Hi-Def TV may be the killer app for entertainment PCs

By: MATTHEW FORDAHL - Associated Press | Wednesday, October 13, 2004 10:26 PM PDT ∞

It's been possible for years to watch television on a personal computer, but not many people do. The reasons are simple: mediocre picture and sound quality and the ergonomics of it all. TVs don't need to boot up.

Such problems have cast doubt on the computer industry's plans to dominate the living room of tomorrow.

Still, it's too early to write off entertainment PCs. I discovered this while trying out a simple, relatively inexpensive add-on card that has the potential to do for these systems what e-mail and Web browsers did for the Internet.

The card, from graphics giant ATI Technologies Inc., delivers over-the-air high-definition television to a PC and its monitor. Unlike high-definition sets, which can cost thousands of dollars, the HDTV Wonder is just $199, and it includes an antenna and remote control.

The picture is stunning, even if it's limited to my 17-inch monitor.

I've never considered myself a big football fan, but I couldn't help but stare for hours at the detail of Fox's NFL games on a recent Sunday. Even forgettable shows like NBC's "Hawaii" were too beautiful to change the channel.

How good is it? On my standard television, I never noticed the cloud of dust that's kicked up when a receiver catches a football on artificial turf. Or the beads of sweat on a forehead. Or scratches on a helmet. It's all there, crystal clear.

The primary reason why the HDTV picture looks so good on my PC monitor is why regular TV looks so bad. The computer display is designed to show high-resolution images. Because standard television is low resolution, the picture on a PC often looks muddy. Flaws are magnified.

But HDTV isn't just about the picture. The audio also is missing the annoying hisses and hums common to standard TV. HDTV broadcast are often in surround sound, a perfect match with the high-quality picture.

In fact, the HDTV Wonder makes it very difficult to go back to the fuzz, ghosts and other static of standard television, whether on a regular set or a PC. Still, it's possible to watch standard television with the HDTV Wonder -- it includes an analog TV tuner.

ATI isn't the first to offer a digital TV card. Hauppauge Computer Works Inc. also makes a card, but it costs $299 and doesn't include the antenna. Mac users can use Elgato Systems Inc.'s $349 EyeTV 500, which also doesn't come with an antenna.

Installation of the HDTV Wonder is relatively simple if you are comfortable doing minor surgery to your PC.

It involves opening the case, inserting the card into an open PCI slot, closing the case and plugging in the cables to the included HDTV antenna and, if desired, the analog television source. I ran it on a Windows XP system with a 2.8 gigahertz Pentium 4 processor, well above the minimum requirement of a 1.3 gigahertz CPU.

You'll need a hefty hard drive, of course. It takes 8 gigabytes of hard drive space for every hour of recorded widescreen HDTV.

When launched for the first time, the HDTV application scans the airwaves in search of signals. With the antenna wedged in a bookcase at my home office, it had no problem detecting all the stations that broadcast in my area. (A stand is included.)

That said, the HDTV Wonder is not perfect. It only support HDTV signals sent over the airwaves, not those that arrive via the cable or satellite company. At my home in semi-rural Salinas, Calif., I received a grand total of three channels. The good news is they're free to receive.

Users in urban areas will have more choices, including stations that broadcast multiple channels. (In the San Francisco Bay area, for instance, the public television station KQED broadcasts up to five channels via digital TV.)

A lot of shows also aren't shot in high resolution, though when transmitted over a digital channel standard programming is usually much clearer than when transmitted over the analog airwaves.

HDTV Wonder does a very good job of showcasing the potential of high-definition television on a PC -- some might call it a proof of concept. But its software falls short in major ways.

For some reason, digital and analog television must be viewed through separate programs, each launched either through the standard "Start" menu in Windows or through ATI's screen-eating "LaunchPad" toolbar.

Oddly, the remote control doesn't have an obvious way of turning on the digital television program. It is possible, however, to program a button to do the job.

Both television applications feature the same interface: one window for the picture, another for a control panel.

There's no such luxury for the window that pops up whenever you hit the "Record" button. There's no way to minimize it; just move it out of the way of the picture -- a challenge when the picture takes up the entire screen.

There are some neat features that do work well, including a mode that generates a see-through television, making it easier to work and, say, watch news programming at the same time.

The product can do what we've come to expect from TiVO and from all decent software for PC-TV tuner cards: record television shows, pause live programs. HDTV Wonder also supports burning the shows to a DVD or video CD.

Though the included software falls short, the entire package shows there may be a bright, clear future for the entertainment PC.

Just this week, Microsoft announced that its Windows Media Center 2005 software will support HDTV.

It might just have the resources to do the software right.

On the Net:

HDTV Wonder: http://www.ati.com/products/hdtvwonder/