Aug
26
If you hadn’t already guessed, I love home theatre PCs. It’s just something different than the usual “gaming” PC that equates to the staple meat and veg diet of most online discussions.
Home theatre PCs (or, HTPCs) offer a new challenge: you have to make the PC simultaneously only as fast as is needed, while minimising power use and all while aiming towards true silence.
Why? Because you don’t want to notice the PC when you’re enjoying your film. The last thing anyone wants is a noisy, space heater that constantly skips frames or whirs away in the corner – that’s a fail. Getting it right is not that difficult, but getting perfect is a true challenge.
ASUS EAH5550 Silent
While the variety of motherboards to use has ever been increasing – we’re blessed with some very capable mini-ITX and micro-ATX boards, such as the ASUS AT5IONT-I Deluxe and M4A88TD-M/USB3 respectively, as well as quite a few choices of small form factor, desktop and slimline cases from the likes of Silverstone, Lian Li and Antec, it’s often difficult to find the right graphics card to fit the bill.
Onboard graphics might suffice for basic video playback, but the latest graphics cards offer a full set of Blu-ray tools including HDMI 1.3 that will pass through the high-definition audio in its true form.
ASUS EAH5550 Low Profile
Finding a card to fit not only the case you have but keep the power use and noise as low as possible is yet another challenge, although, now, there are some choices: the ASUS EAH5550 and its EAH5550 Silent cousin.
Both these use the latest Radeon HD 5500-series core that features the latest UVD2 video accelerator that’ll output all the awesome Blu-ray gubbins and doesn’t even require the additional power connector graphics cards often require.
That’s not to say these cards won’t game – they will compete as well as any other Radeon HD 5000 series card in gaming, and still enjoy the full support of ATI’s monthly driver updates. Our mate Suds previously covered the more techy ins-and-outs of gaming on the EAH5550 in that respect.
For HTPCs though, the two cards they will fit either low profile cases (with the EAH5550) – a notoriously difficult factor – or in a slightly bigger chassis it do-away with the cooling fan entirely (with the EAH5550 Silent) – no fan equals zero noise. Between them, they continue to aim towards that perfect home theatre!
Aug
01
A new, low-profile version of the R5670 has been released by MSI.
The manufacturer’s new R5670-PD512 features dual fans and a low-profile form, designed specifically for use in smaller cases.
MSI claims that the dual fans provide 50 per cent more airflow than a single unit, adding that the inclusion of a heatsink covering GPU and memory help to keep the unit at optimum temperature and operating efficiently.
Further to this, the company has kitted the unit with its latest Military Class Concept components, as part of an effort to increase levels of overall stability to end users. The introduction of a solid state choke allows the unit to operate more quietly under high loading, while the Afterburner overclocking facility allows easy adjustments to be made to achieve full overclocking potential, MSI claims.
The new R5670-PD512 adds to the family of R5670 products, each offering similar functions but catering to different audiences. The low-profile design of the latest offering makes it ideal for HTPC users wanting to keep their overall unit size to a minimum to maximise on space, the company claims.
Jul
10
I would have liked to have seen more on picture quality and a look how colorspace is handled between the different vendors, but overall Xbit does a good job of quantitatively measuring (IMO, their HQV HD scores are a bit generous) GPU performance for HTPC use.
It is almost impossible to install longer graphics cards – such as ATI Radeon HD 5800 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 400/200 – into computer cases that resemble consumer electronics appliances like Blu-ray/DVD players. On the other hand, graphics cards that seem to be perfect for HTPCs cannot run modern games with all the eye-candy enabled in 1920×1080 resolution. In addition, such graphics cards come equipped with rather loud cooling systems that are not welcomed guests of living rooms.
As a result of these trends, this review does not include evaluation of high-end graphics boards, which were not designed for home-theater computers. Instead, we decided to concentrate on evaluation of quality of HD video playback using HQV 2.0 tools recently released by IDT. In addition, we will check out power consumption of modern graphics cards that can be plugged into HTPCs, CPU load during Blu-ray disc playback and some other factors.
Jul
06
Nowadays almost all modern graphics processing units can easily decode high-definition Blu-ray disc movies almost flawlessly. However, the question is whether the quality of their HD video playback is truly high. In this article we are checking out video quality playback of contemporary graphics cards for HTPCs in HQV 2.0 tests and also glance at CPU load during BD video decoding as well as check out power consumption of graphics boards.
In the last couple of years the market of consumer graphics cards began to get considerably more diverse than it used to be. Due to different requirements for power, cooling and space, graphics accelerators for gaming, graphics cards for HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer) and basic multimedia tasks are completely different in terms of performance, form-factor and other qualities nowadays.
It is almost impossible to install longer graphics cards – such as ATI Radeon HD 5800 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 400/200 – into computer cases that resemble consumer electronics appliances like Blu-ray/DVD players. On the other hand, graphics cards that seem to be perfect for HTPCs cannot run modern games with all the eye-candy enabled in 1920×1080 resolution. In addition, such graphics cards come equipped with rather loud cooling systems that are not welcomed guests of living rooms.
As a result of these trends, this review does not include evaluation of high-end graphics boards, which were not designed for home-theater computers. Instead, we decided to concentrate on evaluation of quality of HD video playback using HQV 2.0 tools recently released by IDT. In addition, we will check out power consumption of modern graphics cards that can be plugged into HTPCs, CPU load during Blu-ray disc playback and some other factors.
The Saga Continues: to Blu-ray 3D or Not to Blu-ray 3D
The demand for perfection is increasing gradually every day. Some ten years ago many were satisfied not only with quality of DVD video, but also with quality of DVD rips encoded using Divx codec. Nowadays even 720p (1280×720) video does not seem as crystal and perfect as it was four years ago. Many online video services now offer movies in 1080p (1920×1080) resolution, but with bitrate much lower than that of movies distributed on 50GB Blu-ray disc media. But tech companies – as well as end-users – want something even more advanced and today they are rolling out stereo-3D movies on Blu-ray 3D format.
In fact, the movie industry is among those, which adopt the newest technologies very quickly. Special effects, sound, colour, multi-channel sound, high-resolution films, videotapes, video discs, high-definition, stereo-3D and so on. Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) technologies and movies started to emerged back in the and later experienced a worldwide resurrection in the 1980s and 90s driven primarily by Imax high-end theaters. In the recent years stereo-3D theaters and movies became more popular and technological evolution now allows to enable S3D for the home entertainment market. Considering the fact that historically far not all movies were presented in S3D format and that there is still not a lot of content in stereo-3D available, the offensive of the technology onto the home market will take a long time. At the end, all players, PCs, consoles and TVs will be S3D-capable, but the vast majority of content they will show will be in traditional 2D format.
Blu-ray 3D demo by Sony Corp. Image by CTV News
As for players, in fact, the Blu-ray disc Association (BDA) has managed to invent an almost infinite engine for hardware upgrades. Firstly the Blu-ray disc was introduced without any advanced functionality like picture-in-picture or Internet connectivity. The following generations of BD players obtained functionality, which probably has caused at least some owners to upgrade their devices. Late last year the BDA finalized yet another iteration of the standard called Blu-ray 3D, which requires upgrade of both players and HDTVs to take advantage of stereo-3D. Moreover, this year the association ratified BDXL standard that describes triple-layer and quadruple layer Blu-ray discs that are officially designed for “commercial segments with significant archiving needs”, but which will eventually find their support by forthcoming consumer players and recorders. Hence, BDXL is a forthcoming reason for a BD hardware upgrade. Obviously, DVD has evolved too, but the BDA has introduced five major enhancements of Blu-ray standard in four years of the format’s commercial life and BD 3D and BDXL are absolutely not the final updates.
The main issue with stereo-3D at home is necessity to wear special glasses and sit in certain area opposite the TV. This is not suitable for loads of living rooms and is also not suitable for large companies. Autostereoscopic screens exist, but their quality is rather low. As a result, even when all installed equipment becomes S3D capable (which will take 10 to 15 years in the U.S.), the demand towards stereo-3D content is likely to be limited. Still, the majority of modern graphics cards for HTPCs are capable of BD 3D playback even today.