ASUS DiGiMatrix
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I got wind of this barebones/media center box from Asus through The Register, but a quick Google search come up with a much better story by X-Bit Labs.
Some of the best features: 5-in-1 card reader, built in 802.11b wireless access point, dual Ethernet (10/100 and Gigabit), listen to audio (incl. radio, CD, and MP3-CD) without turning the computer on. Read more for labelled pics of the front and back plus some musings.
It's amazing how many features are packed into this. I think that manufacturers are reallizing that small operators simply don't have the resources to re-purpose a more standard barebones box into one customized for multimedia. Hence the decision to drop a bunch of PCI or AGP expansion slots and build it in from the start.
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Software is the second issue. From the X-bit Labs article:
Maybe ASUS will provide a special version of Windows XP for this kind of personal computers, but since Windows XP costs an extra $75 ~ $100[US], ASUS may supply only its own software with the DiGiMatrix.
XP Media Center is a) unlikely to be certified for use by ASUS (they're too friendly with DIY'ers) and b) I imagine the licensing cost is even higher than for "regular" XP Home. If ASUS is working on its own software, that would be amazing. Basically, your choices are to run Windows XP plus a bunch of third-party software (software isn't designed to work together, full-blown GUI system when all you need is a bunch of on-screen menus, potential driver isssues, expensive) or struggle to get drivers working for a multimedia PC Linux distribution (difficult, if not impossible, especially for such integrated/customized hardware).
Hmmm...makes me think of some sort of QT- or wxWindows-based GUI front-end that implements all the standard multimedia PC functions: TV, photo albums, MP3s, etc. etc. With the cross platform frameworks I mentioned, it has the potential to work on multiple hardware/OS platforms.
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The only down sides that I could see pointed out were part of the strength here, too -- lack of expandability. But, this is not a gaming machine -- it's a multimedia PC/server, and it seems to have everything required. The one bone-headed move: placing the S/PDIF output on the front panel. This means you need to have the front panel permanently flipped down, with a cable coming out the front and (presumably) going into the back of your receiver.
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Digimatrix and Modem
How to connect an adsl modem (Alcatel Speedtouch USB)(USB cable) to Digimatrix RJ45 port ?
What's wrong connecting that modem to Digimatrix USB port ?
Capabillities
Does anyone test it?
Does it have a DVD-RW Drive so you can make your own DVD-Videos and if it does - how long it takes to do it?
Does it reproduce DVD-Audio format?
never tried this asus thing
but tried lots of Shuttles and shuttle-like clones. All are fab but depend on what sw you use in it.
WinDVD 5.x and PowerDVD 5.x sw will play DVD-Audio, but why bother? There are so few discs. And playing back hi-rez audio on a computer is oxymoronic unless you output 24/96 to an external converter or use a card like the Lynx.
DVD quality.
I just don't get this issue of DVD quality playback and what influences it...
What influences DVD quality playback? I've heard of progressive scan, sure, is there anything else I should know of? When my parents wanted to get a DVD player for our standard screen TV, I told them to get progressive scan, the salesman at Future Shop said unless we had a widescreen TV it would not benefit us.
So would some home A/V DVD player have any better playback than a computer DVD player?
Any answers would be very helpful. Thanks.
There is a ceiling
...to the maximum image quality you can get from DVD. It's implicit in the format and data-rate.
DVDs have variable data-rate and the image quality is continually adjusted (manually or by software) to tradeoff running-time vs lossiness.
So, you can have 2 DVD editions of the same movie at differing image quality levels. The 'Superbit' DVD series is an example.
Beyond the ceiling inherent in the format, however, you can use tricks like digital 'scalers' to double the frame rate, quad the resolution etc. But even with these you won't recover colors and contrasts which are beyond the capability of the encoder to capture. Go to an HD studio and view the full-bandwidth camera feed vs the encoded broadcast feed, you'd be horrified if you care about image fidelity.
Same if you examine the D1 or HD master vs a MPEG2 DVD transfer. You can view an example of this degradation by comparing the HD and the DVD versions in the 'T-2 Extreme Edition' discs. Of course those differences would only be apparent on displays capable of displaying the signals to their full extent. Lesser displays would mask image differences occuring beyond their performance limits (just as lesser CD players mask sound details beyond their capabilities).
Currently the cheapest way (by far) to get scalers and filters to take DVD playback to near-HD is in software like WinDVD with hardware of a good 2D vidcard or a Hauppauge. That's why the 'HDPC' is a fabulous concept.
DVD Quality
Now, DVD Quality - this is affected by signal transferred from the recording to your display device. Now, video quality found on normal cable TV and on your old analog tapes is transmitted analogly - that is, it's a bunch of good old waveforms that an analog device (your tv) then displays on the TV.
Now, in picking these signals up form the air, over cable or from your VHS tape there is a certain amount of "interpretation" done or error introduced due to any interference. This will cause noise and bleeding in your picture which leads to less crisp images, duller tones and the like.
When you hook up a digital device (Set top box or a DVD player, etc.) you get a digital signal that can only be interpreted one way - or it just doesn't get the info correct due to compression techniques (MPEG-2 typically in cable and dvd today). This is then fed over a short connection in analog to your TV (unless you've got a TV with digital input!) where less interference is introduced (even less if it's digital!).
In the end your digital signal is most effected by the encoding/decoding it employs (including compression). Some DVD players will let you see the rate at which your movie is encoded (DVD uses MPEG-2) and being displayed at. I guess there could be differences in quality based on how the player decodes the video, and they'll all use hardware decoders - unlike your PC which will likely use software decoding - so it depends on the chipset they use.
You'll likely find the best decoding in the top-end players by the big video guys (Sony, etc.) because they'll spend the money on custom hardware - where as the cheap guys you find at walmart for 90 bucks will likely use off the shelf chips.
Does any of that help?
It helps
Yes, this helps very well, except that there is no industry metric to tell the display quality of each individual machine - you can't tell if there is custom, specialized hardware, if there is any other technique used to enhance the DVD quality, etc.
For example, I recall some high-end manufacturer like Denon or Marantz discussing some four-letter acronym for DVD quality, it was an incredibly expensive DVD player (somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 via A&B Sound).
So the only rough metric we have is how much money, and where we got the player, and whether or not it's Analog or Digital.
"DVD quality"
...is a marketing fiction with no technical meaning, just like the term "CD quality".
If you set the "CD quality" bar at the 96db S/N of 16-bit data on CDs, then most devices which playback CDs are not "CD quality".
There is no accepted way of quantifying the "quality" of lossy perceptual codecs used for DVD, leaving the field even more open to subjective judgements and vague terminology.
If you set the "DVD quality" bar at being able to reproduce at least 32-bit colour depth of 'true color', then many computer displays and practically all flat screens won't make it.
If we examined a colourful DVD scene and same scene in Xvid on a screen capable of accurately reproducing a DVD image, the Xvid scene is usually an obviously lesser imitation, yet it is adequate for most people & purposes.
If you subscribe to the conventional metrics of display performance parameters such as color gamut, brightness, contrast, linearity, purity, geometry, resolution, refresh-rate, you might set the minimum levels which you would accept for each display you use: computer, video, cinema.
Progressive Scan
Your salesman was somewhat correct... Progressive Scan only makes a difference when the TV is capable of displaying it - a computer monitor uses progressive scan, typical TVs do not. There isn't any reason why a normal aspect ratio TV wouldn't use progressive scan, but they typically don't. Most TVs used interlacing, that is they display the approx 30fps of full motion video by actually refreshing every other line in the display at 60fps. Progressive scan refreshes the entire display every 1/60th of a second instead. Check here for some more info.