NVIDIA explains the differences of HD DVD vs. Blu-ray, and the what you need to get the most out of your future high definition pc...
Looking for HD on your PC or HTPC? What video cards, displays, hardware, software? We ask some pointed questions of NVIDIA about making this happen and then tell you about our experiences with HD-DVD and NVIDIA's PureVideHD technology.
If you want to watch new HD DVD or Blu-ray movies on your computer, you will need a HD DVD or Blu-ray drive to start with. Then you will need NVIDIA’s ForceWare v92.91 Beta driver assuming you are using an NVIDIA video card, and player like CyberLink’s PowerDVD 6.5 HD that supports HD movies. If you are using an analog connection to connect an analog or digital display, you don’t need more hardware or anything special till Hollywood starts putting the ICT on their HD movies, rumored to happen in 2010.
If you are outputting your HD DVD or Blu-ray movie to a digital display, with a digital connection, things get a bit more difficult and you will need a couple more pieces of hardware in addition to what is talked about above. To keep a purely digital signal from one end to the other, you will first need a video card that has HDCP support provided by an included cryptorom chip on the video card itself. Then the digital connection between the video card and the digital display must either be DVI or HDMI. Then the digital display must have the cryptorom chip as well that makes it HDCP compliant also.
So all in all, if you are going to want to keep a fully digital signal for your HD DVD or Blu-ray movies, you are going to need a HDCP compliant video card and HDCP compliant digital display. Without these two things you will be forced to use an analog connection. I hope your LCD display has one.
A full list of HDCP compliant video cards is being kept in our Video Cards Forum along with a lot of other information.
The Bottom Line
Keep in mind these are Beta drivers and NVIDIA is working day and night to chase the bugs out. That said, the ForeWare v92.91 Beta driver and included PureVideo HD technology (To be released on 9/14/06 at nZone.) were extremely stable for me on all the systems we tested it on. There is fine tuning that needs to be done, but that is to be expected with Beta software. The HD DVD movie experience that I had on my PC was stellar and will actually make you wonder, “Just how much more detail do I want to see in Don Cheadle’s face?”
Given that just a few years ago, all that 3D cards “had” to do was play games on CRTs and support a couple of LCD panel displays, the world has greatly changed. Many of us are looking to companies like NVIDIA to help usher in a totally new medium in high definition content. With this comes support for not only CRTs and LCDs, but displays of all natures. The PC has changed and is now moving into our living rooms and taking an entertainment roll that was not PC-centric at all a few years ago. Conversely the PC is bringing the living room and entertainment into our work spaces. Seeing NVIDIA’s Beta PureVideo HD technology work so well this far ahead of the curve is impressive to say the least. Now to just find that inexpensive HD DVD player…
Read all about it here, courtesy of HardOCP.com:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTE2NiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
-Eric
posted by 3DCOOL.COM at
5:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home