taerkitty's blog: ambling paws, rambling jaws

What seeded this article: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=289

The magic word here is 'convergence.' In short, it's "let's let the computer do that as well." Telephone. Media management. Entertainment system PCs.

You'd think the feat of putting a PC in a stereo rack would be simple. It's not, for a variety of reasons:

Case: This is the simplest of reasons, and one that I would have figured would be plentiful on the market already: make the case not so butt-ugly. Make it not scream "I'm a PC tipped over." Make the front have easy to use controls and displays.

Actually, scratch that. I think 'easy to use' is just plain alien to those people who design computer bits, either hardware or software. That's more than enough fodder for another entry, however, so I'll leave it be for this.

Yes, nice cases exist. They cost $500 on up. For the case (and power supply.) No guts, no brains, no nothing. Just the case, for half a kilobuck. No thanks.
Noise: Even the Xbox 360 didn't have that licked, at least at first. Supposedly, recent models don't sound like a garbage disposal when you turn them on. With higher and higher performance CPUs and memory, computers draw more and more power. One of the laws of thermodynamics states that energy can't be gained nor lost, only changed in form. Most of the time, it's changed to heat.

Think about it. One of the computers I see deskside at work is the Dell Precision 690. It has a kilowatt power supply. At full draw, that thing will take a thousand watts of power and turn it into heat.

Anyhow, heat is the 'silent killer' for electronics. Thus, we need fans (or heat pipes, or liquid cooling, or any number of other contrivances to get heat away from the expensive parts.) That leads to noise.
Display: TVs are horrible displays. They're what we grew up watching, so we're used to them, but they're horrible for detail work. (They're amazing for shoving the gestalt of an image over a very narrow bandwidth, however.) Standard television resolution is 320x200. Most screens nowadays are 1280x1024, so that's some twenty-fold improvement.

Short form - even if we found a PC that didn't look fugly, didn't sound like a Hoover, (or we just hid it so it didn't matter) we couldn't just say, "Now, show me on my TV what you showed me on my monitor." Squint city.

HDTV will be better. I'm not sure I trust the broadcasters (cable and over-the-air) to broadcast in the highest resolutions (the confusion that is HDTV resolution is yet fodder for another entry) but the affordable HDTV sets out there are in the 720p range. That'd probably translate to some odd resolution like 1168x720, which is roughly 1024x768 in terms of pixels.

There was a time that was high resolution (back when VGA was 640x480) but nowadays, 1024x768 is really cramped.
Inputs: Keyboards and mice just don't cut it. The standard model of input to home entertainment systems is the remote control, a button-studded candy bar, possibly with some lights or, in case of higher-end-models, a small screen on the remote.

Basically, to get the right 'usage experience,' the whole of the computer has to be re-designed, inside out, hardware and soft.

It has

to use less power, so it doesn't generate so much heat
be smaller, so it doesn't waste so much space (normally required for heat management and expandability)
be sleeker, so it doesn't stand out
have different controls
have a different user interface to compensate for the lower resolution screen and limited tasks

See, a home theater PC isn't going to be the only PC in the house. It may not even be the one to store all the movies, music, photos, etc. In fact, it may have PVR capabilities, but save the shows to a disk on another machine on the network. And I certainly won't be using it to compose email (unless things have gone Seriously Wrong.)

What I want this box to do is a rather limited list:

Play my digital media (music, movies, photos, etc.) off a network share
Personal video recorder (PVR, think Tivo) so I can record unencrypted shows off the air or cable and time switch them.
Play DVDs and CDs, maybe. Chances are, I'll want this box to record them to the network share first. We'll talk about copy protection another day, if at all.
Play games - some games will work on an HTPC. For those, I'll likely need to use a wireless keyboard and/or mouse.

This won't happen for a long while. Chez Kitty is still a wreck, so there's no point talking about a home theater PC system when I don't have a home theater, or even a home.

(I could set this up for the Kitty-in-Laws, but they'd not likely benefit from it, and may find it more hindrance and confusion than any help.)

Kitty toys. They're not just things tied to the end of strings anymore (though I appreciate those, too!)

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2007-08-26 6:00 PM G33k-sp33k: Toy Thoughts Previous Entry :: Next Entry Read/Post Comments (1) Share on Facebook	What seeded this article: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=289 The magic word here is 'convergence.' In short, it's "let's let the computer do that as well." Telephone. Media management. Entertainment system PCs. You'd think the feat of putting a PC in a stereo rack would be simple. It's not, for a variety of reasons: Case This is the simplest of reasons, and one that I would have figured would be plentiful on the market already: make the case not so butt-ugly. Make it not scream "I'm a PC tipped over." Make the front have easy to use controls and displays. Actually, scratch that. I think 'easy to use' is just plain alien to those people who design computer bits, either hardware or software. That's more than enough fodder for another entry, however, so I'll leave it be for this. Yes, nice cases exist. They cost $500 on up. For the case (and power supply.) No guts, no brains, no nothing. Just the case, for half a kilobuck. No thanks. Noise Even the Xbox 360 didn't have that licked, at least at first. Supposedly, recent models don't sound like a garbage disposal when you turn them on. With higher and higher performance CPUs and memory, computers draw more and more power. One of the laws of thermodynamics states that energy can't be gained nor lost, only changed in form. Most of the time, it's changed to heat. Think about it. One of the computers I see deskside at work is the Dell Precision 690. It has a kilowatt power supply. At full draw, that thing will take a thousand watts of power and turn it into heat. Anyhow, heat is the 'silent killer' for electronics. Thus, we need fans (or heat pipes, or liquid cooling, or any number of other contrivances to get heat away from the expensive parts.) That leads to noise. Display TVs are horrible displays. They're what we grew up watching, so we're used to them, but they're horrible for detail work. (They're amazing for shoving the gestalt of an image over a very narrow bandwidth, however.) Standard television resolution is 320x200. Most screens nowadays are 1280x1024, so that's some twenty-fold improvement. Short form - even if we found a PC that didn't look fugly, didn't sound like a Hoover, (or we just hid it so it didn't matter) we couldn't just say, "Now, show me on my TV what you showed me on my monitor." Squint city. HDTV will be better. I'm not sure I trust the broadcasters (cable and over-the-air) to broadcast in the highest resolutions (the confusion that is HDTV resolution is yet fodder for another entry) but the affordable HDTV sets out there are in the 720p range. That'd probably translate to some odd resolution like 1168x720, which is roughly 1024x768 in terms of pixels. There was a time that was high resolution (back when VGA was 640x480) but nowadays, 1024x768 is really cramped. Inputs Keyboards and mice just don't cut it. The standard model of input to home entertainment systems is the remote control, a button-studded candy bar, possibly with some lights or, in case of higher-end-models, a small screen on the remote. Basically, to get the right 'usage experience,' the whole of the computer has to be re-designed, inside out, hardware and soft. It has to use less power, so it doesn't generate so much heat be smaller, so it doesn't waste so much space (normally required for heat management and expandability) be sleeker, so it doesn't stand out have different controls have a different user interface to compensate for the lower resolution screen and limited tasks See, a home theater PC isn't going to be the only PC in the house. It may not even be the one to store all the movies, music, photos, etc. In fact, it may have PVR capabilities, but save the shows to a disk on another machine on the network. And I certainly won't be using it to compose email (unless things have gone Seriously Wrong.) What I want this box to do is a rather limited list: Play my digital media (music, movies, photos, etc.) off a network share Personal video recorder (PVR, think Tivo) so I can record unencrypted shows off the air or cable and time switch them. Play DVDs and CDs, maybe. Chances are, I'll want this box to record them to the network share first. We'll talk about copy protection another day, if at all. Play games - some games will work on an HTPC. For those, I'll likely need to use a wireless keyboard and/or mouse. This won't happen for a long while. Chez Kitty is still a wreck, so there's no point talking about a home theater PC system when I don't have a home theater, or even a home. (I could set this up for the Kitty-in-Laws, but they'd not likely benefit from it, and may find it more hindrance and confusion than any help.) Kitty toys. They're not just things tied to the end of strings anymore (though I appreciate those, too!) Read/Post Comments (1) Previous Entry :: Next Entry Back to Top
:: HOME :: GET EMAIL UPDATES :: The Story Board :: susurration :: Reenie :: randomthoughts :: outtamyhead :: Electric Grandmother :: heyelsa :: rhubarb :: Brownie :: Scout :: Starting Over :: Recent JS Users Entries :: Scan :: Twitter-Stalk Me :: ">Meebo Me :: LiveJournal Me :: WordPress me :: FaceBook Me :: EMAIL ::