Computing DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

Archive for the ‘Computing’ Category

Weekly News Roundup (20 July 2008)

Sunday, July 20th, 2008

E3 just ended in the US, and no surprise then that most of the stories this week are to do with gaming. And just luck would have it, the NPD June figures were released this week, meaning more stories about gaming. The lucky thing for a video website such as this is that gaming and video are now a lot closely related thanks to the PS3’s Blu-ray and to a lesser extent, the Xbox 360’s ill fated support of the HD DVD format. Plus I like video games so that’s my excuse for covering video game content on a website that’s not about video games.

But there are still some non gaming news first, so let’s get through that. Starting with copyright news, Blu-ray might get a new copy protection system dubbed X-Protect Blue. Blu-ray piracy is not a big thing yet, since while ripping the discs are possible, storing it is impractical (considering blank Blu-ray media costs) and uploading and downloading is time and bandwidth consuming (25 GB for a movie? No thanks). Plus, hardly anybody has a Blu-ray player, so the pirated contents aren’t all that popular. Blu-ray really has these “natural” copy protection barriers, so I’m not sure if it needs any more.

Reloaded - Helping tech support everywhere

But perhaps it needs a bit of piracy, because there is evidence that the most pirated shows are the ones that win the most awards. I’m not sure I agree with that completely, as wouldn’t a good show automatically mean more piracy anyway, rather than more piracy leading to a good show? I do agree that piracy opens up the shows to a wider array of people, some of which won’t have had access to the show previously (for example, people in other countries). And this kind of “mass-piracy” leads to mass online interest and discussions, which will help the show. So yes, piracy definitely has its advantages … it helped Microsoft to dominate the operating system market, helped game consoles to sell more hardware, so why not TV and movies as well?

And how’s this for an interesting story. Game publisher Ubisoft recently had to turn to a rather strange source to solve a problem. The Ubisoft tech support team posted a NO-CD crack from notorious piracy group Reloaded to solve a DRM related problem. Just goes to show that sometimes DRM does more harm than good, and that piracy can help sometimes too.

High Definition In HD news, at the SinoCES, there was a range of Chinese Blu-ray players on show. We won’t see many of these players being released in the west just yet, I don’t think, as the last thing Sony and co. wants is cheap players stealing their market before they’ve even started to exploit it.

Netflix on the Xbox 360

While not strictly HD news, but important in that it could become a rival to Blu-ray, is the news that both Microsoft and Sony are investing heavily into movie streaming services for their game consoles. Sony launched their movie download service during E3, and Microsoft teamed up with online video rental giant Netflix to deliver free movies to Xbox Live Gold users (presumably US users only). Microsoft also signed a deal with NBC-Universal to deliver their content through Xbox Live Video Marketplace. I don’t think movie downloads will dominate this generation, but you can see where things are headed even when Sony, Mr. Blu-ray, is backing video downloads for the future.

And of course the gaming news mostly lead by stories coming out of the E3. Microsoft started the ball rolling by officially dropping the price of the Xbox 360 20 GB model which is to be discontinued and replaced by a new 60 GB one. Nobody should be surprised at this one if they’ve been following the WNR. What did surprise, and the headlining news of the E3, was the 360 getting Final Fantasy XIII. The previously PS3 exclusive is exclusive no longer, at least in the United States. It makes sense though for publisher Square Enix, because with the 360, they can reach more US users who perhaps were not into the FF series before. Sony weren’t please, obviously, and I can understand why.

Final Fantasy XIII coming to a Xbox 360 near you

I’ve talked to a lot of people about their choice of consoles, and the ones choosing PS3 almost always mentions FF exclusivity as a reason, perhaps *the* reason. This won’t help the Xbox 360 too much, and they do need help if you read our June NPD sales figure analysis, but it won’t hurt either. But wait, there’s more! There was also Lips, the Xbox 360 Karaoke/Dance game with included motion sensing microphone. And a re-design of the Xbox dashboard to make it more Wii-like, complete with customisable Mii-type characters. Overall, Microsoft has had a good E3, probably the best out of the console publishers, but perhaps it’s too little too late.

Nintendo came out with Wii MotionPlus, which adds increased sensitivity and accuracy to the WIi-mote. There will also be a new musical game called Wii Music (how original), which will allow you to control an entire orchestra. Think of it as a more family-friendly version of Guitar Hero.

The PS3, on the other hand, had only as few major announcements. One includes the ending of the 80 GB line, and a price drop as a result. The PS3 lineup will now only feature a single model. Now would be a good time to get the 80 GB, especially if you still need PS2 compatibility. I personally wouldn’t rule out PS2 emulation coming back on a later model, as manufacturing prices drop for the PS3. The message coming out of Sony seems to be “more of the same”, since the PS3’s popularity is growing and all without having to offer any price cuts. Adding more features to add more value, rather than decreasing price to do the same, seems to be Sony’s strategy, in the short to mid term at least.

Fallout 3 banned in Australia

And while the hoopla was going on in the US, Australian gamers suffers yet again with Fallout 3 being banned due to simulated drug use. GTA IV, on the other hand, was not banned here and was offered with minor cuts, even though drug use is prominent in the game (but not by the main character, who only shoots cops and innocent people, as well as commit acts of terror with an RPG). Drugs are bad, mmmkay. And to add insult to injury (or in GTA IV terms, to get run over after being shot 78 times by cops), we pay more for censored games than pretty much anybody else in the world. Twice as much, for most game releases. Thank goodness for region-free games and stores like Play-Asia that take care of Australian gamers with discounts and cheap-ish shipping.

Let me check, yep, I think that’s it for this week. Join me next week for a less gaming oriented WNR. I will probably take some time in mid-week to follow up on that CPU story I wrote on the blog last week, as I’ve been running mega CPU poll on the site for a few weeks now with some interesting results. The poll is still open, so make sure you get your vote in. See you next week.

Posted in Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (20 July 2008)

H.264, CPUs and the future

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

There has been several developments recently that has gotten me a bit excited. Anyone who reads this blog semi-regularly knows I’ve got a thing for H.264 (otherwise known as MPEG-4 AVC). Having being around just before DivX hit the big time (and having successfully predicted its rise by launching DivX Digest), I’m getting the same feeling with H.264, only this time I think it will be even more widespread in terms of usage. That’s mainly because H.264 is much more versatile than DivX, and there’s a lot more industry support ranging from mega companies like Apple, to CE firms like Sony, Internet brands such as YouTube, and now video technology companies like DivX Inc are embracing it too.

But enough about H.264 for now. let’s first look at the more mundane, but still somewhat interesting news in regards to the latest range of CPUs. Intel is just about ready to launch it’s new “Nehalem” CPU range in Q4 2008, which looks set to redefine CPU performance once again. But for now, there’s a few new CPUs from both AMD and Intel, and some price movements, at least here in Australia. Starting with AMD, their new Phenom X3 (triple-core) and X4 (quad-core). The original Phenoms were a bit of a disappointment, especially when up against the Intel Core 2 Duo range. But these new X3/X4 Phenoms are a different proposition, and they give genuine competition to the market dominated by the Intel E8200 and E8400, as well as finally providing a price/performance reasonable upgrade path to AMD’s ageing Athlon range. The X4 9750 come at an excellent price, and the 9850 occupies the region (both price and performance wise) between the 8400 and 8500. The X3s are all very competitively priced too. Remember, you get an extra core or two with the Phenom over the E8400/E8500 as well, so while performances are similar for current day apps, future apps that take advantage of the multiple cores will run better on the X3/X4s.

Intel took action promptly as always and lowered the prices of several CPUs, notably the E8400, E8500 and the Q9300. The Q9300 is in direct competition now with the X4 9850, both in price and performance, but the 9850 has the slight edge in both areas. AMD still lacks upper end processors to compete with Intel though, and Nehalem looks set to make everything else look decisively old hat.

On a related note, I’m also running a poll on which types of CPU people are using … the results could be interesting.

But enough about CPUs, let’s talk a little about their replacement. Yes, the replacement for the humble CPU is just around the corner. Perhaps replacement is the wrong word, supplement is probably a better word. Nvidia has been touting it’s new CUDA architecture which allows GPUs to be turned into CPUs for processing of specific tasks. For those of you who have kindly offered your spare CPU power for Folding@Home, you might already be aware that there is a version of the client software that can use your GPU for added processing performance. The same principle can also be applied to video encoding, and Nvidia recently demonstrated H.264 encoding on it’s new GTX range of GPUs. These are now dubbed GP-GPUs (General Purpose GPUs), and the GP means that these GPUs can do other tasks other than graphics processing. Because GPUs have unique architecture that helps them do certain tasks really quickly, these same optimizations apply to video processing too, and that’s why video encoding, particularly the very processor intensive H.264 encoding, can greatly benefit from GP-GPUs.

H.264 Let look at some specific examples. A 2 hour HD movie will require 10 hours of encoding on a 1.6 GHz dual-core system with integrated graphics. The same movie will take 5 hours and 33 minutes on a 3 GHz quad-core system also with integrated graphics. But on a GTX 280 with the slower 1.6 GHz dual-core system, the same movie only took 35 minutes to encode thanks to the GTX 280’s GP-GPU. 10 hours down to 35 minutes … now that’s what I call acceleration!

Of course, GPUs are great for certain tasks, but not so good for others, and CPUs will still be the centerpiece of computing for some time yet. But their importance will be diminished if GPUs can suddenly take on tasks traditionally reserved for the CPU. Should Intel and AMD start to worry? Maybe not, but they will definitely be doing some deep thinking on this issue.

Posted in Computing, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), Video Technology | 2 Comments »

Weekly News Roundup (8 June 2008)

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

Still a little bit late this week, but nowhere near as bad as last week. Just having an extremely slow day today for some reason, and weren’t able to get around to do this week’s WNR until just now. No exploding transformers to blame this week.

Let’s start with copyright news as per usual. In another case of copyright gone map, the MPAA has sued two printers. That’s right, two printers. What happened was that some researchers decided to spoof some IP addresses and see if the MPAA’s “piracy catcher” can be fooled into thinking some fake IPs (associated with the printers) are actually pirates. This proves that the MPAA’s piracy detection method is far from foolproof, and this should be interesting for future court cases. The music industry has finally gotten around to suing members of OiNK, the music sharing site that was closed some time ago. Six members have been sued, so I guess only a couple of hundred thousand more to go! And even the big boys aren’t safe, as I hinted at last week – Yahoo has been sued by an India music company. Search engines probably link to more illegal activity than any other site, but that’s the way search engines work – bots don’t care or know what is legal and what is illegal, so why should search engines be punished for something they did not create (and only link to, and not intentionally either)? But I’m sure the big boys can take care of themselves. It’s the little guys that we all need to worry about, because we could be next!

And Canada is going after the little guys by introducing a $500 fine for illegal downloads. Will the police enforce this? Do they have the technical ability to monitor, detect and not get fooled by IP spoofing? And just because I downloaded something illegal, how can you prove that I did it intentionally, or perhaps just followed the wrong link somewhere?

High Definition Onto HD news now, most of this week’s news has been computer related, which I guess will be one of the major markets that the Blu-ray people will go after. First up, LG announced a 6x Blu-ray burner drive, finally getting burn speeds that won’t make you wait an hour or more to burn an entire disc. What is also interesting, as I pointed out in the link, is that LG is heavily discounting their older Blu-ray burner drives, which also reads HD DVDs … I’ve seen them for less than $ 280, down from their original price of more than $500 here in Australia. Could be a good bargain to pick up, especially if you have some HD DVD discs (the fire sales are still going on, with most of the new ones happening in the UK). Of course, having a drive is probably not enough to play movies, if your computer is not up to scratch. Blu-ray playback is one of the more processor intensive activities you will do on your computer, not that much behind playing the latest games at the higher quality and resolutions. So if your computer is not up to it, you can buy a Blu-ray decoder card which takes most of the work away from your CPU/GPU to give you smooth Blu-ray playback. Those who are old enough will remember the Sigma RealMagic line of DVD decoder cards that were popular towards the end of the 90’s – this is basically the same thing for a new century.

For those that do have the power required, but still scratching their heads wondering how to get true high bitrate audio from the Blu-ray discs to your AV receiver, you can use Asus’ new HDMI sound card to transport the audio streams to your receiver to decode (or decode them in software/on the card and output up to 7.1 channels in PCM). It was always a matter of time before HDMI sound cards became available, although since HDMI is also used for video, there is some confusion as to who should be making these cards: the graphics card companies, or the audio card companies. I think you will see similar offerings from traditional graphics card manufacturers too (and since Asus makes both types of cards, they are the perfect candidate to be releasing something like this).

Before moving onto gaming, I must mention the PS3 again as a Blu-ray player. It still makes more sense now than building a dedicated computer based solution. Of course, as a Blu-ray player, the PS3 is hardly the most efficient power user – something like 10W for standalones compared to 160W for the PS3. But the PS3 has many uses, and you can now even turn one into a fully fleged computer running Linux (Ubuntu), and dual-boot into the normal PS3 operating system with ease (and hence, not ruining any of the PS3’s original functionalities). All you need is a bigger hard-drive, because 40/60/80 GB is not big enough. But the trend these days is on the small and efficient, not the big, powerful and versatile. Asus’ Eee PC is just the first in a line of new portable computer designed to not to do everything, but to do enough to warrant a place in your home.

Properly onto gaming now, the PS3 wants to be a Wii. The Wii-envy by Microsoft and Sony is beginning to become quite obvious. PS3 games can also now using in game advertising to generate income. Perhaps this will lead to cheaper game prices. Nielsen, the well known research agency, has come up with figures showing that the Xbox 360 dominates the console usage charts, with both young and older users preferring it over the Wii (second place) and the PS3 (third place). If a serious problem like the RRoD haven’t killed off the Xbox 360, then there’s a good reason and it is because it’s a great games console, despite all the problems. The Wii might be innovative and fun to use, but I haven’t used mine for weeks now, and I still haven’t used the PS3 for gaming yet. Bad news for 360 owners though is that the exclusive downloads for GTA IV is being delayed to early 2009, as opposed to late 2008. Not a huge problem of course as there’s just so much stuff to do in GTA IV that I don’t think people will be finished with the main game by then (well, not me anyway, but I’m the type to stretch out a game over a really really long time – I still haven’t finished Twilight Princess!).

That’s the news for this week. The website (and myself) is still recovering from the great datacenter disaster of 2008. Next week should see slowly come back to normal. Can’t say that for me personally though, since I haven’t been normal since I was a little kid (and I wasn’t that normal back then either).

Posted in Computing, Copyright, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, Switch, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (8 June 2008)

Weekly News Roundup (25 May 2008)

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

Sorry for the lateness of this roundup. Life once again got into the way of work, and the only reason why most of my roundups are not late is because most of the time, I have no life. There’s not a lot of news this week either, despite me having no life … quiet news weeks do happen from time to time, and last week’s news bonanza more than makes up for this week anyway. So let’s get started.

Actually before I start, I wanted to say something about the “If I were to buy a computer today …” feature that I ran this week. It relates to a poll that I ran on the site a few weeks ago, in which I asked the age of people’s computers. I was expecting that most people’s computers would be between 2 and 4 years, and I was right, but what I didn’t expect was so many people who have computers over 4 years old. In fact, 55% of those polled had computers older than 2 years. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since my two computers are both over four years now, and they will be closer to five years by the time I replace them. It looks like the time when people swapped computers every 18 months has ended, as computers get more and more powerful and we have less and less reasons to upgrade. But this also means that when you do buy a computer, and just like buying a new car, you need to be careful what you buy to ensure that it can last 3 or 4 years for your needs. Hopefully, the “If I were to buy a computer today …” feature can help you do just that. Anyway, onto the real news.

In copyright news, popular torrent site Mininova is being sued by the Dutch anti-piracy agency for obvious reasons. The MPAA has won another victory in court, this time winning $4 million against websites ShowStash and CinemaTube. Is it me or has there been a lot more piracy related lawsuits than usual? But everyone knows that these sites are just a move to Antigua away from being completely safe from the copyright cops, although to be completely safe, the individuals who operate the site have to move there too (but out of all the places you are “forced” to go, Antigua is not the worst). The alternative is to do what Napster are doing and go legit, and Napster are now offering 6 million DRM free songs for purchase. And as one forumer quipped, they were offering DRM free songs back when it all started too (except DRM wasn’t the only thing free about those songs). On the PC front, Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell says that PC games piracy is near an end thanks to TPM chips currently being shipped with motherboards. I’m a bit skeptical. And do people still play games on PCs?

High Definition Onto HD news, Denon are going to release cheaper players that still cost about 10 times more than your average DVD player, but it’s still cheap for Denon standards. Denon, Onkyo are brands that you buy if you want to best and are willing to pay through the nose for it. For everyone else, Pioneer or Sony is good enough. While hardware prices are something people do not like (see our current poll for the quite lopsided results), another thing they don’t like is how old movies look on Blu-ray, with the poor color reproduction and noise compared to recent releases. The problem seems to be grain, which old movies have plenty of due to being shot on film. But does removing grain destroy the original look and feel of the movie, considering many directors are adding in grain deliberately these days to give the film a grittier look. I for one think they should leave film grain alone and concentrate more on removing dirt, scratches and other things that occurred after the film was shot, not during. The suggestion that studios should skip older movies for release on Blu-ray will more than likely kill off Blu-ray as a format. Just because a film is old, it doesn’t mean that it can’t look fantastic on Blu-ray, with or without grain.

But while grain is a very 2D problem, the future of movies seems to be shifting to 3D (but we’ve heard this before, in the 80’s in fact). TV manufacturers are lining up to produce 3D TVs that won’t require glasses. I’ve also been fascinated with 3D, but I’ve yet to experience it without those headache inducing glasses.

And finally in gaming, there is a leaked photo of what the Xbox 360’s motion controller could look like (or what I call the Xbox Wii-60). To be honest, it looks more like one of those dodgy Asian Wii clones designed by someone who got confused and fused it with the 360 design. It won’t out-Wii the Wii though, so I don’t know why Microsoft is bothering to be honest. The Xbox 360 Spring Update appears to be cancelled as well, as Microsoft devote more time to fixing their DRM portability related issues (being able to play downloaded stuff on more than just the original console, especially after your old one died from the RRoD and you got yourself a new one). Has Microsoft run out of ideas for the 360? Can’t believe they are going to skip an important update for some boring DRM stuff that never should have been a problem in the first place. Or maybe they are keeping the best stuff for the Jasper update of the hardware.

And good news for those who hate fanboys … they may not be able to reproduce offsprings thanks to the toxic chemicals founds in game console plastics. Of course, the same toxic chemicals are found in just about any modern appliance, so I think the future of the human race is pretty much doomed.

And on that light note, we end this week’s news roundup. See you next week at, hopefully, the usual time.

Posted in Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (25 May 2008)

If I were to buy a new computer today (May 2008)

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Welcome to the fourth “If I were to buy a new computer today” feature. There was a bit of silliness over Intel CPU prices in between this and the last feature, in that CPU prices actually went up. Some of the parts are still overpriced compared to February, but most have come back down to normal levels now. I guess with AMD’s line up being a bit weak, and Intel’s pricing being very competitive, stock shortages and the like might have been responsible for the price fluctuations.

Back in September 2007, I first wrote about what I would be looking for in a computer if I were buying one today. To get a better idea of the kind of system I’m looking for, please refer to the original blog entry, but to sum up, it would be a system for playing the latest 3D games as well as a system ready for Blu-ray and HD DVD playback, but one that is reasonable in price and without the need for overclocking.

So let’s not waste any time. Here are the specs of the computer, including comparisons with the last specs from February (as compared to February: upgraded parts in blue, lower prices in green, higher prices in red):

Type:	February Part:	May Part:	February Price ($AUD):	May Price ($AUD):
CPU:	Intel Core2Duo 8400	Intel Core2Duo 8400	$264	$253
Motherboard:	Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R (Rev 2.0)	Gigabyte GA-EP35C-DS3R (Rev 2.1)	$156	$146
RAM:	Corsair 2 GB PC-8500 C5D	Corsair 2 GB DDR3 PC-10600	$213	$160
HDD:	2 x Seagate 500GB 7200RPM 32MB SATA2 (AS)	2 x Seagate 500GB 7200RPM 32MB SATA2 (NS)	$312	$256
Video Card:	NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB (XFX)	NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB (Gigabyte)	$365	$325
Sound Card:	In-Built	In-Built	N/A	N/A
Optical Drive:	Pioneer BCD-S02	Pioneer BCD-S02	$215	$215
Monitor:	Samsung 22″ 226BW	Samsung 22″ 2243BW	$397	$309
Case:	Antenc Sonata III	Antenc Sonata III	$178	$176
Total Price ($AUD):			$2,100	$1,840

Look at all the blue (upgraded parts) and green (lower prices) above … a sight to behold! It seems the May system has had most of the internals upgraded to better parts, and with almost every item’s price dropping at the same time. It’s a savings of $AUD 260 ($USD 250), except we have a much better system than the February build. Let’s go over each specification.

CPU: Remain unchanged from the February specs, prices have dropped, but only by a very small amount.
Alternatives:You can get the Intel Q6600 quad-core processor for slightly less, or almost any of the AMD Phenom processors for lower price. I’m sticking with the E8400 due to the superior efficiency in the Intel chip.

Motherboard:Giga-byte have upgraded the P35C-DS3R from revision 2.0 to 2.1. The EP35C-DS3R is basically the same board as the revised P35C, with the enhancement being more environmentally friendly features. I’m sticking with the “C” motherboard due to support for DDR3 memory, which is much more important this month than previously (see below).
Alternatives:If you want DDR3 using the P35 chipset, then you don’t really have much choice in terms of Giga-byte motherboards. There are X38 and X48 chipset enabled motherboards, but these are for enthusiasts as opposed to the mainstream public, and are a lot pricier as a result.

RAM:DDR3 memory pricing have dropped considerably since February, so much so that I think it’s the right time to include them in the system specs. I’ve gone for Corsair C9G DDR3 memory rated at PC-10600 (1333 MHz) to match the FSB of the 8400/P35 chipset.
Alternatives:If you plan on overclocking your system, faster DDR3 memory can be had. At this stage, there isn’t much benefit to get DDR3 anyway until faster FSB speeds are available, so you might save a bit of money and get DDR2 instead (the motherboard we’ve chosen does support both types of memory). You can also opt for the C9DHX range of DDR3 memory from Corsair, with has enhanced cooling, but it’s mostly unnecessary if you don’t overclock your memory.

HDD:There’s been a slight upgrade from the AS type to the NS type HDD, but still a Seagate 500 GB SATA2 with 32 MB of cache. The price difference between AS and NS was minimal, so I went with the slightly more expensive model.
Alternatives:You can save around $50 by getting two 400 GB drives (with 16 MB cache). Or you can break the bank and get two 750 GB drives for double the price. My thinking is that if you need the additional space offered by the 750 GB drives, you’ll be better off buying external SATA or NAS drives, which is cheaper and much more useful.

Video Card:A slight upgrade from the 8800 GT to 8800 GTS 512 MB (don’t get the 320/640 MB version, as they use an older architecture). The GTS has better performance and comes close to the newly released 9800 GTX (basically any game that plays on the 9800 GTX will play on the 8800 GTS, but games that can’t play smoothly on one won’t be more playable on the other). And we’re also concerned about reports that the 9800 GTX has some noise related issues. Unfortunately, the 8800 GTS is being phased out apparently and it might be hard trying to secure one.
Alternatives:If you can’t find a 8800 GTS, then a 8800 GT for $75 less is great value. But perhaps the 9600 GT at $50 less than the 8800 GT is even better value, especially if playing the latest 3D games isn’t a priority or if you don’t care about gaming at all. If having the best performance is what you want, then the 9800 GX2 or ATi’s HD3870X2 might be what you are looking for, but it will cost you (not just in price, but noise and heat levels as well) – but compared to both of these dual GPU cards, the 9800 GTX is still better value with similar performances at most games apart from Crysis at the Very High setting, and at almost half the prices of the GX2.

Sound Card: Still going with a on-board solution. Until HDMI audio output gets sorted out, it’s probably not worth getting a new sound-card for your PC. HDMI audio output would allow the pass-thru or decoding or several of the new HD audio formats, which is not possible through SPDIF/optical due to insufficient bandwidth.

Optical Drive:Still staying with the Pioneer Blu-ray reader and DVD writer drive. People might be tempted to get a Blu-ray writer drive, but writing speeds are slow and media is expensive, so I say avoid for the moment. By the time media prices come down, writer drives prices will be much more affordable and writing speeds (as well as reliability) will be much improved. I would have gone with the LG dual format drive (see below), but I’m assuming most people don’t have HD DVD movies (and don’t plan on getting them), so while the LG is only a couple of bucks more expensive, it’s still unnecessary if you only need Blu-ray playback.
Alternatives:If you don’t need Blu-ray playback, then any old DVD writer drive would do. If you also need HD DVD playback, then LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray/HD DVD reader combo drive is the way to go, as it’s about the same price as the Pioneer. LG are discounting it as they will no longer be making HD DVD drives, so this might be a last chance to grab a dual format drive.

Monitor:I went with the Samsung 226BW last time, but this model has been superseded by the 2243BW at least here in Australia. I won’t complain because the new model is cheaper, and at 22″, it’s neither too big nor too small (and the resolution of 1680×1050, while not quite at 1080p for Blu-ray, is close enough for a monitor of this size (you really need 55″ or above to fully appreciate 1080p, anything less and the difference between it and 720p @ 1280×720 is minimal).
Alternatives:If you want to spend a bit more, then try and find a 24″ with 1080p support, perhaps with HDMI and DisplayPortinput as well. I can’t really justify the extra money over only 2 more diagonal inches, and as mentioned above, the extra resolution won’t make things that much more clearer. A better alternative may be something like the Samsung 225MS – it’s almost $200 more expensive, but for that, you can more consumer friendly features like HDMI, component input and a set of speakers. A good use of these connections may be for connections to a game console (Xbox 360 or PS3).

Case: Again, I’m sticking with the Antec Sonata III case, because it’s good value as it comes with a high quality 500W power supply (designed for quietness), and the overall build quality of the case (and Antec cases, in general) is quite good. Building a quiet system is essential if you plan on using the machine as your Blu-ray/HD DVD player. Of course, a quiet PC depends much on the type of cooling you have for your CPU and GPU.
Alternatives:There are lots of alternatives to cases, and it depends largely on taste. The one that I’ve seen lots of good reviews for is the Antec P182 case, but the style is not really to my taste and it costs more than the Sonata III despite not including a power supply unit.

So there you have it. $AUD 1,840 ($USD 1,760) for a system that plays all the latest games at 1280×1024 at full framerates and at 1600×1200 with acceptable framerates, and also plays Blu-ray movies without breaking a sweat. It also shouldn’t be too noisy either. But most importantly, this new “May build” represents a saving of more than $250 compared to our last system despite it being a much better system. With DDR3 prices dropping, lots of choices right now in terms of Nvidia or ATi graphics cards, now may be a good time to buy a system (and I’m really tempted, except I have no money).

See you in a few months time …

Posted in Computer Buying Tips, Computing, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K) | 1 Comment »

DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

Archive for the ‘Computing’ Category

Weekly News Roundup (20 July 2008)

H.264, CPUs and the future

Weekly News Roundup (8 June 2008)

Weekly News Roundup (25 May 2008)

If I were to buy a new computer today (May 2008)

Pages

Links

Categories