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Excess (ekses) n. : a Quad SLI gaming rig
Nvidia has announced that Quad SLI technology will be available from top system sellers, delivering ridiculous framerates at resolutions up to 2560x1600. Systems include Dell's already announced XPS 600 Renegade as well as machines from power players Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, and—of course—the PrimeA Galleria 64Quad-SLI.With prices around the $5K mark, don't expect to see Compaq offering these space heaters at the local department store; hardcore gamers only need apply. With this setup, you'd only need about 7 systems to push all the pixels in that ridiculous 10240x3072 display. Let's see, uh, 7 times $5K... [Via Engadget][UPDATE: Added a clarification]
NVIDA's PureVideo with H.264 hardware acceleration
NVIDIA's PureVideo H.264 hardware acceleration was officially announced today and there was much rejoicing. Why bog down your CPU with mundane video decoding tasks when your GPU can do it for you, right? PureVideo hardware decoding supports all of the standard MPEG-4 flavors such as H.264, VC-1, WMV and also supports the "soon-to-be-legacy" MPEG-2 compression as well. NVIDIA's PureVideo technology will show up in both desktop and notebook products: the GeForce 6- and 7-series will sport the new technology, as well as the nForce 6150 series of GPUs. Note that this should cover you in a PC solution for either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD since all of the usual suspects codecs are supported.
NVIDIA to bundle H.264 software with 7600 series?
No official word from the company that we can find, but NVIDIA is allegedly going to bundle H.264 decoding software with their GeForce 7600 series that surfaced last month. Currently, the cards support MPEG-2 decoding, but the decoding software isn't supplied with the card. Instead of shelling out an additional few bucks, if you can get H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC (did we hit 'em all?) decoding software for free, we're all for it. HDTV clearly isn't limited tothe television area, so it would be a wise move for NVIDIA, and ATI for that matter, to keep pushing the envelope for their GPUs and cards.
Nvidia drops clues on PS3 launch date: not spring
Dean Takahashi connects the dots between a statement made during Nvidia's conference call yesterday and the elusive release date of the PS3. Takahashi writes, "Graphics chip maker Nvidia reported today that it doesn't anticipate any royalties from Sony during the current fiscal quarter which closes at the end of April," then deduces, "since Nvidia won't be collecting royalties on the chip this quarter, that suggests that Sony isn't going to be producing machines during the months that close at the end of April, 2006."If systems aren't being built by the end of April, it's pretty hard to imagine the PS3 being released this spring.See also:PS3 behind glass at Taipei Games ShowSony exec insists PS3 date unknownPS3 Live-killer titled PlayStation HUB, PS3 in September
Got HDCP? Think again
You know, we hate Chicken Little as much as the next person, but man the sky might be falling. Everyone here at HDBeat knows you're going to need HDCP to watch HD on your PC, but now it appears that alone won't be enough to enjoy the disc you bought for your computer, since every PC will have to pay a license fee for HDCP. The fee is $15,000 annually with a per device cost of $0.005, which of course seems like nothing until you consider this means no white boxes. We know that not all of you build your own, but it's still nice to have the option, and of course this goes for those who hope to upgrade their video card to support the new standard as well. So it appears with this fee anyone who wants to watch the next generation HD on their PC will need to buy a new PC from one of the big boys.
Nvidia in full damage control mode
After posting about the practice of employing "Manchurian Fans" to shill products in the gaming world, Stephanie Schopp, an employee of Nvidia's marketing buddies at AEG, replied to the post assuring us that "the program... is far less nefarious than your rather damaging article/blog above claims it to be." She continues, "These members were not 'paid in hardware' as your article states, but sent hardware to give us (NVIDIA through AEG) feedback, positive or negative, regarding their experience with it. They were never told what to say, nor did they sign any document forbidding them to discuss their relationship with NVIDIA or AEG. They are not actors: they were real, informed, hardware enthusiasts that could help us further understand what it was the community wanted from hardware vendors." She then directs us to two posts regarding the issue. ChrisRay, a poster at Beyond3D, owned up to his involvement with the focus group program, illustrating a relationship that, in fact, does not seem as nefarious as was thought. He does however say, "We signed an NDA which covered generic material regarding proprietary, unreleased hardware/software which prohibited me from discussing such topics." Stephanie is quick to point out that they did not "sign any document forbidding them to discuss their relationship with NVIDIA or AEG." Why did nobody discuss it then? Regarding the sending of hardware, Joel from The Consumerist writes, "Mr. Perez posed this question to us: If a customer goes to the store and purchases an Nvidia product, then writes a review of the product online, is the opinion any less valid than when the customer receives the product for free? We feel the answer is obvious." Instead of coming clean about the program immediately, Mr. Perez's responses to The Consumerist have been--for a PR professional--uncharacteristically flippant, threatening, and circuitous, and the bad press is coming back to bite them.While Nvidia's program may fall short of the worst abuse possible using this sort of focus group program, it would benefit from increased transparency, if only to remove the appearance of impropriety. It's full disclosure: if you're handing out free hardware to test, those who receive it should be compelled to acknowledge their benefactors.
Intervideo & NVIDIA = hardware assisted h.264 decoding
At HDBeat, we like High Definition not Working Hard, so anything that makes things easier works for us. We've been talking about how ATI and NVIDIA are including technology in their videocards to make watching high definition video easier on your PC, so it's a double bonus. Now Intervideo has announced that they will support NVIDIA's PureVideo hardware assisted h.264 decoding in their WinDVD software. The software will work with GeForce series 6 & 7 GPU's.With both Blu-ray and HD-DVD expected to make use of h.264 compression, your computer will need all the help it can get.
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS debuts under $100
The new NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS might be geared for Microsoft Vista and it's Glass user interface, but that doesn't mean we can't have a little 1080i high-def fun with it, right? Besides, there aren't too many good HD-capable graphics cards for under a Ben Franklin. Hey, since Franklin's birthday was last week, do you think NVIDIA set the price at a C-Note in honor of Ben? While we're trying to figure that out, let's see $99 gits ya. How about Shader Model 3.0 support (we hear it's better than 5:00 shadow support), high dynamic-ranging (HDR) lighting and NVIDIA's own Turbo-Cache technology. Couple all of that with memory bandwidth of 6.5 GBps and a 2.2 billion pixel fillrate per second and you've got a nice GPU for $99. Watch for this to hit the States next month.
What's with all the collaboration lately? Say goodbye to VGA, UDI is coming
In retrospect, it's really not fair that computer monitors are stuck with that old VGA connector while HDTV's get all the exciting new DVI and HDMI connectors, but never fear, as is seemingly all the rage lately, a consortium has been formed to develop a new spec and implement it. The new connector, UDI (Unified Display Interface) will be fully HDMI and HDCP compatible, because everyone knows how much you love DRM.Intel, Apple, Samsung and SGI are among the companies heading up the initiative, with others like Microsoft and NVIDIA joining to pledge support, so you can expect this to be pretty standard on new computers buy this time next year. My question is why DVI wasn't good enough, it supports HDCP too, they mention lower cost in the article, but my gut tells me they're plugging some DRM holes and we get to pay for it by buying new equipment.
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.
