playing back video like that - TV needs a certain "softness" to it. I don't know if they have a special type of LCD or if the TV tuner will do some sort of line doubling/smoothing but from personal experience, TV signals running at high resolution doesn't look right.

Golly!

[feloneous cat]

And I've been suffering with my "TV quality" big screen TV when instead I could be using a "Near TV quality" laptop with a 15" screen.

Wow!

I'm totally underwhelmed at the advancement in technology.