Archive for the category Gadgetry
Kudos to iPhone 3GS on Battery Life Disclosure
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 2:02 PM
(11 votes, average: 3.91 out of 5)
Loading ...The new iPhone 3GS is capturing the attention of press, bloggers, and most importantly, consumers. While I get my work jollies from my BlackBerry Bold and portable PMP fun from my iPod Touch, I also must give the iPhone 3GS credit in one dimension that’s not getting a lot of attention: consumer battery life information. I have thought for a while that cellphones and smartphones are marketed with better battery life information than notebook computers, despite the price premium notebooks command, and the iPhone 3GS demonstrates this once again.
Main iPhone Information Page
When consumers navigate to the main iPhone page, about ¾ of the page down you see a link that says, “iPhone 3GS or Iphone 3G: Compare”.
Compare iPhones Page
Click this and you go to a comparison page of the iPhone 3G versus iPhone 3GS. About ¾ down the page, you see a battery life comparison:
|
iPhone 3GS |
iPhone 3G |
|
|
Talk time: |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
|
up to 12 hours on 2G |
up to 10 hours on 2G |
|
|
Standby time: |
Up to 300 hours |
Up to 300 hours |
|
Internet use: |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
Up to 5 hours on 3G; |
|
up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi |
up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi |
|
|
Audio playback: |
Up to 30 hours |
Up to 24 hours |
|
Video playback: |
Up to 10 hours |
Up to 7 hours |
These seems like intuitive figures to provide a consumer, yet Apple is already operating in rarefied air in providing this much consumer information. But wait, what about the details on what was tested, you ask? Apple iPhone delivers, again. When you click on the disclaimer (3) you are brought down to a line that says, “3) All battery claims depend on network configuration and many other factors; actual results will vary. For more details of iPhone performance tests for talk time, standby time, Internet use over 3G, Internet use over Wi-Fi, video playback, and audio playback, see www.apple.com/iphone/battery.html.”
Full Battery Life Performance Testing Disclosure Page
Click on the link in the disclaimer above and you are brought to a page that contains more battery life procedure testing than I have ever seen before. These 1,173 words of technical bliss scream detail. Sure, someone could chose to pick at the way the testing was done, but you cannot complain about the detailed disclosure. The page meticulously goes through the tests performed, the hardware used, and how it was done.
Who Cares?
We have made it very public and clear that AMD is striving to guide the PC industry to deliver better notebook PC battery life information for consumers. Nigel and I have articulated the challenges and provided suggestions to this. We expect some in the industry to adopt these, but some will sit on the sidelines. To those who choose to sit I ask, how do you feel about better battery life information being disclosed on a $99 iPhone than a $799 notebook PC? Industry, we can do better than the cell phone industry.
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.
EU Decision and the Secret Sauce in Innovation
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 12:32 PM
I’m still coming to terms with today’s news from Brussels. Wow. I encourage you to read Nigel’s assessment which details how the fallout from Intel’s third straight conviction by government watchdogs comes down to three issues: price, innovation and choice. If you love technology and what it can do for people the way I do, perhaps the most exciting thing to emerge from yesterday’s ruling is the huge potential for a step change in the pace of innovation. Why?
I believe competition is the “secret sauce” that drives innovation. That’s true in any industry, and it’s also true in life. Would the U.S. have put a man on the moon if not for Sputnik? Maybe, but there’s no question that the Space Race and attending accelerated pace of innovationwas fueled by very high stakes competition between the US and the former Soviet Union.
Goliath with brass knuckles
At AMD we live to compete and innovate, and it starts by asking questions like “What will it take to deliver the next-generation computing experience?” And while innovation with impact is our calling card, it’s more than fair to say that AMD also loves a good fight. But hopefully the world now knows that we’ve fight an enormous opponent that rigs the game to ensure AMD can never fully win fair and square.
Like Nigel said, competition investigators have for a third time (Japan, Korea, European Union) collected evidence showing that especially when AMD opens commanding product leads on Intel and we take those innovations to the marketplace, Intel uses bribery and coercive tactics to block those innovations. Whole AMD customer segments and sales channels are effectively shutdown by Intel.That’s Don Corleone type stuff, folks. That’s David versus Goliath, with Goliath packing brass knuckles on one hand and a brick-filled sock in the other.
The AMD Critic: “AMD should innovate, not litigate”
I’ve heard the Intel apologists say: “AMD should innovate instead of litigate.” If you doubt we fear an innovation fight with Intel or that we can truly compete with Intel, remember that we have proven that we can out-innovate or remain competitive against Intel, a company with about 10x the resources. We are champing at the bit to attack an open, competitive marketplace that is no longer artificially manipulated by Goliath.
You may be sitting there saying, “OK Pat – that’s your opinion, and a biased opinion at that!” Fair enough. If that was opinion, here are 10 facts that should do some of the talking for AMD in terms of theinnovation chops we have under our roof:
Fact #1
Billions of financial transactions are conducted quickly and efficiently every day by major stock exchanges around the world on AMD-based servers.
Fact #2
All 50 Million Wii gaming consoles shipped to date run on AMD technology (ATI Hollywood GPU).
Fact #3
7 of the 10 fastest supercomputers in the world are powered by AMD processors.
Fact #4
AMD processors were trusted to power crash safety test simulations for almost 2 million new cars that hit the road in the US in 2008.
Fact #5
Realistic special effects powered by AMD technology have helped Hollywood amass more than $5.4 billion in worldwide box office revenue.
Fact #6
AMD processors in the Top500 supercomputer list account for more than 4.029 petaflops of computing power (that’s more than four thousand trillion calculations per second).
Fact #7
50% of Internet DNS traffic is efficiently and quickly routed via AMD-powered servers.
Fact #8
Musicians and producers who have collectively won 70 Grammy awards currently rely on AMD technology for their cutting edge digital music production.
Fact #9
Every month nearly 23 million travelers find their ideal trip using online travel services powered by AMD-based hardware.
Fact #10
AMD graphics and slot machine are a winning combination. More than 75% of new slot machines in Vegas use AMD graphics to power their visually stunning imagery, and more than half of those machines also use an AMD CPU.
So to borrow from our corporate philosophy, I’m more than happy to combine these facts with our employees’ passion for innovation. And I’ve never felt better about the future of innovation than I do today. What do you think?
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.
AMD: 40 Years of “Just Doing it”
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 10:30 PM
AMD celebrates its 40th anniversary May 1st and I want to provide my thoughts and perspective. Yes, I am a proud AMD employee, so this blog is biased in that I am personally invested in AMD’s future success and its history. To me AMD means a lot of things, but the best way I can express it is to say: AMD means “We can” and “Can do”.
Let me tell you about that.
I met up with AMD during my tenure at Compaq Computer Corp. starting in 1995. Back then, lots of PCs sold for as much as $2,000 and the idea of notebooks for consumers instead of just business people was new. AMD helped change the entire landscape on both those fronts and the market has never been the same.
I also fondly recall loving the ATI RageTM Pro graphics card. In fact it was at that time that Compaq actually soldered the ATI Rage Pro engine onto the motherboard [it was in fact the first motherboard-resident AGP graphics chip]. Soldering anything on a mobo back in the day was a huge commitment and vote of confidence.
In late 2000, I joined AMD and have called it home ever since.
I admire AMD for a lot of things, but three things come top of mind:
1. Integrity, the highest levels.
2. Putting customers first, sometimes seemingly at its own peril.
3. Defying the pundits and “just doing it”
#1 and #2 are reasonably self-explanatory so I will drill down into #3. I will provide the “dialogue” as people may have heard it play-out many times before:
- 1990 Pundit: “You have the 386 mask set, but not the microcode. No way can you make a 386.”
But AMD did it.
- 1992 Pundit: “You don’t have the 486 mask set or the microcode. No way can you make a 486.”
But AMD did it.
- 1997 Pundit: “You have relied on Intel’s infrastructure this whole time so no way you can make a 7th generation CPU with an AMD-based motherboard infrastructure. You are dead.”
But AMD did it.
- 1999 Pundit: “New and proprietary instruction sets from massive companies are the way to go. You are nuts if you think you can drive a 64-bit instruction set by yourselves. You will be dead.”
But AMD did it.
- 2003 Pundit: “No way you can get into the datacenter. You are just a consumer desktop CPU company. Get back in your box.”
But AMD did it.
- 2007 Pundit: “You’ve lost graphics technology leadership and you won’t ever get it back. The competition is too tough.”
But AMD did it.
So I hope I refreshed your memory banks on what pundits may have said, how AMD said “we can” and how AMD “just did it”. I want to highlight that we didn’t do anything on our own without the support of our customers, their customers, and technology and infrastructure partners.
I am excited about AMD, our employees, and our future. I am excited about what we plan to bring to our customers on cloud server computing and media-rich consumer usage models. Pundits will take shots and that’s okay, as it tends to motivate us and enhance the sweetness of our successes in the end.
Pundits laughed when Kennedy set his challenge to send a man to the moon and return him safely by the end of the 1960s. We like our moon-shots at AMD, too, and surprising the pundits again and again. 
AMD, happy 40th and I promise I will keep promoting the “we can” attitude and we’ll just do it.
Note: Nigel Dessau, CMO and SVP at AMD is also providing his unique blog perspective on the 40th anniversary here.
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.
Safari 4 Beta: Stakes are High in Browser Wars
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 3:37 AM
Competition is good for innovation, and there is certainly competition in web browsers these days. It’s not that there’s much money to be made in the browser itself given these are “free” downloads, but the value of the ecosystem that browsers can control is immense. Browsers are the development platform and gateway to the cloud, thus if you control the browser, you theoretically control some cloud access.
At CES 2009, AMD demonstrated playing through a smartphone web browser, EA’s latest Mercenaries 2: World in FlamesTM. We also demonstrated watching through a smartphone browser a Hancock Blu-ray movie with the full menuing system. Both of these were streamed by the AMD Fusion Render Cloud reference design. So the browser matters.
This makes me naturally quick to try the latest browser or major revision of one. I spent 24 hours with the Apple Safari 4 Beta and wanted to share my experiences. 24 hours on beta software isn’t the complete picture but I can get maybe 85% of my perspective in that time frame.
I want to do some level setting up front- this is a beta and therefore should have bugs, that’s natural and I thank Apple for doing a public beta. Secondly, browser choices are driven by personal needs and preferences like simplicity, speed, familiarity, add-on features, and even enterprise-mandated browser standards for full compatibility. But many people are oblivious and simply use the browser that was installed on their PC bought from a local retailer.
So these are MY views based on my history and usage patterns. I am primarily a PC user but also have two Macs. I primarily use Firefox but use Internet Explorer as the corporate front-end to SAP applications. I use Chrome also. I obviously use Safari on my iPod Touch (no choice) and prefer the integrated browser on my Bold, Storm, and G1 Android versus mobile Opera.
I did my 24 hours of testing on three systems:
- Hand-built desktop with Windows Vista Business Edition 32-bit, AMD Phenom TM 9850 processor, ATI Radeon TM HD 4870 graphics
- HP Pavilion dv5 with Windows Vista Premium 64-bit, AMD Turion TM ZM-80 processor, ATI Radeon TM HD 3200 graphics
- Fujitsu Lifebook 2110 with Windows XP Pro 32-bit, AMD Turion TM 64 X2 TL-58 processor, ATI Radeon TM Xpress 1150 graphics
Plusses
- Easy to install, no error messages. Apple must supercharge this download through a big-time caching service because it was FAST.
- Imported my Internet Explorer and Firefox bookmarks without issues into legible folders.
- Not a single lock up on 100’s of pages from many different sites.
- Full functionality on the many sites I visited with the exception of the two important sites listed below.
Too Early To Tell
- Meaningful speed. Reportedly faster than Chrome and that means real fast. I cannot tell the difference between the speed of Chrome and Safari 4, but folks I follow are citing tests that show it is. CNet UK says it is faster than Chrome while PC Magazine says that it still trailed Chrome on some key tests. But they both say it’s faster than Firefox but yet I cannot tell ANY real experiential difference.
- iTunes-like scroll bar (picture below). This is under Bookmarks. I may end up loving this but right now I just don’t know.
Improvements I Would Like To See
- Add-ons. This is just more of an issue with Safari in general, not Safari 4. Safari has add-ons too, but in my opinion, don’t have the depth or breadth I want. Every cool tool I run across, it seems like Firefox has an add-on immediately.
- Multi-tab Startup. I want to pre-load 10 tabs whenever I open the browser. I use my browser for real work and pong from tab to tab like a day-trader, but I am trading information. I cannot figure out how to do that yet with Safari 4, maybe I cannot.
- Forced application close: On Windows 64 install, shut down Tweetdeck and other browsers without prompting.
- A few bugs: Hey it’s called beta for a reason, to ring out some of the last issues. Blogger: comment validation error with perpetual “loading” message. WordPress: Perpetual loading of a few assets. Its a beta, live with it!
- Forward/Next page drop downs. This is truly personal and out of habit, but I want drop downs, not holding down the mouse button. See the difference below. I miss that.
Firefox
Internet Explorer
Safari
Conclusion
Safari 4 is an elegant and speedy browser and I am certain that Mac lovers will use it in droves — and maybe even a few iPhone/PC users if they see sufficient value in integration. I may fall in love with some of the more visual features at some point, but for right now, Firefox is fast enough for me, is easier for me to open my multiple tabbed workspace, and finally, for the kind of work I do, you can’t beat the Firefox add-ons. What are your thoughts on Safari 4 Beta?
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.
Archos 7: The Best Portable Media Player You’ve Never Heard Of
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 4:09 AM
Everyone has heard of an iPod, most have heard of the iPod touch, and some of you may have even heard of the Zune or even ZEN, but how about an Archos? Well, if you haven’t, you should check it out, because if you get into watching video, in my opinion, it may be the best personal media player sold. Over the holidays, I got the chance to use the Archos 7 Internet Media Tablet (IMT), a portable media player, and I wanted to tell you about my positive experiences.
Quite simply, the Archos 7 IMT is a portable device that plays a wide variety of videos, music, and pictures and displays them either on its large 7″ touch-screen or through a docking station to your HDTV. Media can be pulled from the device’s hard drive, an external USB hard or flash drive, your personal LAN, and the internet. You can also surf the REAL internet given support for many Flash 9-based sites and finally, do full POP/IMAP email with attachments.
The Plusses
7″ Screen: At 3X the viewing area1 and 2.5X the resolution2 of the iPod touch, movies are viewable within feet, not inches from your eyes and, more than one person can view at a time. I admit, I watch videos on my touch on an airplane about five inches from my eyes when there’s no alternative, but that’s about it. For web surfing, this means you can actually read all columns and characters on sites like MyYahoo, CNN, Drudge Report and NYTimes. It’s cool on the touch, but there’s no need to pinch, squeeze, tilt, etc…. you just see it. To give you a sense of proportionality to the iPod touch, I normalized on the word “Travel” in the photo below:
LAN media streaming: Sure, the Archos 7 has a massive 160-320GB storage capability, but if you are massively into video, odds are that this still won’t be enough storage. That’s OK, because the Archos lets you wirelessly stream content via UPnP and even log into networked PCs and gain access to their content. I also streamed content over the web using AMD LIVE! On Demand software which can be configured to “automagically” recode your content based on our local circumstances like bandwidth. So don’t worry about not getting access to terabytes of family video and photos, just leave it on your home server. I accessed content from my AMD processor-based HP MediaSmart Server and my new hand-crafted, pre-released AMD Phenom™ II processor desktop system.
320GB Hard Drive: At 10X the storage of the 32GB on my touch, it’s no contest. You can also get an Archos 7 with and 160GB drive if you want to save $100. I moved over 10 years of pictures, 20 years of music, and my favorite videos and pictures in FULL resolution, not derezzed like many media players require you to do to fit.
HDTV Input/Output and DVR: With this optional docking stand (called “DVR Station”) , you can project videos on your TV at up to 720P and up to 5.1 audio. And of course, :> you can also record video to your Archos at 640×480 from your satellite box, DVR, cable box and even a VCR (DRM permitting…). On the side of the stand, there is also a USB port where you can plug in USB 2.0 hard drives or flash memory sticks. To control the unit from 10″, Archos ships a remote control. It took me a while to master its “unique” design, but once I did, I could even quickly surf the internet with it on my 120” projector or 50” HDTV.
Wide content format support: I don’t like the CODEC wars and you shouldn’t either, as it just limits everything and is a real pain in the rear. It played almost everything I threw at it. Although it doesn’t officially support Divx, I was able to play a few clips. I wasn’t able to test every CODEC and wrapper, but the Archos web site states the following support:
Video support (from Archos web site)- “MPEG-4 (ASP@L5 AVI, up to DVD resolution). WMV (MP@ML, up to DVD resolution) including WMV protected files, M-JPEG (Motion JPEG Video) in QVGA resolution. With optional plug-in (downloadable from your tablet on www.archos.com): HD support: MPEG-4 (ASP 720p) & WMV HD (MP 720p), H.264 up to DVD resolution with AAC, MPEG-2 MP@ML up to 10 Mbps (up to DVD resolution) and AC3 stereo sound (5.1)”
If you are serious about your video quality, I would recommend recoding your video into the highest resolution and bit-rate the Archos supports. You may even need to de-res any 1080I/P videos. Alternatively, if you want the maximum video storage on your system, I would recommend testing different formats, resolutions, and bit-rates that look “good enough” to you. Remember, though, that you may be projecting the video to your HDTV, which is a lot larger than 7″.
To recode all that video, I recommend a high-frequency, quad-core desktop system powered by a processor like the AMD Phenom II X4 processor. I overclocked my newly-built pre-released Phenom II processor-based system to 3.8 GHz from its stock 3.0 GHz on a stock AMD heat-sink without even trying hard and saw large improvements in recode time.3 On the software side, I like to keep it simple with Nero or even simpler with Movavi. Smarter people than I in the office prefer to use higher-end packages like Sony Vegas or even Adobe CS3/CS4.
Audio support (from Archos web site)- “Stereo MP3 decoding @ 30-320 Kbits/s CBR & VBR, WMA, Protected WMA, WMA pro 5.1, WAV (PCM/ADPCM), AC3 stereo audio and 5.1 sound files (via SPDIF output of DVR Station), Flac and OGG Vorbis audio files. With optional software plug-ins (downloadable from your tablet on www.archos.com): unprotected AAC, AAC+ stereo audio files.”
Kick-stand: It’s simple… you want to put the Archos on a flat surface like a desk or airline tray, just pop the metal stand out of the back and you are viewing or listening at a 45 degree angle.
Easy content transfer: Adding music, videos, and pictures is about as easy as it gets…. add your music to the device’s “music” folder, add your videos to the “video” folder, and add pictures to the “pictures” folder on the device. That’s so much easier than the touch, where I need to typically reformat the family video to an touch-supported format, import into iTunes, add to a playlist, then finally synch the touch.
Stereo speakers: I rarely listen to music on my touch without a speaker-bay, but you can with the Archos. It has built-in stereo speakers that were surprisingly clear and louder than many notebooks sold today.
Battery life: The Archos web site states 39 hours of music or 10 hours of video (at low backlight.) The iPod touch states on their web site 36 hours of music and 6 hours of video. On the Archos, I personally got more like 5 hours of video with a bright back-light, still very good for such a large 7″ display and 320GB drive.
Mixed Emotions
Application support: I bought the Archos 605 WiFi model last year and there are no new “Widgets” published since then. The following widgets were pre-installed: weather, contacts (vcards), calculator, currency converter, RSS reader, note taker, and a unit measurement converter. If one can access the “real” internet, why does one need 500 widgets? Well, besides games, you may not, but isnt the iTunes App Store fun? It would be real hard to live without apps like pour1out, Lightsaber, Kai Pond, or MazeFinger….. or on my G1 apps like Bubble, Compare Everywhere, and Flashlight. :>
The Minuses
Occassional lockups: Sure, I get these on my PCs, my Macs, my DVRs, my mobile phones, and my routers. But on the Archos I got them more often, particularly while using the 802.11b/g wireless.
Movie content service: CinemaNow is the only major provider where you can rent or buy movies. I don’t want all my subscription services all over the universe and I already buy video from Time Warner, NetFlix, iTunes, Movielink and BlockBuster, and I don’t want any more content that i can’t play on all my devices. I am sick of it and I protest.
Time to internet from standby: When I use devices like the iPod touch or the Archos, I use it sporadically, sending it automatically into sleep. I have become spoiled at how quickly the iPod touch turns on and connects to the internet…..about 3 seconds. The Archos takes about 20 seconds….5 seconds to turn on and 15 seconds to connect to the internet. I didn’t notice it until I realized how good the touch was, so maybe you won’t notice it, particularly as once it is “on” there are no issues.
Summary
My favorite features of the Archos were the 7″ screen, the media streaming capability from my home server, “open” video formats, and the gigantic 320GB hard drive. You can get the more compact Archos 5 IMT as low as $349 with a 4.8″ screen / 60GB hard drive and up to the top of the line Archos 7 IMT for $549 with a 7″ screen / 320 GB hard drive. You can also get the 160GB Archos 7 for $449, only $50 more than the $399 3.5″ / 32GB iPhone touch.
If you are really into video playback, want a large screen, want portability but don’t need to put it in your coat pocket, and want to display high-quality video to an HDTV, I would highly recommend looking at the Archos 7 Internet Media Tablet. That is, of course, if you don’t need ultra-portability or can’t live without iTunes or apps like Kai Pond or LightSaber. :> If you have a favorite portable media player, I would love to hear which one and why.
1) Viewing area; Archos 7: 15.64 in2; Apple iPhone touch 3.91 in2 (4:3. 1.33:1, NTSC)
2) Resolution: Archos 7: 800×480 pixels=384,000 pixels; Apple iPhone touch: 480×320 pixels=153,600 pixels
3) AMD’s PRODUCT WARRANTY DOES NOT COVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY OVERCLOCKING, EVEN WHEN OVERCLOCKING IS ENABLED VIA AMD SOFTWARE.
Note: There is no business relationship between Archos and AMD.
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.
Should the PC Be Worried about the Best DMA To Date?
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 7:06 AM
I have believed for years that if someone with just minor technical understanding wants to watch their digital videos or photos on their big-screen TV, the PC is still the best choice. Question is, how close are we getting to the DMA (Digital media adapter) catching up to the PC?
After years of personal testing, sifting through mounds of secondary research and sitting through the research glass watching consumers, I have become very opinionated about the best DMA (Digital Media Adapter) to connect to a TV or flat panel for watching videos and pictures. Yes, I have tried a mountain of DMAs in my own home: D-Link DSM-520, Linksys DMA2200, Apple TV, Archos 605 WiFi, HP MediaSmart x280n, Roku SoundBridge, Xbox 360, Iomega ScreenPlay HD, iPhone, iPod, and Roku Netflix player (and a few I am sure I have forgotten). They all have their strengths and weaknesses on price, functionality, content, reliability, and ease of use, but again, the PC still reigns.
It’s not just any PC, though. It needs to be optimized for a 10′ experience and comfortably fit into the living room. A small form factor media center PC still “wins” could consist of a low-wattage, high performance CPU like a 65 watt AMD Phenom processor, efficient hardware HiDef video decode off the GPU like a “silent-edition” ATI Radeon HD 3650 or the motherboard-based ATI Radeon HD 3200 connected to the HDTV over HDMI, a Gyration keyboard and remote, and all the video “codec packs”, to run virtually any flavor of video. The chassis must be able to support the usage model technologically, ergonomically, and with style. Trust me, when you have been married 18 years like me, the “style” thing becomes real important. For me, the “PC over the DMA” argument comes down to compatibility, ease of use, flexibility, and price.
So when I do run into a DMA that impresses, I want to tell people about it. It’s funny how you hear about these new devices. A few weeks ago I was at a reception in New York where I ran into Marco Chiappetta, managing editor of Hot Hardware. He told me about a review he did for CPU Magazine of a device called a “TViX”. So I had to check it out for myself over the weekend… Below you can see the front and offset shots of the TViX sitting on top of a Yamaha receiver.
Here are the basics from the DViCO website on the TViX 6500a:
- · Video formats: .mkv, .iso, .mpg, .iso, .vob, .mp4, .asf, .tp, .trp, .ts, .m2ts, .mov
- · Video codecs: MPEG 1/2/4, AVI, XVID, WMV9, H.264, AVC HD, VC-1
- · Video resolutions: Up to 1920×1080P
- · Storage connectivity: Internal SATA hard drive, 2 external USB drives, and RJ45 networked.
For me, the TViX handled almost all the video I threw at it at 1080 and 720 projecting on a 120” screen with the exception of a few highly encoded .MOV, .AVI, .MKV files, and surprisingly, with videos from a new and inexpensive HD camcorder I just purchased. It also had some issues with a 720P .MOV file off an older digital camera. It rebooted on a few videos, but again still chewed through most of the formats I threw at it. It will hopefully be addressed with future firmware updates, but there are never any guarantees with video. These same files I had issues with on the TViX worked fine on my PC using CyberLink, QuickTime or VLC. Finally, The upscaling of the standard def video to higher def video was impressive as well.
Below you can see the remote (left) and the on screen display when you first power-on (right).
The most impressive thing to me about the TViX was the local storage capability. A bit strange, I know, being impressed by that for a networkable device, but I will tell you more on that later. I added a 1TB SATA drive and two external USB2 hard drives to give me a total of 2.2TB of local storage! Local playback was incredibly fast and my hunch is that some of its on-board memory is coming into play. I have used other DMAs with local storage and it was incredibly slow, so this was a welcomed change. Below see the open bay for the hard drive (left) and a shot of the back with all the ports (right) which I am sure you recognize.
Networking was a totally different story. No UPnP, so you are kind of on your own to connect it to your networked PCs. I say “kind of” on your own because it did come with PC software to index the PC content, but I was forced to hard-code my PCs IP address into the TViX. I am no self-professed networking expert, and I am brilliantly showing that off as I write. When I did get the streaming to work, it worked well, shockingly well even for very highly-encoded video files.
Net-net for me, the TViX is a decent complement to the PC for videos, photos, and even music if you can figure out the networking and make it reliable, but it isn’t going to compete with the PC anytime soon. And starting at $399 without a hard drive, the TViX isn’t exactly a throw-away, either. In my next few blogs, I will dig a little bit deeper into building an HTPC.
Note: AMD has no affiliation with DVICO.
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.
Technology that “just works”
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 11:52 AM
As I discussed in my first blog post, to do my job effectively, I need to stay very close and hands-on with technology. None of this ivory tower stuff for me…..well I keep it as limited as I can. Home technologies are one of my passions so it’s enjoyable as well. I am always amazed by those that “just work” and those that do not. I try to learn from those experiences and in addition to more formalized primary research programs, use this as information as guideposts to help improve AMD’s own solution offerings.
This weekend, I installed two new devices, a Linksys Gigabit wired/N wireless router (WRT310N) and Linksys’s newest Media Center Extender (DMA2200). It’s incredible how different my installation experiences were between these two products from the same company.
The router “just worked” and the media extender “just didn’t work”. Yes, I expect a router to be much simpler to install than a Windows media extender, but then again, I have a complex network…. I mix wired ethernet (Gb and 100Mb), wireless (B, G, and N), switches (Gb, 100Mb) connected to at least 15 different devices around the house. So when I replaced my 100Mb router with a Gb router and it just worked, I was amazed.
In contrast to this, I spent 8 hours on Saturday trying to get the media extender working correctly and reliably. It was regularly losing its connection to the PC with all my content, and as I’ve come to expect from a Windows media extender adapter, it had trouble with a number of codecs (I’ve discovered there are a number of codecs that Windows doesn’t like……. ironically most of the same ones that Apple likes….. or most of the open source ones. :>) I should know better, given that this is perhaps my 8th extender I have tried out with a similar result. For the record, I recommend to anyone that asks, if you really want to connect a computing device to a TV, do it with an AMD Cool’n'Quiet™PC and not a media extender.
As Nigel wrote here, on the consumer side, through our OEM customers and channels partners, we are trying to make technology solutions that are more fun and easier to use – better for gaming and better for media. That is really the basis for AMD LIVE! TM and AMD GAME! TM. The concept is simple….. in our experience, consumers like to play games and like to play and work with their photos, videos, and music. To do that effectively and efficiently requires different combinations of the right hardware, software, and services. We supply to our OEM customers and channel partners with specific hardware and software configurations to accomplish different levels of gaming (AMD GAME!/ AMD GAME! Ultra) and media (AMD LIVE!). If our OEM customers and channels choose, they can also use the AMD LIVE! or AMD GAME! badging in their marketing programs to signify that they are meeting these specifications. We also provide training and promotional materials to these business partners for use by their salespeople to better educate their own customers. For gaming end users, we also provide a deep content web site for gamers, with forums, downloads, promotions and educational materials .
In the end, technology is still too difficult for most folks and here at AMD one of our goals is to do our part to help improve gaming and media experiences for our OEM customers, channel partners, and most importantly, our end users.
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.
Live From The Post-Computex Social Media Decompression Chamber
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 3:19 AM
Back safely from Computex. Even though this was my tenth trip, this one will stand out for a long time for the high spirit of adventure it produced as a result of implementing many social media tools at once.
We picked a place thirteen time zones away to dive into the deep end of the social media pool. Metaphorically speaking, it felt like being in a tin can going to the moon. We were implementing lots of new capabilities at the same time that ultimately required lots of troubleshooting on the fly. It produced some early headaches and challenges but it turned out to be memorable, spirited, and a lot of fun.
Here’s the rundown on the experience, or should I say experiment, of all these activities.
First, the Nokia N95 phone, in my opinion, was a bust using it the way we wanted to use it. We wanted to be able to automatically capture, upload, and broadcast video with minimal delay. Amazing functionality, for sure, and I’m sure we’ll continue to use it in North America, but couldn’t get it to behave with the 3G networks in Taiwan. This made us dependent on unreliable Wi-Fi signals from the show floor and even back at our hotels. We resorted to using my Flip video camera, uploading that content into our YouTube account vis-à-vis the old reliable PC and using the help of the Flixwagon folks to back load the new content into our Flixwagon account. Two of our videos are still stuck in Flixwagon and won’t load into YouTube! (Check out “Pat Chats with Theo” & “Gigabyte’s Spider”).
We had to implement the same kind of workarounds with the Flickr account using the Nokia N95 phone as well. Frankly, the early troubles with the video impacted the attention we gave to Flickr, which deserved more. But we Flickred, it works, and we’ll do it better next time.
The live Mogulus broadcast of our press event also had mixed results. We implemented an up-rezzing transcoding engine on the live feed from a company called Kulabyte – a very promising technology. Feedback from the audience was mixed – I am told many were amazed by the high quality video streaming through their computers from half a world away. Some experienced a jittery picture. Clearly looks dependent on the capabilities of the end user PC, their network, their WAN, and we will continue to work with these companies to provide a reliable solution for our audience. You can check it out for yourself as the recording on-demand feature is available now. It looks great.
Twitter is still kind of an enigma to me, but it I think it has its place, and I am intrigued. It was kind of a like cross-breed between a mass phone text, a mass IM, and the Truman Show. Like many first-time cross-breedings, it was ugly at times. The Twitter network was down a lot, users were habitually complaining, and there is even a Twitter blog on the issues and reasons for the outages. Even with all the issues, we are starting to build a following. Translating that capability into an on-going business practice will take time and more experimentation.
Next, I didn’t need to spend much time following our Facebook page because it already integrates content from YouTube, FlickR, and Twitter. It is growing by itself and we’re hearing from many long time AMD fans from around the world expressing their feelings about why they like us…..and what they think we need to fix.
Finally, none of this “rise of the machines” stuff above worked without awesome “humans” ;> . I particularly want to thank Scott Carroll, our social media manager and Matt Davis, our PR manager for making everything work when the tech didn’t.
Here are quick & easy summary links to much of this content:
- YouTube AMD@Computex 2008
- FlickR AMD@Computex 2008
- Flixwagon AMD@Computex 2008
- AMD Unprocessed Facebook Page
- Follow AMD on Twitter
- AMD on Mogulus
Community-inspired innovation is awesome. I’m looking forward to continuing the use and implementation of these tools but doing so while playing for the home team in the states for a while… at least a few weeks
This is AMD@Computex 2008, signing off!
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.
Day 3 @Computex: The Innovation Cycle Continues
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 8:45 AM
Day three at Computex comprised of more 1:1 regional press interviews and spending more time, maybe too much time, on the show floor given security booted us out of the facility.
Although I had spent a good part of time interviewing some of our technology partners, it was now our turn to give interviews. The first one was with Bloomberg, and while they would have liked to dig deep into AMD’s financial matters, we confined our discussion to AMD’s products and competitiveness. We also talked with IDG on a variety of corporate areas. I have been meeting with Sumner for years and it’s so nice to catch up with familiar faces.
We also hosted a Japanese press contingent that freelanced for publications including PC Watch and MYCOM Journal The discussion focused on our “Puma” platform, the rationalization behind our AMD GAME!™ and AMD LIVE! ™ programs, and the benefits we believe they provide to different sets of customers. I personally like to think of AMD LIVE! and AMD GAME! as guiding posts to deliver a superior technology platform for mainstream gamers and media mavens. Some may disagree and call it just a sticker program or marketing ploy, but if it can help simplify a confusing buying decision, it’s easy to see the benefit. Again, we in the PC industry tend to lose perspective on the ocean that separates enthusiasts and mainstream customers in how each of them approach a solid buying decision. AMD LIVE! and GAME! fill a void in information availability and help save time and effort for the consumer looking for a great all-around digital media and gaming PC.
The final interview was with Hardware Zone out of Singapore. We chatted a lot about the future, or in my opinion, the questionable future for UMPCs and a lot about the mini-notebook spin and hype at this year’s show. As you know, I spent 30 days at home with a lot of different mini-notebooks, comparing full sized notebooks at the same price point, and blogged about my results here. I just hope that consumers get full disclosure when deciding between a mini-notebook and full-sized notebook at the same price point.
After our 1:1 interviews we met up with GearLive for a chat. These guys are awesome in that they sift right through the spin (B.S.) to get to the heart of the technology and the benefit it provides the end user. I absolutely LOVE that approach and wish more folks would adopt this. You can check out our interview with GearLive here:
…as we discuss the next generation notebook platform.
Jake Ludington from GearLive has great insights on the entire Computex show and he shares these insights on his blog here.
Finally, we met up with AMD’s Jacky Wong to talk about ATI XGP™ technology. This is AMD’s new external PCI Express® (PCIe) 2.0 graphics platform, designed to deliver enthusiast-class desktop graphic performance and true multimedia upgradeability to notebooks. The concept is real simple: If you have a notebook with an ATI XGP Technology external PCIe connector and you want some real incredible gaming performance, plug your notebook into an independently powered and cooled graphics “booster unit”, and you are on your way to gaming heaven. Jacky talks more about it here:
…and shows us a notebook connected to three additional monitors playing some cool games.
As we were giving our final GearLive interview of the show, the lights turned down and security entered our realm, a pretty good sign that it was time to leave. Matt Davis, my AMD compadre of the show, just flipped on the camera and we just started walking and talking, trying to summarize what we saw during the show. You can catch that conversation here.
What a Computex 2008 show…… Puma has been let off the leash and the industry’s cycle of innovation rules over anything else. It rules over spin and the giant blue hype machine… the truth always comes out in the end, or that’s what my grandfather the milkman and Christmas tree farmer told me when I was a mere four foot tall…….
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.
Day 2 @Computex: Innovation Book-ends
Posted by Patrick Moorhead in 3:27 AM
Today was a huge day for AMD which was capped off with the launch of our next generation mobile platform, formerly code-named “Puma”. For me, it was really a tale of book-ends ranging from checking out some of the coolest technology on the show floor to sharing AMD’s innovation vision with Taiwan’s top 100 tech companies.
With so much technology on the floor, I thought the best way to bring you some of the coolest AMD stuff was to shoot it on video and pics so you can see for yourself. There were a ton of our next generation notebook platforms on the show floor with varying configurations. Check out these videos of new notebooks from HP and Acer and MSI. I especially appreciate MSI’s HDMI port so a user can connect their new AMD-based laptop with a single cable to their TV and get great video and audio. On the desktop front, I thought Gigabyte had a very cool Spider platform that you can see here. Not only was it cool, it was water-cooled with an AMD Phenom™ X4 processor and dual ATI Radeon™ 3870 graphics cards in ATI CrossFireX™ mode.
There were also some unique desktop form-factors as well. Acer had a very cool Aspire L5100 SFF desktop, and at less than 1 liter, it was only slightly taller than my business card. I like SFF but I really love big cases, and Thermaltake had some wicked AMD LIVE!™ and AMD GAME!™ chassis on display. You can see all these below.
The highlight of the day was the launch event of our next generation mobile platform. We had over 400 in attendance and from the feedback I received, we hit the mark with our customers, partners, press and analysts. I caught up with In-Stat’s Jim McGregor and asked him his thoughts about the mobile market and AMD’s platform which you can find here:
Finally, if you missed the event live, you can view it on-demand at Mogulus.
My final event of the day was providing the keynote speech to Business Next’s 2008 Taiwan Info Tech100 Award Ceremony and Forum. The forum included high level executives from Taiwan’s top 100 industries and government officials from what was described to me as “The Executive Yuan”. The theme of the entire forum was “exploring the power of innovation “ and covered a variety of topics from strategy to research and development, operating and executive management……the main point being that innovation has been the key point of technology competition with distinguished companies. One of the biggest treats was the greeting from Taiwan’s Vice President, R.O.C., Mr. Vincent Siew. This certainly isn’t something that I experience every day. It was also an honor to speak alongside Mr. Johnny Shih, Chairman of AsusTek, Adam Judd, senior vice president of Asia Pacific at Juniper, and Mr. Charlie Lee, Tainan factory director of Corning. They really know how to do big events well in Taiwan and this was no exception. Here are some pics below…..
So there we have it, Computex day two, a day of mobile innovation, and certainly a day of innovation book-ends.
(1) From left to right speakers are Mr. Adam Judd, senior vice president of Asia Pacific at Juniper; Mr. Patrick Moorhead, vice president of Advanced marketing at AMD; Mr. Johnny Shih, Chairman of AsusTek; Mr. Charlie Lee, Tainan factory director of Corning.
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.