DMA Devices

I looked at seven DMAs in total, with varying ranges of feature sets, capabilities, content types, and prices. The devices I analyzed were:

• Apple TV: $99 with remote
• Roku XD S: $99 with remote and composite cable
• Boxee Box: $199 with HDMI cable and QWERTY remote
• Western Digital TV Live Hub: $199 with 1TB hard drive
• Google TV by Logitech: $299 with full-sized keyboard with trackpad, HDMI cable, and IR blaster
• Xbox 360 “S”: $299 with 250GB hard drive, controller, composite video cable, and two games
• AMD Fusion Theater PC, aka AMD “FTPC”: $399 with 160GB hard drive, wireless keyboard with trackpad and remote

Top to bottom: Roku XD S - $99, Boxee Box - $199 and Apple TV - $99

DMA Content

I ran them through multiple usage models with different content while gauging simplicity from start to end on:

• Video: commercial and personal, web, remote, local device and local network.
• Music: commercial and personal, web, remote, local device and local network.
• Photos: personal, web, remote, local device, and local network.
• Games: local device, web, and app.
• Social Media: web, app, and overall integration.
• Web: Anything one can do with a browser and the web.

Western Digital TV Live Hub - $199

DMA Capabilities

To get to the major “capability clusters,” I have categorized the DMA’s capabilities and segmented them into 12 variables. This is way too complex but gets us on a path to segment into something simpler. Here are the main capabilities:

• Play from Cloud Service: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from a cloud service like Netflix, Flickr, Pandora, etc.
• Play from DMAs Main Storage: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from the DMA main storage. Content initially downloaded or synced from peripheral. DMA does not need broadband to playback content.
• Play from DMAs External Storage: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from storage connected externally. This is storage like a USB stick or USB hard drive. DMA does not need to be connected to broadband to playback content.
• Play from Network Device: DMA plays video, audio, or photos from a networked device. These devices could be iPads, PCs, NAS, other DMAs, etc.
• Play to Network Device: DMA plays video, audio or photos to a networked device via DLNA. The device could be a PC, another DMA, an iPad, iPhone, etc.
• Sync from Cloud Service: DMA syncs content from a cloud service and can operate without broadband. These can be services like Picasa Web, Amazon VOD, and MP3Tunes.
• Sync from External Device: DMA syncs content from an external device which can be networked. The DMA “imports” the content into its file system. DMA can operate without broadband. External devices could be a digital camera, smartphone, PC, USB stick, NAS, etc.
• Local Games: DMA plays games that have been stored on the DMAs primary mass storage. DMA does not need to be connected to broadband to play game. Examples include PC games and Xbox games.
• Full Browser: DMA has full browser and can play video, audio, and photos and play games and interact on social media.
• Video Chat: Users interact using video. Examples include Skype, Google Chat, Kinect Video, etc.
• Social Media: User can interact via Twitter, Facebook, or proprietary social network.
• Complexity: DMA’s difficulty to setup and use.
• HW Upgradability: Hardware can be upgraded to provide greater capabilities.

My customized AMD FTPC desktop

Here is how the different devices look side by side.

Browsing Videos on the Xbox 360

Four DMA Categories

As you can see, most of the variability in DMA capabilities has to do with storage, games, browsing and complexity. From this, four categories emerge:

1. Streamers: Apple TV and Roku XD S fit into this category. They are less expensive, have no storage, are simplest to setup and primarily stream content from the cloud. They cannot operate productively at any time without the cloud.

2. Surfers: Boxee Box and Google TV fall into this category. They are more expensive than streamers, offer full streamer capability and add full web and multiple “channel” capabilities. They are more aware of the household network and can share their content and offer full social media capabilities. They cannot operate productively at any time without the cloud.

3. Storers: The Western Digital TV Live Hub fits into this category. It takes all the capability of the Streamers and adds local storage, providing the ability to buy, download, play, and store paid and personal content. The devices are more complex in than Streamers and Surfers in that the user has to choose where they want content stored or synched. They can play content without a cloud connection once it has been downloaded.

4. Sinks (as in kitchen): As in “everything but the kitchen sink,” the Xbox 360 “S” and the AMD FTPC fit into this category. The kitchen sink variety have every feature of the Streamers, Surfers, Storers and pile on even more features, including complex games, video chat, offer the most peripheral options and are even hardware upgradable in many cases. They are the most complex and the most expensive to fit with more features.

Xbox 360 "S" - $299

My Thoughts on the Future of the DMA

The future of the living room DMA is bright and there will be many changes along the way in form factors, capabilities, services, and prices. As I outline below, some of the capability will be sucked into Smart TVs and set top boxes. Some of it will be sucked into smartphones and tablets but many higher end features and usage models will keep them as a stand-alone category.

• Low-End DMAs Integrate into Smart TV: Lower capability, lower cost DMA’s will be integrated into HDTVs. This one is easy to call. Some call this “Smart TVs”. At the recent 2011 CES, every major TV manufacturer announced TV lines with integrated DMAs. Some were based on the Google TV platform, a few were Yahoo-based, and some were proprietary. Streamers will get sucked into Smart TVs as quickly as it takes to roll them out into medium range price points. Some Surfers will as well, but only when dual core designs are affordable and can deliver an enjoyable internet experience.
• More DMA Features in STB: Set top box vendors along with the service providers are busy integrating more and more DMA features into their set top boxes. This is part of the war between the OTT (Over The Top) ecosystem versus the cable and satellite ecosystem. The traditional STB and service providers wouldn’t “cross the streams” of personal content but will be forced to integrate this to not get squeezed out.
• Mobile Devices Don’t Kill DMA: I have been connecting mobile devices to my TV for about 10 years now and am very familiar with the plusses and minuses. Recently, I have watched movies and TV shows off of my iPad and videos off of an Atrix phone with the HD Multimedia Dock. They both provide really good quality experiences but have one major flaw unrelated to the technology: when you have them plugged into the TV, you don’t have access to the device. When a phone call or text comes in, what do you do? When that important email, Tweet or Facebook message or status update comes in, what do you do? Stop the movie, undock the device, take care of the alert, then re-dock and reinitiate what you were doing? I don’t think so.
• More Local Storage: I believe more local storage will find its way into devices. Home broadband is increasing at a much slower rate than the increase in data density. It was recently reported that Netflix consumed 20% of prime-time bandwidth in North America. Imagine what happens as Smart TV’s get connected. Higher levels of caching will be required to maintain QOS. More storage will drive some of the Storer capability away from the TV given the immense cost adder. Outside the U.S. it isn’t all about paid services, so Storers which allow for Torrent and DivX capabilities will just grow.
• Over The Air TV: Call me crazy, but I think you will see DMAs emerge with over the air HD tuners in North America. Why? Over time, consumers will get smart and realize that you can essentially “cut the cord” and go with a DMA plus OTA HD tuner and get the best of both worlds. You get pay as you go for the shows you love PLUS the live broadcasts of sports, news and reality shows.
• Prices Rise Short Term: With home broadband bandwidth becoming saturated, prices for streaming content will rise. Cable companies and telcos will start charging content distributors for priority bandwidth, who will in-turn charge users. This is the classic net-neutrality debate.
• New Business Models: The DMA wheel continues to turn due to content and advertising profits. The all you can eat content models will drive toward package deals, value menus and pay as you go. As Google and Microsoft fine-tune their video, music, and game service franchises, there will be many more opportunities to subsidize DMAs and make them even less expensive. It will be less about acquisition as services mature and more about consumption. Advertising will undergo the most changes and even enable 100% subsidized DMAs. Product placement overlays in the videos, finite targeting of standard advertising and fast ad-to-purchase techniques at much higher CPMs and CPCs will enable this subsidy.
• New Categories Created: Mashups will occur that either haven’t been productized yet or haven’t been successful up to this point. Intelligent routers with DMA capabilities will emerge, as well, DMA media servers that sync with the cloud will store the family’s content and distribute it out to the home. Home AV receivers will combine with DMA technologies to enhance their utility. Blu-ray players have adopted low-end Streamer functionality already and they will start adopting higher-order features like Surfers.
• Advanced Capabilities: Advanced capabilities desired by consumers will keep the entire category from getting sucked into Smart TVs. This is in addition to the new categories described above. The stereoscopic 3D (S3D) wave will permeate its way into DMAs. Content will go to S3D and DMAs will follow. Advanced HCI (Human Computer Interaction) and NUI (Natural User Interface) capabilities will permeate into DMAs and become differentiators between vendors. The physical remotes will be augmented with computer listening and computer vision to enable easier content research and management. Do a gesture and change the “channel”. Ask to see “The Bachelor” and it finds the Bachelor and can distinguish between dogs, cats, people stretching their arms and different people in the living room. This will enable easier search, and with the amount of DMA content becoming unmanageable with menus, will drive toward precise voice search and more sophisticated “suggestion engines”. It goes without saying that the thirst for realism in today’s game consoles won’t subside and will require some serious capabilities to take the levels of realism and gameplay to the next level.

An assortment of controllers I’ve used on this journey.

Conclusion

Four classes of living-room DMAs exist today to serve a very wide variety of capabilities, content, user sophistication levels with prices ranging from $99 to $399. DMAs fit into Streamers, Surfers, Storers, or Sink classes. Streamers stream content from the cloud, Storers can actually download and store content; Surfers add web capabilities and Sinks have all those features and many more, basically the “everything but the kitchen sink” class.

AMD Fusion Theater PC, aka AMD "FTPC" - $399

In the future, Smart TVs will gobble up today’s basic Streamer and some Surfer capabilities. With an intelligently programmed user interface, Smart TVs will also offer convenient Storer capabilities as many attempt to do already with USB storage device support… but the standalone DMA still has a future. Set top boxes will adopt today’s Streamer and Storer capabilities. Mobile devices won’t steal a lot of the DMA thunder given multi-use usability issues. The future is driven by new product categories, new business models, and advanced capabilities like advanced HCI, personal cloud sync, improved suggestion engines, and more realistic gaming.

So which DMA is the best today? Well, I will let you read my experiences and make your own choice.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

Networking

The AMD FTPC comes standard with a 1 Gbps Ethernet port. This is 10X faster than the other DMAs and what this buys you is faster computer to computer access. So in other words, if you are pulling your HD videos off of another PC, NAS, or Windows Home Server, it will theoretically download 10X faster. Wi-Fi is optional, and priced as low as $10.

Social Media

For the AMD FTPC, this is really simple…. If it has a website, it can be accessed by the AMD FTPC, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or Bebo. I still haven’t gotten heavily into the “lean-back” 10’ social media experience but I am sure some consumers will. TweetDeck or TweetDeck for Chrome are some good bets at 10’ as they are structured into manageable columns.

Home Connectivity

The AMD FTPC is the most versatile of the DMAs given it can import and play/export content over industry standard connectors, namely 6 USB ports, 6 programmable audio ports, SPDIF optical and coax audio ports, and a PCI-E slot. Why care? Well, you can directly connect a home theater receiver, terabytes of external movie storage, wireless keyboards, wireless remotes, video cameras, digital cameras, iPhones, iPads, Android tablets, etc. Heck, you can even add a TV card if you want for PC-based DVR functionality. You get the picture…. . For the most part, this level of versatile functionality and customization is more than I found with any of the other DMAs I tested including the Apple TV, Google TV, and even the XBOX.

Simplicity

Here is where things get sticky… Options, openness, upgradability, and feature lists come with a penalty, and that’s the challenge of getting all of this to work, and to work reliably. As the “designer” of my AMD FTPC, I chose a feature-rich system which may be complex to some. But that’s my decision. If they don’t need to do everything I want to, an OEM, ODM or user could literally use one program, a web browser like Chrome or IE9, to accomplish 90% of what I have laid out.

Price

Pricing for the AMD FTPC goes on a pay as you go system; the more features you want, the more you will pay. Here are some components similar to my configuration:

• MSI E350 motherboard, including The AMD Dual-Core Processor E-350 for around $145.
• Windows 7 Home Premium, around $99.
• 160 GB hard drive, as low as $35. Alternatively if you wanted to pack in over 1,000 Amazon VOD movies at around 2TB, and 1TB for around 500 games, you could go 3TB hard drive for as low as $189.
• 4GB DDR3 RAM, as low as $40.
• APEX MW-100 case, as low as $69. If you needed to save even more money, I suppose you could go even lower, as low as $35.
• Wireless keyboard with trackpad as low as $20 and other mini-wireless keyboards that are a bit more expensive.

So, net-net, for around $399 you can own your very own robust AMD FTPC. I believe as OEMs start rolling out their configuration, you could get it for even less. Remember, these are retail prices, not distribution or OEM costs.

While it’s impossible to have an apples-to-apples comparison, here is what the DMA field looks like at $299-399. This compares to the Xbox 360 S 250GB unit at $399, the Logitech Revue with Google TV for $299 or the Sony Internet TV at $399.

AMD FTPC Conclusion

The AMD Fusion Theater PC provides the highest access to videos, music, photos, games and social media of all the DMAs I tested, with near-silent operation. It takes advantage of the inherent openness of the Windows 7 PC platform. On the flip-side, if you want all of that, the user may pay a complexity penalty of configuration and inconsistent user interfaces and input devices. You are free to make the choice of how complex or simple you want your AMD FTPC and you have the option to change your configuration later. In the end, it’s nice that we have left that in the hands of the end user and there are solid choices for those who want this.

Next, I will finalize the series on DMAs with thoughts on what the future holds for consumers and the industry.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

Gaming in front of the TV, or in a “lean back” environment, has been dominated by consoles like the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation^® 3, and the Nintendo Wii systems. There are even rumors that the gen 2 Apple TV could emerge as a gaming platform, too. How about an AMD FTPC? While the AMD Dual-Core E-350 APU platform is not designed as a high-end gaming platform, those of you who know me understand my uncontrollable desire to push technology and discover its limits. My AMD FTPC certainly has some horsepower with its dual core PC processor and extremely sophisticated DirectX® 11 graphics. While performance doesn’t equate to a high-end gaming PC experience, how does the AMD FTPC stack up to the other DMAs which, with the exception of the Xbox 360, cannot game?

Here is a list of what I successfully installed and played. Depending on the game, I used an Xbox 360 controller, keyboard and/or mouse.

PC Games

I installed the PC games via download services, Steam, EA Download Manager or MS Games for Windows Marketplace and also via an optional USB optical drive. I had to work through optional resolutions, etc., to get the right settings, but I had a lot of fun. This really demonstrates the technical capability of the AMD FTPC.

I played the following:

• Hawx
• Far Cry 2
• Call of Duty World at War
• Left for Dead
• Fallout 3
• Stalker Clear Sky
• Call of Duty 4-Modern Warfare
• GRID

Web Games

Casual gaming has far more users than more extreme PC gaming, and the primary access is over the web. Think Farmville…. I went to some of the most popular sites and the AMD FTPC cranked through every site I hit.

These popular sites are Flash-heavy and the AMD FTPC was more than up to the task:

• Poptropica
• Pogo
• EA Web Games
• Google Chrome Web Store

AMD FTPC Game Conclusion

I found the AMD FTPC surprisingly enjoyable as a “lean-back” HD gaming device, particularly when I narrowed the web games and services. Other than the Xbox 360, the AMD FTPC is the only DMA I tested that can play any games, and the ONLY device that can effectively play web games.

The fact that it can bounce between full-up PC games and pretty much all web games is impressive. On the other hand, switching between the controllers could be very difficult for unsophisticated users, as well as occasional “PC” crashes the highest end games can bring. Changing resolutions and details on some of the PC games isn’t that fun, either. Finally, the AMD FTPC does not have the capability to play the latest games at highest resolutions with many details on, as that space is currently reserved for higher-end systems with hardware like AMD Phenom™ II processors and AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series graphics cards.

Next, I will discuss a few other AMD FTPC features and thoughts. Any questions or comments?

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

Music and Audio Content

Like video, the FTPC can play essentially any kind of digital audio, regardless of service, package, CODEC, format, player, or DRM protection scheme. And it plays audio in up to 24-bit, 192 kHz lossless HD splendor.

• Music streaming services: Pandora, Last.FM, Slacker, Playlist.com, SHOUTcast, Zune and even XM/Sirius.
• Buy and download music: Unlike the other DMAs, except Xbox, I could preview, buy and play music from iTunes, Zune, Amazon.com, Napster, mp3.com, and Rhapsody.
• External storage: Import music from USB sticks, networked PCs, networked or attached storage devices, and Windows Home Server. Only the WD TV Live Hub of all the other DMAs could do this.
• CD/DVD: If you really wanted to, with an optional CD or USB DVD drive you could play music CDs or even rip a CD. I suppose a few folks still do that.
• Apple AirPlay: Use AirPlay to play your Apple content from your iPhone, iPad, PC, and Mac.
• Windows 7 Play To: Play To the FTPC from another PC with Windows Media Player 12.
• Sync music: Unlike any of the other DMAs, I can buy music with my iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android phone, BlackBerry, Windows 7 phone and directly sync with my FTPC. Use iTunes for Apple and WMP for everything else.
• Audio inputs: Unlike any of the other DMAs, audio can be brought into the FTPC via the audio-in and microphone-in jack. Karaoke anyone?

Music can be played out over multiple ports, including the HDMI 1.3, coaxial or optical SPDIF, and 1/8” PC audio connectors.

Photo Content

Like video and audio, my FTPC could play back any kind of photo content without compromise. If it’s a digital video photo format, the FTPC can play it.

• On-line photo services: Upload, download and view on Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Photobucket, SmugMug, and Kodak Gallery.
• Buy and download photos: Unlike all of the other DMAs, I could preview, buy and download photos or special background images from services like Corbis.
• External storage: Import photos from USB sticks, networked PCs, networked and attached storage devices, and Windows Home Server.
• Play To technology: The FTPC supports Windows Play To and Apple AirPlay with Windows Media Player 12 and iTunes.
• Sync photos: Unlike any of the other DMAs, I take pictures with my camera or smartphone and directly sync with my FTPC.

Audio and Photo Conclusion

Like video, the FTPC can basically play all forms of digital audio and digital images, commercial and personal. It has unique sync and “play-to” functionality, no other DMA’s have.  To access all of those capabilities required 10′ toggling between Windows Media Center and Boxee. That’s only if you must have a specific service, like Pandora on WMC versus moving to Slacker or Zune.

Let me know if you have question or comments. Next up, I will investigate the FTPC in 10′ gaming environments. Stay tuned.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

Let me be blunt; the FTPC played everything I could possibly throw at it, regardless of service, package, CODEC, format, player, DRM protection scheme, in 1080p on my Samsung 52” HDTV. This is the power of the PC platform at its best, and this was accomplished most times without a fan spinning!

The Fusion FTPC has a very sophisticated video playback engine that offloads much of the video computing to a special “block” in the GPU. When played back via a compatible player, the FTPC will offload Flash, MPEG 2, MPEG 4, VC-1, DivX and Xvid formatted video.

Commercial Video Content

• Video services: Netflix, Hulu, HuluPlus, YouTube, Facebook, YouTube Leanback, Vimeo, Viddler, Google Videos and just about any video you can view on a PC.
• On-line movies: iTunes Movies via iTunes, Amazon via Unbox, Blockbuster via Roxio, Best Buy via CinemaNow, VUDU via Boxee, and even Disney.
• On-line TV: ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN, Fox News, PBS, ESPN, TNT, Comedy Central, TV.com, Spike, MTV, Nickelodeon, and more than I can list here….
• DVD: Plug in a USB DVD drive or configure your FTPC with one. Windows 7 will play DVDs without additional software.
• Blu-ray: Plug in a USB Blu-ray player or configure your FTPC with one. I like the optional Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 software to play BD.

As I discussed in part 8, I tested three environments, Windows Media Center, Boxee, and Desktop Icons. Here were the exceptions:

• Windows Media Center: After installing the software discussed in part 8, you can play videos from Netflix, YouTube, YouTube HD, Amazon.com VOD, Blockbuster, Best Buy, DVD, Blu-ray and a ton of “Internet TV” channels. Notably for Windows Media Center, no Hulu or iTunes.

• Boxee Software: After installing the software discussed in part 8, can play all videos with notable exceptions of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon VOD and Blu-ray.

• Desktop Icons: All content can be played, no exceptions.

The audio support is pretty awesome as it supports 8 channel surround sound such as Dolby Digital or DTS. This comes through the HDMI 1.3 connector.

Personal Video Content

The FTPC can play personal video content as well from a variety of places:

• Video camera: Whether it’s a high-end HD 1080p camcorder, Flip, or a low end iPhone 4 video file, the FTPC can play it via the USB port. Plug it in, import to Windows, and play. I like to play most of my HD files with Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 as it takes advantage of UVD3.
• USB stick/hard drive: Plug it in and it just works, like importing from a video camera. You will really appreciate the speed of the USB-3 at 10X the speed of USB-2.
• Networked PC: Via UPnP and DLNA through Windows Media Center, Windows Media Player or simple “Networks”, access any video on any PC in the house as long as you have network permissions.
• Network storage: aka “NAS”, access this like you would a networked PC.
• Windows Home Server: Windows Home Server devices are a more intelligent and more configurable NAS.
• Apple AirPlay: use Air Play to play your Apple content from your iPhone, iPad, PC, and Mac.
• Windows 7 Play To: Play To the FTPC from another PC with Windows Media Player 12.
• Sync video: Unlike any of the other DMAs, I can buy movies with my iPhone, iPod, iPad, and directly sync with my FTPC.
• Wi Fi camera: OK, I just thought I’d throw this one in here.  Here is a security camera you could plug into your FTPC.

Video Conclusion

So you probably get the idea that the FTPC is very versatile when it comes to video. When considering all three usage “environments”, it can play just about anything, except of course 8mm film. It plays the video in the highest quality possible too, and I have to give a tip of the hat to the AMD Radeon^TM 6310 graphics in the AMD E-Series processors. Also, unlike the other DMAs I have tested, it can actually import content from other PCs and devices, and also be a repository for the content used by other devices.

With its strength comes its weakness, too. It is no simple task setting up the FTPC to get all of those video features, but that was MY choice to add all of them. If a user desired, they could use one environment and it would be much simpler, while perhaps missing some of the potential.

Next up, I take a look at the FTPCs capability as a DMA for music and photos.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

Follow @PatrickMoorhead on Twitter.

So let’s recap where we are… I have looked at the following DMA’s: Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee Box, WD TV Live Hub, Roku XD S, and recently the Xbox 360 S. Now I will look at a Windows 7 Fusion Theater PC (FTPC). Living room PCs have had marginal success outside of the most sophisticated enthusiasts for a myriad of reasons. Historically, home theater PCs (HTPCs), compared to CE equipment seemed loud, hot, large, difficult to use, and “broke” based on myriads of Windows updates. Will this experiment be any different with graphics-intensive applications, low power draw hardware and Windows 7?

The FTPC is unlike any other DMA I have looked at in that it is “open.” PC software and hardware can be added at will. That’s a double-edged sword because like all devices, add features and they could become complex, unintuitive, and maybe even unreliable. My design goal of this FTPC was to test multiple software platforms to show the breadth of capabilities.

FTPC Hardware Configuration

My design goal here was to choose a system that was silent most of the time without any fan noise, but could scale up to play the heaviest media and games. I wanted the price range to be near the Google TV and the Xbox 360 with at least one external bay in case I wanted to upgrade to an internal Blu-ray or DVD drive.

Here is the hardware I selected:

VISION Technology from AMD-based system including the new AMD Fusion-based AMD Dual-Core Processor E-350, a 1.6 GHz dual “Bobcat”core processor and AMD Radeon^TM HD 6310 DirectX^®11 capable graphics.

• MSI E350IA-E45 mini-ITX motherboard. It is also known as MSI-7698.
• Apex MW-100 mini-ITX chassis. I could have bought a smaller chassis, but I wanted an external drive for a future Blu-ray upgrade.
• Seagate 160 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
• 4GB DDR3 RAM, PC3-8500 at 1066 MHz.
• I tested various input devices; many that I had on-hand. I experimented with the Gyration wireless keyboard and remote, a Media Center keyboard a Media Center Remote and the iPhone with HippoRemote. I used an Xbox 360 controller for most games.

FTPC Software Configuration

My goal here was to test the FTPC in as many environments as I could to get the sense of how simple or difficult it was. The base operating system was Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

I tested three main “environments”:

1. Windows Media Center: WMC comes standard with every Windows 7 Home Premium PC. It is a shell that provides a simple 10’ experience without needing a keyboard. I loaded a few apps to assist in the experience and make it even better. My Movies provided cover art and indexing for the movies I purchased and downloaded from Amazon.com and other services. I added Media Browser for an even more immersive movie environment. I also installed PlayOn, giving access to connected devices like Xbox 360 Hulu Plus, YouTube, Pandora and TV network content. MacroTube gave 10’ access to YouTube HD, Daily Motion, Revision 3 and other interesting shows. Heatwave provided weather updates on the TV.
2. Boxee: I blogged on the Boxee Box here and the FTPC software is nearly identical to the “Box” itself. I added apps to Boxee including CNET TV, VUDU, YouTube, Picasa, Pandora, Mediafly, Vimeo, and Radiotime
3. Desktop icons: This is exactly as it says. Click the icon you want and it plays. Whether it’s an application or a web page, it doesn’t matter.

I also installed additional software, somewhat independent of the environment.

• CyberLink PowerDVD 10: I find this to be the most efficient and beautiful way to playback HD video files. This has full support for UVD3, which offloads video tasks to the GPU and provides image quality enhancements.
• Amazon.com Unbox: Buy, download, manage, and play Amazon.com movie downloads in a 10’ environment.
• Hulu Desktop: Simple 10’ interface for Hulu Plus.
• Apple iTunes: Browse, buy and play movies and music.
• Blockbuster Player: Download, manage, and play Blockbuster movie downloads in a 10’ environment.
• Roxio Now Player: Download, manage, and play Best Buy movie downloads in a 10’ environment.
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta: This provided the best GPU acceleration for Flash video as well as other GPU accelerated web-browsing benefits. My testing was done with the beta, but as we posted, the release candidate (RC) is now live.
• Adobe Flash 10.2 Beta: This provided the best acceleration GPU offload for HD Flash videos. Flash 10.2 has just been released, but my testing was done with a pre-release version.

This may seem like a lot of work to setup something for the living room, particularly when comparing to some of the other DMAs. Remember that I am building this system and most users will buy their FTPC systems pre-configured. Also, I have tested three different environments and the likelihood is that most users will have only one.

In part 9, I will explore the FTPC’s video capabilities from on-line services, local drives and peripherals and from networked PCs. Let me know if there is something you would like to see.

Pat Moorhead is Corporate Vice President and Corporate Marketing Fellow and a Member of the Office of Strategy at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

See all Pat’s bio here or past blogs here.

With the C-30, C-50 and E-350 AMD Fusion line of APUs, we have delivered a state-of-the-art processor that provides excellent compute, graphics and video capabilities with excellent low power consumption.  While AMD has always enabled excellent x86, graphics and video performance, we must be honest and state that we have been criticized for our power consumption, heat and battery life.  AMD over the past year has made tremendous progress on these fronts.  With our AMD Fusion line of APUs, we are taking our low power to a new level while still enabling the great x86, graphics and video experience that is expected of AMD.

In lowering the power consumption of our APUs, we also provide what we call the “trinity” of low power consumption, extended battery life and improved thermals.  Each is a facet of our lower power consumption but each delivering a separate and tangible benefit. 

1. Low Power Consumption:  Depending on how power is measured, an AMD Fusion-powered notebook is pulling as little as 30 watts from the socket in the wall.  To put that in perspective, we are enabling a supercomputer level of performance at lower power levels than a 40 watt light bulb!  Imagine a company with hundreds or thousands of these computers, not only would there be a cost savings for the company but the overall carbon footprint for that company would be reduced.
2. Extended Battery Life:  AMD notebooks now deliver excellent x86, Graphics and Video and over 9 hours of battery life, depending on how you use the device.  This means that you can have the capabilities of a full blown notebook and almost treat it like a smartphone –  charge it just once a day and get rid of the wall wart. 
3. Thermals:  Huh?  The more power a processor consumes, the more heat it generates and dissipates.  This part of the equation is often overlooked.  With the AMD Fusion APU, we have integrated a modern low power x86 CPU, DirectX 11-capable GPU, Video processor and the north bridge.  We have both a 9 Watt and 18 Watt variant shipping today with full systems under 30 watts.  For your reference, modern graphics cards consume as much as 300 watts, an order of magnitude difference.

At CES this year, we had the challenge of showing lower power consumption for devices powered by the AMD Fusion APU.  This is not an easy thing to do actually.  We could attach a power meter to the wall….yeah, boring.  We could try to show battery life… have people wait for 9-10 hours while the battery drains, yeah, if you really want we can arrange this for you. 

We bought a thermal camera instead to demonstrate one part of the trinity.  Recall the higher power consumption of a computer, the higher the heat generated and dissipated.  With our thermal camera we were able to show that not only can our AMD Fusion APUs do things like playback HD video, but we did it cooler than a competitive platform.  The obvious benefit is that when you put one of our notebooks on your lap, it does not get as hot as platforms that consume more power.  Cooler notebook, cooler lap, better experience. Check out the coverage at AnandTech and HotHardware.

I had lobbied to state that due to their lower heat “at the lap” these AMD APU-powered notebooks can actually help improve sperm count but that was shot down by Legal, as I would have had to include an asterisk and note that this statement was not applicable to women……yeah….Legal departments, they are funny in their own way.

Godfrey Cheng is Director, Client Technology Unit at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

Haven’t heard about this particular PC? Well, it’ll be available sooner than you think, thanks to the world’s first Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). The AMD Fusion APU represents one of the largest research and development investments ever made in the history of microprocessors. It’s the reason AMD bought ATI Technologies in 2006. It’s the reason AMD is singularly poised to take the PC into its third generation. It’s the reason we will soon have PCs like never before. And it’s launching at CES 2011.

This is a big deal. It’s a defining moment in the history of the PC. The AMD Fusion APU puts multi-core CPU (x86) technology, DirectX®11 GPU graphics and parallel processing engine, a dedicated HD video acceleration block, and a high-speed bus all on the same piece of silicon. All together.

And with everything together, the possibilities are endless. So we thought CES would be a great time not only to celebrate this milestone, but to have some fun discussing all of these possibilities.

We’ll be doing just that next Tuesday evening (January 4, 2011) in Las Vegas at the House of Blues. We have invited some cool guys to talk about how the PC is finally growing up to be the sexy showstopper we all knew it could be.

Emceeing our event will be Joel McHale. The host of E!’s The Soup, star of the sitcom Community, and stand-up funny man is taking time from his busy schedule poking fun at Wendy Williams to give the PC some love.

We will have three panelists joining Mr. McHale on stage. First up is Steven Bathiche (A.K.A. Stevie B) from Microsoft Corp.’s Applied Sciences Group. Mr. B co-invented Microsoft Surface. And much of his work around novel human interfaces is behind the ‘have-to have’ holiday gift: Kinect for Xbox 360.

Mr. B will be joined by Joel Silver, cofounder of the Imaging Science Foundation. Mr. Silver introduced video image quality calibration services into consumer electronics, and has been instrumental on advancing electronic imaging quality. He’s a key guy to thank for HDTVs.

Rounding out our panel will be AMD’s CEO Dirk Meyer. Mr. Meyer will discuss how we’ll soon realize the PC’s true potential: from new user-interfaces, to next-gen HD, to personal supercomputing, to advanced security. Things that are made possible with an AMD Fusion APU.

It’s the work and passion of these gentlemen for creating the new PC era that drove us to this celebration event at CES. Whole new worlds will open up with the PC this decade, and their imagination can now be realized.

What you would imagine for the PC these next 10 years? Leave a comment below with your predictions. And, if you’ll be in Las Vegas on Tuesday January 4th, 2011 and would like to join us for the evening, send us your name (plus up to one guest) to AMDCES2011@bitecommunications.com. We have 20 passes to the party that will be issued on a first come, first served basis. The event kicks-off at 7 p.m.

See you there!

Leslie Sobon is Corporate Vice President, Product Marketing at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

*AMD defines “all day battery life” as 8+ hours using industry standard tests.

Here’s my pitch: In “Extreme PC Makeover” the PC could render 3D holograms of celebrities in clothes they should have worn at award shows – real time, walking right next to the star on the red carpet.

In “PC Swap” two families trade all their PCs and tweet and Facebook as the other family. (Still no one would be interested in their vacation photos though.) Or in “Top PC” they could do a PC bake off, awarding those who created and edited the best video the fastest – using only their pet, some fabric, and peanut butter.

Why a reality show? Because no matter how hard it tries, today’s Personal Computer can’t get any love in the media. Yet over 350 million of them will be sold worldwide this year. And even more next year (Source: IDC).

Why no love? One reason: the general PC form factor (screen, keyboard and mouse) hasn’t changed much in decades. It’s been with us for so long we forget all the cool things it can do. Kinda like Cher.

There’s lots of chatter about whether tablets will replace PCs. It’s not an either/or proposition. Remember the debate about what will win – the PC or the TV?  What happened? I can now catch up on my TV shows on a PC anytime I want. Conversely, I can get all my player scores for fantasy football instantly on the TV while I’m watching the Patriots. We like the debate, but ultimately, devices just gets better.

So no device wins or loses, because we shouldn’t have to choose. And we know it. We want to use the device that’s best for what we want to do. There are certain things we can only do easily on a PC, like creating and editing. There are certain things the tablet is great for – online shopping and consuming media are two. And there’s nothing easier than a smart phone for snapping a photo and sharing it instantly.

Here’s another reason why the PC deserves to sit next to Andy Cohen in the Bravo clubhouse plugging its reality show: it is on the cusp of its next reinvention. In the 90s the PC was all about email. This past decade ushered in the digital PC: music, photos and video. This decade it will be the HD PC, where there is little to no difference between the vivid worlds we live in – real or digital.

Much of the technology behind this new HD PC has been around for a while. It’s called GPU Compute. It’s been one of the best kept secrets, with only game developers really taking advantage of its processing horsepower – mainly because discrete GPUs were only available through add in cards. Not anymore. Thanks to AMD Fusion APUs, which, by the way, we just began shipping to PC manufacturers.

By putting discrete-level GPUs on the same piece of silicon as CPUs, software developers can tap into teraflops of performance they’ve never had access to so easily – and as a result – deliver a PC experience we’ve never had before.

With the new HD PC, we will be able to search dynamically for all the digital stuff we’ve stored, easily finding just the kids birthday or pet with peanut butter video we want. The HD cameras on our PC will recognize us so we never have to enter in a password again. We won’t be able to tell the difference between the 3D movie we just saw and the 3D game of it playing on our PC. We will be completely immersed with a new interface: touch, stylus, mouse, keyboard– whatever we want. Technology will finally be out of our way.

Now, doesn’t that deserve a little love? Or at least a reality show?

Leslie Sobon is corporate vice president, product marketing at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links and no endorsement is implied.

One area in particular that Adobe continues to pioneer is online video. Adobe Flash Player is an online staple that is playing a large part in defining the direction the web browser is moving. Just think, in February of this year, Americans watched 28.1 billion online videos. Just three months later that number jumped to nearly 34 billion. Adobe Flash Player enables many of your favorite websites to play video dynamically within their site.

But, as Adobe Flash Player evolves to make the consumer PC and device experience more enriched, it is also becoming increasingly sophisticated on the back-end for developers to harness powerful processing technology from companies like AMD.

To date, we’ve discussed the beta version and full production release of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 that implemented features such as CPU and GPU acceleration. Most recently, we’ve been very excited about a preview release of Adobe Flash Player (code named “Square”) that enables native 64-bit support and provides enhanced support for Internet Explorer 9 (The Internet Explorer 9 beta is available for download).  The Adobe Flash Player “Square” preview release is available for download on Adobe Labs.  This is a good example of how AMD continues to work with both Adobe and Microsoft to provide great end user experiences that are designed to effectively leverage both CPU and GPU compute resources and we are especially excited about the opportunities for even more enhanced capabilities around improved video acceleration and 3D as Adobe continues its long tradition of innovation.

Stay tuned for exciting news coming from the Adobe MAX conference.  AMD will be eagerly watching what Adobe is discussing – will you?

Clarice Simmons is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Setting up Fusion Media Explorer Explorer to view photos of Facebook friends.

Wesley, we have written about Fusion Media Explorer but I understand we have some new features including integration with Facebook. How does that work? It’s simple really. Facebook provides software tools that help integrate it into other applications. We have used these tools to add a really cool new feature to Fusion Media Explorer, the ability to see and navigate the photos from your friend’s Facebook pages as well as an easy to use Facebook upload feature.

So we can see photos from all of our friends without navigating to each one? Yes, and you can do a lot more. Since you now have access to all of your friend’s pictures at once, you can do some pretty neat things. You can sort all pictures by date or name. So you can have James’ pictures show up next to John’s, or see everyone’s September’s pictures next to October’s. We also allow for searching on top of that. If you only want to see pictures from birthday parties, it can be as simple as typing that into our search box. If I know that Selena goes to Hawaii every year with my other friends Tristan, Chris, and Lisa, I can now see all of her Hawaii pictures from all her albums in total. All I have to do is use the sort drop-down and select to order by date, then type in “Selena” in the search box. Now I can see every picture in a nice timeline. Or I can see all the Hawaii pictures from all my friends, including Selena, Tristan, Chris and Lisa, by simply searching for the word “Hawaii” in the search box. I just couldn’t do that before.

I know a lot of people have been looking forward to this feature and its’ great to see it in action. In addition, the latest version of Fusion Media Explorer has a refined, 3D interface for browsing your photo, video, and music library and it looks stunning.

 Browsing music and video with many useful views with Fusion Media Explorer

If you want to download Fusion Media Explorer with Facebook integration, you can get it here.  Another tool is Fusion Utility for Mobility which is designed to extend your laptop’s battery life. Wesley, how can Fusion Utility for Mobility save battery life? Computers are really smart, but they can’t read our minds. We use our laptops in many different environments and with different applications. It is more of a Swiss Army Knife than a Samurai sword. Fusion Utility for Mobility makes it easier to turn off the stuff you don’t need for the task at hand. If you are on an airplane and you want to watch a movie, you probably don’t need Windows Update trying to find an internet connection. It’s the same with a Power Point presentation. Do you really need to defragment your hard drive at the same time? These are simple choices that are obvious to you and me but aren’t to your PC. This tool from AMD helps take some of that control and puts it back in your hands.

With Fusion Utility for Mobility, you can help maximize your battery life just by using the tool to shut down functionality you don’t need at the time. It’s easy to use and you can download it here. Extending these capabilities, we also provide Fusion Utility for Desktop which allows you to increase performance and save energy.

Tell me how Fusion Utility for Desktops is different from the Mobile utility? Fusion Utility for Desktops is geared for performance and power savings. With supported hardware we can really boost the muscle of a machine. We can improve the performance of your processor and graphics card on top of shutting down what you’re not using to create a lean, mean workhorse. This enables games to run faster. Songs can rip quicker. Video can encode in less time. When you’re done, it is just as easy to bring your system back to a normal state. It saves time, power, wear and tear.

How do profiles work with Fusion Utility for Desktops? Profiles are either task oriented, like surf the web; or mode-specific, like max performance. Included with the application you will find some of the most popular tasks and mode profiles. If they don’t suit your need you can always create your own. Profiles are simple to create and use. Just check what you want to turn on or off, and you’re done.

Usage Profile Configuration with AMD Fusion Utility for Desktops.

Thanks Wesley. You can download the Fusion Utility for Desktop here. I am using Fusion Utility for Desktops to control my settings for gaming and general use and I think it’s very useful!

If you haven’t thought of it already, you can also go and download the brand new ATI Catalyst 9.10 display drivers for Windows 7. The ATI Catalyst drivers are designed to help you get the most from ATI Radeon graphics, and there is a great blog on the new ATI Catalyst 9.10 drivers here.

And if you are reading all of this and thinking you need a new PC running Windows 7, I suggest you visit a retail shop and check out the new notebooks touting Vision technology from AMD, and AMD-based desktops at retail or online. Or if you need a holiday do-it-yourself project, you may want to build a custom desktop or a home theater PC, and we have great videos that can help you through the process.

This is the second in a three part series.

<<– Read Part 1 of the series So You’ve Got Windows 7, Now What?

* These utilities may disable security/antivirus software, or adversely affect your system. Review accompanying documentation carefully before installing.

Follow Simon Solotko on Twitter (Twitter, Not Just For Socialites)

Simon Solotko is a Senior Advanced Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied

My name is Casey Gotcher, and this is my first official blog on AMD’s behalf.  I chose to wait a while, specifically to speak to this particular topic.  We have been working diligently for over a year now on this product, and I am very excited to finally take the wraps off of it publicly

What is AMD Fusion Media Explorer?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sME1gH0IC4

The AMD Fusion Media Explorer (FME) is a new 3D Immersive Social Media and Digital Media Browser, built and distributed by AMD.  In addition to enabling unique multimedia and social media experiences, FME does a great job of showcasing the power of AMD CPUs and GPUs. This application demonstrates what our platforms are capable of when the software is designed to take full advantage.

AMD Fusion Media Explorer combines a user’s local media items, plus related online content from providers such as, Flickr, YouTube, and Microsoft Live.  In addition, FME has Facebook integration which gives our users even more options for posting or interacting with their favorite photos or friends’ photos.  All of this is managed by an integrated search engine, that makes it very easy to quickly locate what you are looking for.

I like to put the goals of the AMD Fusion Media Explorer into these 3 buckets:

• Explore – Explore your digital media content, from multiple local and online sources, in a quick and easy to use browser.
• Experience – Experience your media in a more exciting 3D, immersive application
• Discover – Discover new related photos, and videos, pertaining to what you are currently looking at or listening to.

Primary Features of Fusion Media Explorer

Photos

• Find and View photos from your local hard drive, removable USB or SD cards, and online sources, such as Flickr, Facebook, and Microsoft Live.

• View related photos and videos from some of these online sources, which pertain to what you are looking at in the main viewing area.  For example, if you are looking at  your photos of Paris, you might also be presented with other users’ photos or videos from the same area.

• Upload your photos to your Facebook or Flickr account with a simple button click.  This is  often much faster and easier than going through the Web UI’s for these services.

Music

• Easily find and listen to your favorite music with our integrated search engine or 3D Ribbon.
• Use our AutoDJ feature to automatically queue up playlists for you from the same genre or artist you are currently listening to.  Click on one song and AutoDJ will take it from there.
• Be presented with related music videos or other clips while you listen.  For example, if you are listening to U2, you will likely be presented with some of their music videos to the right in our related media bar.

• As was the case with Photos and Music, easily find the video, movie, or TV show you are looking for with our integrated search engine or 3D Ribbon.
• See your video collection come to life as FME will actually start playing multiple videos in the ribbon, while you browse, making it easier to find what you are looking for.  The better the performance of the machine, the more videos FME can play simultaneously.
• Watch full screen or send to the integrated Mini player so you can surf the Web while you watch a movie.
• Be presented with related YouTube videos pertaining to the content you are currently watching.  For instance you might see cast interviews, bloopers, and sometimes even full episodes, depending on what FME can find on YouTube that relates to what you are watching.

Some other details to note about FME… It has been developed for our notebook platform technology, “Puma” and desktop platform technology, “Dragon.”  It will be provided free to our customers, via download from www.amd.com, or in some cases may come pre-installed on select AMD-based systems.

Concurrent with the posting of this blog, I am releasing a special build of Fusion Media Explorer for friends and family members.  This will supersede our public beta by a couple of weeks.  If you are interested in giving it a try, you can find it here, www.amd.com/fmepreview or find me on twitter at www.twitter.com/caseygotcher if you need the link or (especially) if you have feedback on the application.

* Internet access is required to take advantage of the online search / retrieval functions.

Casey Gotcher is Director, Product Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

(As seen at Notebooks.com and Dell’s Digital Nomads)

Cloud computing is rising in interest even during these uncertain world economic times and AMD is taking an important leadership role in the creation of the cloud. And in opinion, smartphones are increasingly becoming one of the most important cloud clients. What makes smartphones cloud-unique is their portability and versatility. One minute a phone, the next a web browser, the next a video broadcast client. After blogging on the Android G1 and the BlackBerry Storm, and as co-owner of an iPhone (wife’s), people asked me why I didn’t blog on my personal workhorse, the BlackBerry Bold. Well, I aim to please and here it is.

(L to R: iPod touch, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold, Android G1)

Net-net, the Blackberry Bold is my preferred device for work and also serves many good consumer functions as well. At work, I live off of email messaging, then the web, then phone functionality, and the Bold hits high marks on all fronts.

What I Like

• Email Messaging: If you have Blackberry Enterprise Server, the Bold becomes the Godzilla of messaging. Many times I will get email on my Blackberry before it even hits my desktop. Spooky. You can also easily configure accounts from Yahoo Mail, GMail and Outlook. Fast and reliable, for work.

• Upgradeable storage and replaceable battery: Android G1, Storm, and Bold all have upgradable memory and replaceable battery. It’s kind of a pet peeve I have with the iPhone. Call me conservative, but I don’t like the thought of being on a long business trip and not have a spare battery. I carry a 16GB microSD in an externally accessible memory slot. No need to remove batteries, just a side door. It fits my documents, videos, and music quite well and theoretically limitless with every added card.

MicroSD door closed

MicroSD door open

• MS Office File Support: Built-in and free, you can download, save, view, and even edit the latest PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files. Excel wasn’t that useful given column width issues, but Word and especially PowerPoint was impressive. For an added fee, you can even create these documents.

• Rock solid: The Storm was solid physically, but the Bold is rock-solid. I have dropped it on every axis, 25x with no issues. Whenever I dropped my Pearl, I would get a SIM card error or the battery would pop out. Drop the Bold… pick it up where you left off. I suspect my Bold could easily survive a 5′ drop onto its screen. Would you say that for your iPhone?

From an application stability standpoint, I only get lockups or issues on some of the more sophisticated video streaming apps like Qik, but for the other 99.9% of the time, rock solid.

• Multitasking & Copy Paste: Unlike some phones, the Bold can multitask. If you are anything like me, you are bouncing between the phone, Google maps, the browser, email, address book, and want to go back at the stage where you left off, not start the app over again.

I can copy and paste literally between EVERY application on the Bold and its add-on apps. Very impressive and a huge time-saver.

• Screen: This display is 480×320 pixels and strikingly crisp. It’s only about half the size of an iPhone, but then again it’s 100% screen, and doesn’t share it with a keyboard. The only situation I want more screen is for videos, some web sites, and maybe some PowerPoint.

On web surfing, Bold makes up for the screen size with a very ingenious toggle. If you are on a web page that is wider than the page or the text too small, just press the “z” key and the browser reorients into column mode and you can see the web site much, much better. Press “z” again and it pops into page view mode. The trackball also lets you navigate web pages in 360 degree movement and magnify the area by clicking on it.

• Standard mini-USB port: Bold uses a standard mini-USB port and cable to charge and transfer data. I have a lot of gadgets and don’t have time for proprietary USB implementations. I can handle USB, mini-USB, and micro-USB, but have no time for Palm Centro’s or iPhone proprietary connectors.

• Digital camera: The Bold takes decent pictures at 2MP with 1600×1200 max resolution. The built-in flash is very bright, and I always get comments from envious iPhone owners wishing they had a flash. The Bold supports geo-tagging which uses the GPS capability to log the long/lat data to use with supported photo packages.

• Music player: Same as the Storm. I easily synched my iTunes playlists and all my non-DRM’d songs played. The album art also transferred which was a nice “extra” I didn’t expect. The speaker volume was unexpectedly loud, but not louder than the Storm.

• Video player and recorder: I am very impressed with the breadth of video formats supported; unlike other popular phones…. uh iPhone. The Bold supports DivX 4, DivX 5/6 is partially supported, XviD is partially supported, H.263, H.264, and WMV3 are supported. For me, it did play non-DRM’d video from my iPod and Nano with no alterations, very convenient. You can reconvert loads of video which can take advantage of four processor cores. I used an AMD Phenom TM X4 9950 quad core processor overclocked to 3.2Ghz (using AMD Fusion for Gaming utility) and was appreciating all four of those wonderful cores.¹

The video recorder function is awesome, but only in medium or high lighting. It records in .3gp format in low density quality, fine for streaming real-time to the internet or even emailing. I use Qik to real-time stream video to the internet.

Improvements I would like to See

• Faster web Java-script: Like the Storm, web surfing was fast on most sites until I hit java-script-laden sites, then the browser appeared to slow down. The default browser setting is “off” and if a site really needs Java-script to accomplish a major task, it asks you. My point of reference here is the iPhone and the Touch which has fast browsing with or without Java-script turned on.

• Improved popular applications: I can live without iPhone “Fart” or G1′s “Level” app, but not without a better functioning FaceBook and Twitter application. What a faux pas when compared to the iPhone. It has been months and would expect more from RIM. If iPhone ever got a physical keyboard and multitasking, I could be swayed. With that said, BlackBerry has some very good and differentiated applications like Qik for real-time video streaming, Flickr for photo uploads, SlingPlayer TV, YouVersion Bible and E*Trade Mobile Pro.

Summary

Today I prefer the Bold as my cloud workhorse to the alternatives (iPhone, Storm, Android G1) and has enough good consumer features to keep me happy and interested for the time being. RIM will need to improve web Java-script execution time and up the ante on the popular applications if they want folks to continue to cheer them on. With talk of iPhone’s improved multitasking, copy-paste, and video recorder functionality, I hope this will provide impetus for some improvements. If not, maybe the Palm Pre’.

I would love to hear from your experiences with the BlackBerry Bold.

¹ AMD’s PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN OVERCLOCKING IS ENABLED VUA AMD SOFTWARE. THE AMD FUSION FOR GAMING UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

]]> http://blogs.amd.com/home/2009/02/17/blackberry-bold-my-mobile-cloud-workhorse/feed/ 9 http://blogs.amd.com/home/2008/12/01/one-week-with-the-new-blackberry-storm/ http://blogs.amd.com/home/2008/12/01/one-week-with-the-new-blackberry-storm/#comments Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:03:00 +0000 Pat Moorhead /patmoorhead/archive/2008/12/01/blackberry-storm-smartphone-verizon-review-cloud.aspx Continue reading]]>

]]> http://blogs.amd.com/home/2008/10/20/more-than-doubling-the-amd-phenom-x4-processor-overclock-capabilities-in-about-nine-months/feed/ 6 http://blogs.amd.com/home/2008/10/03/how-i-accelerated-my-outlook-performance-with-a-gaming-utility/ http://blogs.amd.com/home/2008/10/03/how-i-accelerated-my-outlook-performance-with-a-gaming-utility/#comments Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:32:00 +0000 Pat Moorhead /patmoorhead/archive/2008/10/03/accelerate-outlook-2007-performance-gaming-utility-vista-fusion-microsoft-office.aspx Continue reading]]>

In Nigel’s latest blog, he wrote about using the Fusion for Gaming utility ¹ to improve his notebook battery life while in-flight.  Since launching and blogging on the Fusion for Gaming utility last week, I have also done some simple, ad-hoc testing outside of the gaming space.  While it may seem counter-intuitive to do so given the name, I wanted to see if the underlying technology could help me with a challenge I have “at work.”    I am excited to say, after a few hours of testing, my Outlook experience feels significantly faster with the utility running.

At work, like many AMD employees and enterprise users, I run Microsoft Outlook 2007 along with the full Office 2007 suite.  I run a Microsoft Vista Enterprise-based, multi-monitor desktop in order to do many different things at the same time.  I “megatask,” which is simply hard-core multi-tasking.

If you have used Outlook lately, you know that it’s a lot more than just an email client.  Outlook links to literally everything… it connects your email to your calendar to your task management system to your journal to your contact list to your … you get the idea.  Good product.  But for about a year now, I have experienced inexplicable “pauses” when I task-switch between Outlook apps, or when Outlook is synchronizing (you know, when you get the two envelopes in your systray).  I had all the obvious things checked out:   hardware, corporate software image, Exchange Server settings, archiving, vaulting, network, etc., which always yielded some temporary relief.  Then Outlook would start ”pausing” a few weeks later, which I chalked up to doing a lot of work and getting a lot done while increasing my Exchange folder size: I fully plead guilty to AMD IT in using the folders as a file system.

So I loaded the Fusion for Gaming utility and saw an immediate improvement in my Outlook performance.  Things loaded quicker, those inexplicable “pauses” went away and it is simply delivering a more productive and enjoyable compute experience.  Sounds bizarre, I know, you should see the looks on the faces of my co-workers when I tell them this!  So I did some simple digging into the Performance Tab in Windows Task Manager to see if I could attempt to explain any of this.. and it became clearer.  On the left, you can see the relative performance data without the Fusion for Gaming utility enabled, and on the right, with the utility enabled.

It appears that on my system, Outlook likes a more limited number of “threads,” “handles” and “processes” or simply put, background tasks.  I am sure there is a more comprehensive, long-winded technical explanation from folks who are much smarter than I will ever be, but this is my experience and of course, your mileage will vary :>.

It has worked for me on Outlook, and I urge you to give the Fusion for Gaming utility a spin and let me know what you think.. also, if you are one of those scary-smart guys who can explain why technically my Outlook is faster I would love to hear from you.

My desktop work rig: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ processor @3.2GHz., ATI Radeon HD 3870 graphics, Gigabyte GAMA69GM-S2H motherboard (BIOS F3A 8/3/2007) with AMD 690G chipset, 150GB Western Digital Raptor hard drive (10,000 RPM), 4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 RAM (recognized by Vista 32 as 3GB), ATI Catalyst Control Center 8.8, AMD OverDrive 2.1.4.

¹ THIS UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING.

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

In Nigel’s latest blog, he gives the big picture of what the new AMD Fusion campaign means to our customers and business partners. Being the new tech lover that I am, I decided to explore the new AMD Fusion for Gaming utility. I‘ll start broad, then get to the juicy details, but first a teaser from my personal numbers: I saw a best-case gaming experience frames-per-second improvement of over 100% using the new utility.

First, as I have covered in previous blogs here and here, for PCs, AMD innovates around usage models. Whether it’s productivity, home media, or playing games, we work with customers, channels, and end users to better understand their pain and pleasure points, apply the right integrated technologies to meet those needs, and then help deliver the complete experience through our customers and channels.

Console and PC Gaming are very important usage models to AMD, and we apply many hardware and software innovations for both “hard-core gamers” and “consumers who like to play games.” Hardware innovations include our ATI Radeon™ HD graphics, AMD Phenom™ and AMD Turion™ processors, and the chipset platforms. On the software side, we deliver drivers and the award-winning ATI Catalyst™ Control Center that lets you tweak almost every aspect of your graphics card with respect to 3D, video, color, power management, multi-GPUs, and display connectivity. Also, AMD Overdrive™ allows you to tune the performance of your CPU, memory, and chipset.

When the AMD Fusion for Gaming development team asked me to try out their newest software creation last weekend, I jumped ALL over it and wanted to share my experiences.

Hard core gamers know that to have the best experience possible, they need a bad-ass graphics card like the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870, a beefy CPU like the Phenom™ 9850 processor, a great performance chipset like the AMD 790GX, software tools like AMD Overdrive and ATI Overdrive™, and as few applications and tasks as possible running in the foreground and background. Historically, even for knowledgeable enthusiasts, this would be a time-consuming process. For the mainstream user who likes to play games, this type of performance optimization was completely out of reach. To solve these pain points, we created the AMD Fusion for Gaming utility.

The AMD Fusion for Gaming utility was designed to optimize your AMD-based PC for smoother, more responsive game play in the latest PC games with the touch of a button; the utility helps achieve the performance previously only available to highly technical enthusiasts. It works by temporarily shutting down background processes and intensifying processor performance with AMD Boost. That means you can keep all the features, tasks, and applications running on your Microsoft® Windows Vista® PC ready when you need them, but turn them off when you are ready to get down to serious gaming.¹

”Simplicity” was the design principle for the utility, but we still let you peek behind the curtains into the advanced interface to change how the utility works. You can customize with user selectable profiles to individually optimize your PC for gaming. Also, you can easily build your own profile and choose exactly what you want disabled for a leaner footprint. If you want to squeeze every bit of performance from your system, engage our most advanced acceleration technologies such as AMD Overdrive, Auto-Tuning and Hard Drive Acceleration.²

So with that long-winded intro, let me tell you what I personally experienced…

Desktop Gaming

I saw a big improvement in my desktop gaming experience using Fusion for Gaming. This was not surprising given I used Expert Profile that initiates AMD Boost, Hard Drive Acceleration, AMD OverDrive and ATI Overdrive in addition to shutting down unneeded services and third-party applications. Playing games just felt “better”. I know that doesn’t sound like science, but real gamers know what I mean. On Call of Duty 4 and Crysis, my system felt more responsive and snappier. I did a few rudimentary benchmarks on these two games using FRAPS, and saw about a 23-29% improvement in frame rates. Using some canned benchmarks, I saw the following:

• 3D Mark: 15% overall score improvement in 3DMark
• World In Conflict: Based on the setting, improvements in frame rates were 55% for the “average” setting, 157% for the “minimum” setting and 116% for the “maximum” setting
• Lost Planet: 5.8% “Snow” and 24% “Cave” scene frame rate improvement

Very impressive, but again, not surprising, given I was overclocking the CPU, GPU, hard drive, and shutting many Windows services, foreground and background apps. I am not a professional benchmarker like Kyle Bennett or Marco Chiappetta, but these numbers make sense given the “feel” of the game. And remember – these are my results achieved on the platforms indicated below – your experience may differ.

Notebook Gaming

One of the things I love to do with my 6 year old son is play PC games. We place a notebook on the coffee table in the living room, plug in two controllers, and go to town. We play games like Lego Star Wars II, Lego Indiana Jones, and IronMan… age appropriate stuff.I would consider this usage model to be about “people who like to play games”, NOT the “hard core gamer”. Surprisingly, I saw some of the largest boosts here. I didn’t expect it because I didn’t initiate AMD OverDrive or ATI Overdrive, just AMD Boost, Hard Drive Acceleration, and turned off unneeded tasks and applications. My hunch is that because it was a 2GB integrated graphics system where graphics shares memory and I run a lot of background tasks, shutting those down really helped. Again, the experience of Lego Star Wars II just “felt better.”

Like the desktop system, I ran some rudimentary benchmarks on the notebook:

• 3D Mark:8.9% improvement in 3DMark
• World In Conflict: Based on the setting, improvements in frame rates were 140% for the “average” setting, 600% for the “minimum” setting and 53% for the “maximum” setting
• Lost Planet: No improvement in frame rates

I didn’t expect to see any improvement, honestly, so I was surprised to see the World in Conflict numbers. Again, my hunch is that it is the memory impact and all the tasks and the applications that were shut down plus the fact that I used a 2GB integrated graphics system. And again – these are my results, yours may differ.

All in all, I was impressed at the simplicity AMD Fusion for Gaming utility brought to my desktop and the improvement to the gameplay. And on the notebook side, I was very surprised at how much it improved my gaming experience and framerates. While not perfect without some glitches as the utility is in beta, I think the AMD for Fusion for Gaming utility pulls together the strength of AMD’s CPU, GPU and chipset franchises better than ever, and pays off on the promises AMD has made to its customers, channels, and end users on the “fused” value of the three components.

You can download the Fusion utility here and AMD Overdrive 2.14 here, and I would love to hear about your experiences.

¹ THIS UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING.

² AMD’S PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN ENABLED VIA AMD SOFTWARE.

Desktop configuration: AMD Phenom X4 9850 processor, ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics, Foxconn A7DA-S motherboard (BIOS 81BF1P03) with 790GX chipset and SB 750, 1GB Seagate hard drive (7200 RPM), 2GB Corsair XMS2 RAM, ATI Catalyst Control Center 8.8, AMD OverDrive 2.1.4.

Notebook configuration: Toshiba L305D-S5873, AMD Turion X2 RM-70 processor, ATI Radeon 3100 graphics, 2GB RAM, 160GB (5400RPM) hard drive, ATI Catalyst Control Center 8.8.

Applications: GooglePack, Digsby, Tweetdeck, Picasa 2 media detector, Windows Defender, Orb, Internet Explorer 8.0, Windows Home Server Connect, AT&T Communications Manager, CD/DVD Acoustic Silencer and Config Free (On Toshiba)

Pat Moorhead is Vice President of Advanced Marketing at AMD.His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

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