PVR in your palm:
leadtek’s Winfast Palm Top TV is an external TV tuner power house. This device is so tiny that it looks like small car without wheels and fi ts snuggly in your palm. A complete media center, it substitutes your TV, FM, and VCR. To use the FM function, you will have to connect an external antenna (which was not provided with the package). The main software which controls the tuner is called WinFast PVR. It is easy to use and comes with a manual.
The Palm Top device doesn’t need an external power supply as all other TV tuner cards do. To power the device, all you have to do is plug it in to your computer’s USB port. Next, after setting
up the device and the software, is tuning the channels. The user gets to specify the region, which gives the device preset instructions to speed tuning. The tuning is real fast—it took us not more than a minute to tune 100 channels. One unique feature incorporated in the device is Picture-in-Picture (PIP), using which the channels can be categorized as per your requirements. You can watch two channels at one time; although that’s a tad diffi cult, Winfast PVR allows you to view one main screen and one sub screen at the same time. Befi tting the perfect media center experience, this device allows you to pause, rewind live television
and play instant replays. Take your breaks during a TV show or movie and never miss a scene again.For the purpose of recording, the Palm Top provides excellent features which are are not only fl exible to use but also gives you full control over your TV or media player. It supports de-Interlacing for good video quality. It allows you to specify file size, video length and also gives you the option to choose the type of encoding format you want and specify the fi le size. There is also the option of scheduling recording—the time control feature helps you schedule a particular program and recording happens automatically. You can not only split single video fi les recorded
from your TV but also those copied to your PC and then burn them directly to a DVD or to a CD without any other software.
New and innovative features that caught our attention include the ability to display video as a desktop background; a unique tool enables taking a snapshot from a playing video and mail it directly through the same program. Seven other programs that come bundled include Ulead DVD MovieFactory 4, Cool 3D SE, Cyberlink Power DVD 6 and Ulead
Videostudio 9 SE. The Palm Top TV is your alternative media center without much investment.
For: Elegant design; very easy to set up; no external power supply needed and a good PVR.
Against: Requires a fast processor.
leadtek’s Winfast Palm Top TV is an external TV tuner power house. This device is so tiny that it looks like small car without wheels and fi ts snuggly in your palm. A complete media center, it substitutes your TV, FM, and VCR. To use the FM function, you will have to connect an external antenna (which was not provided with the package). The main software which controls the tuner is called WinFast PVR. It is easy to use and comes with a manual.
The Palm Top device doesn’t need an external power supply as all other TV tuner cards do. To power the device, all you have to do is plug it in to your computer’s USB port. Next, after setting
up the device and the software, is tuning the channels. The user gets to specify the region, which gives the device preset instructions to speed tuning. The tuning is real fast—it took us not more than a minute to tune 100 channels. One unique feature incorporated in the device is Picture-in-Picture (PIP), using which the channels can be categorized as per your requirements. You can watch two channels at one time; although that’s a tad diffi cult, Winfast PVR allows you to view one main screen and one sub screen at the same time. Befi tting the perfect media center experience, this device allows you to pause, rewind live television
and play instant replays. Take your breaks during a TV show or movie and never miss a scene again.For the purpose of recording, the Palm Top provides excellent features which are are not only fl exible to use but also gives you full control over your TV or media player. It supports de-Interlacing for good video quality. It allows you to specify file size, video length and also gives you the option to choose the type of encoding format you want and specify the fi le size. There is also the option of scheduling recording—the time control feature helps you schedule a particular program and recording happens automatically. You can not only split single video fi les recorded
from your TV but also those copied to your PC and then burn them directly to a DVD or to a CD without any other software.
New and innovative features that caught our attention include the ability to display video as a desktop background; a unique tool enables taking a snapshot from a playing video and mail it directly through the same program. Seven other programs that come bundled include Ulead DVD MovieFactory 4, Cool 3D SE, Cyberlink Power DVD 6 and UleadVideostudio 9 SE. The Palm Top TV is your alternative media center without much investment.
For: Elegant design; very easy to set up; no external power supply needed and a good PVR.
Against: Requires a fast processor.
CrossFire mainboard:-
ECS EliteGroup is known for manufacturing
feature-rich and cost-effective motherboards. The KA3 MVP Extreme is their fi rst Socket AM2 (successor to Socket 939) board to hit the market. This is a CrossFire board that uses ATI’s Xpress 3200 chipset with two PCI-e 16x slots. A single PCI-e 1x and 2 PCI slots are also squeezed onto the ATX board. The Northbridge and Southbridge have passive heatsinks—the latter being very small in height and size. A 40 mm fl uorescent yellow exhaust fan blows heat from the voltage regulators out of the board. As far as package contents are concerned, this board comes packed with SATA cables, an extra USB/Firewire panel, an additional parallel port bracket and an eSATA bracket. An additional BIOS chip has been provided that can be used to flash problematic fi rmware. Design and layout
This is one colorful board. The PCB is purple and on it you will see orange, red, yellow ochre, blue, bright yellow and green. To complete this riot of color, the PCI slots are accompanied with fl ashing blue diagnostic LEDs. At fi rst glance, the board seems bare with minimum clutter and open space between the memory, Northbridge and the CPU. The 16x PCI-express slots are positioned too close to each other and they are separated by a 1x PCI-e slot and a CMOS battery. There should have been enough space to house two cards with large heatsinks. Performance The motherboard was put through the paces with SiSoft Sandra’s processor and memory benchmarks. The processor scores were up to the mark with other AM2-based boards reviewed earlier. The memory bandwidth recorded a lower score (by about 2-5 percent) as the board accepted the Kingston memory (at default latencies) with a command rate of 2T. On the audio/video encoding front, the scores were acceptable —the audio compression putting a greater amount of load on the processor. Watching a movie while another was being converted to XviD at the same time brought the encode rate down by just 5 fps. Since this is an "Extreme" board, the BIOS provides users with overclocking options to adjust the CPU multiplier and CPU/RAM voltages. In spite of these features, the RAM was unable to work at 1T. For: Loads of USB and SATA connection options are provided. Produced good scores in the encoding tests. Against: Lack of space between the CrossFire PCI-e slots. Test rig Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 Memory: Kingston KHX8500D2K2 (1066 MHz running at 800 MHz) (5-5-5-15:2T)
Hard drive: Western Digital Raptor 740GD
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS
Performance Scores
PCMark ‘05: 6134
3DMark ‘05: 5213
SiSoft Sandra 2007
Dhrystone (MIPS) : 20378
Whetstone (MFLOPS) : 17206
Memory bandwidth : 7931 MB/s
HDD index : 55 MB/s
HDD sequential read : 68 MB/s
HDD sequential write : 32/52 MB/s
Audio encoding (192kbps – best quality):
624.7 kB/s
Video encoding test: 87.24 fps
Video encoding + playback test: 82.3 fps
feature-rich and cost-effective motherboards. The KA3 MVP Extreme is their fi rst Socket AM2 (successor to Socket 939) board to hit the market. This is a CrossFire board that uses ATI’s Xpress 3200 chipset with two PCI-e 16x slots. A single PCI-e 1x and 2 PCI slots are also squeezed onto the ATX board. The Northbridge and Southbridge have passive heatsinks—the latter being very small in height and size. A 40 mm fl uorescent yellow exhaust fan blows heat from the voltage regulators out of the board. As far as package contents are concerned, this board comes packed with SATA cables, an extra USB/Firewire panel, an additional parallel port bracket and an eSATA bracket. An additional BIOS chip has been provided that can be used to flash problematic fi rmware. Design and layoutThis is one colorful board. The PCB is purple and on it you will see orange, red, yellow ochre, blue, bright yellow and green. To complete this riot of color, the PCI slots are accompanied with fl ashing blue diagnostic LEDs. At fi rst glance, the board seems bare with minimum clutter and open space between the memory, Northbridge and the CPU. The 16x PCI-express slots are positioned too close to each other and they are separated by a 1x PCI-e slot and a CMOS battery. There should have been enough space to house two cards with large heatsinks. Performance The motherboard was put through the paces with SiSoft Sandra’s processor and memory benchmarks. The processor scores were up to the mark with other AM2-based boards reviewed earlier. The memory bandwidth recorded a lower score (by about 2-5 percent) as the board accepted the Kingston memory (at default latencies) with a command rate of 2T. On the audio/video encoding front, the scores were acceptable —the audio compression putting a greater amount of load on the processor. Watching a movie while another was being converted to XviD at the same time brought the encode rate down by just 5 fps. Since this is an "Extreme" board, the BIOS provides users with overclocking options to adjust the CPU multiplier and CPU/RAM voltages. In spite of these features, the RAM was unable to work at 1T. For: Loads of USB and SATA connection options are provided. Produced good scores in the encoding tests. Against: Lack of space between the CrossFire PCI-e slots. Test rig Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 Memory: Kingston KHX8500D2K2 (1066 MHz running at 800 MHz) (5-5-5-15:2T)
Hard drive: Western Digital Raptor 740GD
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS
Performance Scores
PCMark ‘05: 6134
3DMark ‘05: 5213
SiSoft Sandra 2007
Dhrystone (MIPS) : 20378
Whetstone (MFLOPS) : 17206
Memory bandwidth : 7931 MB/s
HDD index : 55 MB/s
HDD sequential read : 68 MB/s
HDD sequential write : 32/52 MB/s
Audio encoding (192kbps – best quality):
624.7 kB/s
Video encoding test: 87.24 fps
Video encoding + playback test: 82.3 fps
High-definition web cam:-
It is indeed exciting when you are able to chat with friends and
family while also being able to watch them in real time. Today video chatting has become so common a trend in Internet communication that the market is inundated with numerous web cams that let you video chat with clarity. The VX-6000 is Mircosoft’s new web cam integrated with the new Windows Live Messenger. It also works on Yahoo and other similar instant messengers. The new avatar of Windows Live Messenger has a separate module for video chatting, very similar to that of Skype. Installation Software installation is pretty straight forward—pop in the disc and install the software and drives. Remember that you need to install the software before you plug it in. Microsoft cautions users with the removable bright green fl uorescent tag on the USB adapter and a prompt to install the software fi rst. OS compatibility is with Windows XP only. The web cam comes with a fl at circular stand that allows it to easily perch on CRT monitors. For LCD monitors, the base opens up imparting a nice tight grip. Features and performance One distinctive features of the web cam is its ability to record high-defi nition videos at a resolution of 1.3 megapixels (1280x1024 pixels). Note that the regular CRT television resolution is 640x480 pixels. Still images can be interpolated up to 5 megapixels. Video can be recorded at 30 fps. Recording at such a resolution comes handy if you are into video blogging. Another cool feature is face tracking. The web cam follows your face as you move within its 71-degree wide-angle frame; what it does is mere zooming in and out as you move around, therefore it gets a bit irritating when the cam remains zoomed on your face. It also lets you pan and tilt the image. Face tracking, panning and tilting are not possible for resolutions above 800x600 pixels, which means you cannot face
track at the cam’s highest resolution of 1.3 megapixels. With a USB 1.1 connection, it supports a maximum resolution of 800x600 pixels for video and the highest resolution of 1.9 megapixels for stills. This is due to the limitation of the USB 1.1 data connection
speed. The quality of video and still images is very good with good color reproduction. The skin tones are also accurately represented. The built-in microphone comes with the acoustic noise-canceling feature. It saves you the trouble of using an additional microphone. You can also team it up with your own set of speakers or headphones. The camera is an expensive proposition if you only want to use it for video chatting online. And to do that at 1280x1024 resolution, you need a blazing fast Internet connection at both ends. Therefore if video recording at high resolutions is your requirement then the VX-6000 is delightful to work with. Otherwise there are lots of affordable options available from Logitech, Creative and iBall. For: One of the few web cams with the ability to record at HD (1280x1024) resolutions. Against: Very expensive.
family while also being able to watch them in real time. Today video chatting has become so common a trend in Internet communication that the market is inundated with numerous web cams that let you video chat with clarity. The VX-6000 is Mircosoft’s new web cam integrated with the new Windows Live Messenger. It also works on Yahoo and other similar instant messengers. The new avatar of Windows Live Messenger has a separate module for video chatting, very similar to that of Skype. Installation Software installation is pretty straight forward—pop in the disc and install the software and drives. Remember that you need to install the software before you plug it in. Microsoft cautions users with the removable bright green fl uorescent tag on the USB adapter and a prompt to install the software fi rst. OS compatibility is with Windows XP only. The web cam comes with a fl at circular stand that allows it to easily perch on CRT monitors. For LCD monitors, the base opens up imparting a nice tight grip. Features and performance One distinctive features of the web cam is its ability to record high-defi nition videos at a resolution of 1.3 megapixels (1280x1024 pixels). Note that the regular CRT television resolution is 640x480 pixels. Still images can be interpolated up to 5 megapixels. Video can be recorded at 30 fps. Recording at such a resolution comes handy if you are into video blogging. Another cool feature is face tracking. The web cam follows your face as you move within its 71-degree wide-angle frame; what it does is mere zooming in and out as you move around, therefore it gets a bit irritating when the cam remains zoomed on your face. It also lets you pan and tilt the image. Face tracking, panning and tilting are not possible for resolutions above 800x600 pixels, which means you cannot face
track at the cam’s highest resolution of 1.3 megapixels. With a USB 1.1 connection, it supports a maximum resolution of 800x600 pixels for video and the highest resolution of 1.9 megapixels for stills. This is due to the limitation of the USB 1.1 data connectionspeed. The quality of video and still images is very good with good color reproduction. The skin tones are also accurately represented. The built-in microphone comes with the acoustic noise-canceling feature. It saves you the trouble of using an additional microphone. You can also team it up with your own set of speakers or headphones. The camera is an expensive proposition if you only want to use it for video chatting online. And to do that at 1280x1024 resolution, you need a blazing fast Internet connection at both ends. Therefore if video recording at high resolutions is your requirement then the VX-6000 is delightful to work with. Otherwise there are lots of affordable options available from Logitech, Creative and iBall. For: One of the few web cams with the ability to record at HD (1280x1024) resolutions. Against: Very expensive.
No comments:
Post a Comment