Slashdot Mirror
Computer Gaming PCs Try To Stack Up To Consoles
bippy writes "RedAssedBaboon has what I think is the first review of a computer to feature the much lauded DISCover technology. DISCover basically turns a computer into a gaming console, allowing you to drop a PC game into a system and play it immediately on your television. The site reviews a new DHS (Digital Home System) by Alienware which will feature the technology and is due out next month. The article ends with this interesting comment: 'It's high time that the computer stop lurking in the shadows of dusty computer desks in forgotten rarely-used bedrooms. If PC gaming is going to survive it's going to have to do so in the well-lit family rooms and dens of America right along side the GameCube, PS2 and Xbox -- and this looks like a great way to start.'" We previously discussed the DISCover 'Drop And Play' PC gaming system over on Slashdot Games.
A friend just spent $5K plus on a "Dell Media Center" computer -- purchased all the extras (against my recommendataion).
The 24" screen makes a lousy tv. The computer makes a lousy PVR -- because he cannot record HD like the cablebox allows. He cannot tune channels with the computer. And the remote requires lots of programming (very little in terms of autolearning or preprogrammed alt. system remotes).
-sid
Twister, actually.
YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
Perhaps you need a better TV. Newer HDTVs fix almost all of the issues you mention. Better refresh rates and higher resolutions are the only real benefits of a monitor now.
Perhaps your TV needs a calibration? Unfortunately, most HDTVs are setup out of the box to be used in a display room and not a home. The contrast is cranked up into torch mode, red colors are more emphasized, etc, because all of that makes the TV more appealing when alongside other sets at a shop. I'm of the opinion that all TVs should be sold with a free initial ISF calibration, but the calibration fee is cheap enough that you should still do it anyway (give yourself 6 months or so to break in the TV before calibrating, or you'll just find you have to do it again shortly).
Composite connections and even S-Video suck. You should use component (YPrPb) or RGBHV, or better yet DVI if your TV supports it. No more snow, and a much more vibrant picture. Oh, and NTSC is not an interface but a signal format. Snow and other artifacts you're seeing are more often caused by the interface rather than the signal format (of course, compression artifacting is the signal, and not the interface, but that's not what you were complaining about). The interface is RF coax (cable), composite (single RCA jack for video), S-Video (DIN connector), component (three separate RCA jacks for different channels of the video), RGBHV (red, green, blue, horizontal, and vertical all on separate RCA jacks), DVI (duh), and S-CART (for the rest of the world). These interfaces can carry different signal formats like NTSC, ATSC (the format for HD feeds), PAL60, PAL50, etc.
This is true, but HD sets do support several resolutions, from standard 480i/p, to 720p and 1080i (and in some cases even 1080p, though you'll rarely find that outside of high-end projectors). At 1080i widescreen, you're still talking about pushing quite a lot of pixels. In many cases, I'd rather have a widescreen 480p signal and dedicate the hardware to making what pixels I have available look better, rather than try to push as many pixels as possible. You'd be surprised how amazing visuals can look even at such a "low" resolution (see Project: Gotham Racing 2 on XBox, for example)
While that's true, I've not found any that can give the same visual or audio quality as an XBox. Sound cards that have S/PDIF output are still quite expensive. Video cards that output component signals are almost non-existant (ATI has a component dongle, but no other manufacturer does -- you'll have to get a VGA transcoder for anything else, and in either case you'll have to play with resolutions and refresh rates to get a good picture with little or no overscan).
Have you ever played Halo with 16 people on 4 X-Boxes?
Try it sometime.
The GF4 Ti4200 in my system right now can do 1280x720 and has DVI output.
Those in the know like to build our own Home Theater Computer (HTPC) with similiar components for much cheaper, by learning information from AVSFORUM, which is kind of a HTPC geek's forum:
AVSFORUM Home Theater Computers Forum
(Claimed to be the world's biggest Home Theater Computers forum - over 100,000 posts)
It worked for me.