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ATI's "Avivo" specification pulls PC's, HDTV's closer
ATI has already shown their flexibility by partnering with JVC to put their chips in TV's, are now spreading the benefits of that technology across their product line with their newly-announced "Avivo" technology. Simply put, Avivo is a set of image enhancement, display, and connection specifications that you'll be able to find in many of ATI's future products. MPEG-2, H.264, HDCP or otherwise, if it is high def and you want to play it or output it to a TV, you will be able to with full hardware support on Avivo compatible products. Video cards equipped with the technology will support progressive scan output and hardware-assisted video encoding so you can convert for other devices without wasting precious CPU cycles. I'm glad to see this, as my home PC currently has an ATI Radeon 9200SE that is great, however setting everything up to work properly and output to my monitor and/or TV when and how I want has been more difficult than necessary. Now that they are designing such connectivity in from the ground up, it will be good for everyone. Expect Avivo labeled products to be available in the next month or so.Will it do your laundry, dishes and homework? No, but it will let you play that high-definition movie you just downloaded on your big screen TV with no loss of quality and leave you with CPU power to work with at the same time.
What kind of home theater would you build for $18k?
Writer Mike Miller has been answering that question himself over the last month, and recently added the last of his three part journal entries on selecting the equipment, setting up the display and audio components, and finally setting up his source equipment and accessories. While your budget may or may not be on his level yet, it's a good read to see the thought process involved. For my dollars, I'd probably want a 1080p capable display, but since I have an HDTV and our friend Mike is upgrading his system from a standard CRT, I certainly can't knock his selection. After you check out the steps in his conversion from his old analog system to a fully digital lifestyle including a Media Center PC, leave a comment and let us know what you would do with that type of budget.
