Page:
0,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9HOW
FAST
IS
FAST ENOUGH?
It needs both power and
connections. Unlike a politician,
though, it should also have quite
a bit of (non-selective) memory.
An entertainment PC is kind of like a
Washington politician...
High definition (HD) video is typically highly
compressed by very sophisticated codecs
that require a lot of processor power to run in
real time, especially for smooth playback of
AVCHD, a format now commonly used in HD
camcorders. To ensure quality playback of this
format, a dual core CPU running at 1.50 GHz or
above is recommended. This will ensure that
most every other video format plays smoothly
as well.
As mentioned above, memory is also important.
A PC that spends all of its time swapping
things off and on the hard drive because of
inadequate RAM will not provide smooth media
playback.
The absolute minimum memory
requirement for an entertainment PC is 2GB.
What makes for an
"entertaining" PC?
3
WHICH
OS
?
The typical Windows®-based PC
has more mature built-in media
management functions relative
to the Mac®. These capabilities
provide a user-friendly interface
to your media library both to store
or "rip" content and for playback.
However, new media manager
applications, such as Center Stage,
Media Central, and iTheater are now
becoming available to turn the Mac
into a serious media device. The
only media manager application
built into newer versions of OSX,
however, is Front Row, which is
basically a front end for iTunes and
does not support many formats or
TV viewing.
For this reason, unless you are a
real Apple® devotee, a PC running
Windows® Vista Ultimate or Vista
Home Premium is probably the
best OS choice at present. Both
of which provide comprehensive
media management capabilities and a "10 foot" interface which
allows you to clearly navigate your media from a normal viewing
distance (see the section "Getting Things Under Control" below.)
Page:
0,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9 previous |
next3
