Watch, as PC morphs into TV on steroids
For more than a decade, technology gurus have been imagining ways of turning computers into televisions. The convergence model holds that computers must evolve into one- stop appliances that handle word processing and Web surfing while serving as a mobile entertainment centre capable of displaying television signals.
This is an entirely sensible idea, in principle. But here’s the problem: Experiments to date in giving computers a boob tube job have basically sucked. The screens were too small, the picture quality too low and the “ clunky factor” far too high.
Basically, they felt fake.
Abject failure, however, has helped chart a path toward computer TV enlightenment.
Microsoft’s Media Center 2005, software jammed inside quality computers from some of the world’s leading hardware makers, has produced a new breed of convergence device that seamlessly joins the two former solitudes. Media Center software now comes pre- loaded on dozens of desktop, laptops and living room PCs from manufacturers such as HP, Toshiba, Gateway, Sony and Dell. These machines
are not cheap. Computers equipped with Media Center, at whatever end of the spectrum they sit, come at a premium price. But it’s little wonder considering they perform as computers, televisions and personal video recorders (PVRs) while offering a slick array of digital photo, music, radio and DVD features.
I’ve been testing out a couple of high-end laptops with Media Center loaded inside — HP’s zd8110us notebook ($2,300) and the Toshiba Qosmio G20 ($3,500). They’re competitors in the so-called “desktop replacement” category — a carefully crafted bit of marketing terminology that refers to portable computers that aren’t terribly portable. With their lush, 17” screens, Harmon Kardon speakers, expansive hard drives and a dizzying array of features, both of these machines weigh in at about 9 lbs. — moveable feasts, but only for those on strict weightlifting regimens.
After toting the HP machine with me on a trip to Europe I now have a rare medical condition in which one shoulder sits higher than the other. These machines should come with a health insurance plan to compensate for your inevitable chiropractic bills.
There’s another major downside to machines like this: All of the high- end, multi- media processing saps laptop batteries like a Transylvanian vampire sucking on his first neck of the day. Both the HP and Toshiba machines only let me squeeze about 90 minutes of battery time — an eye blink relative to standard laptops that can go for hours without a power cord attached.
That’s the bad news. But after you recover from the soft tissue damage in your shoulders, it will be hard not to experience mild feelings of love for a machine that packs enough punch to display a live television signal while surfing the Internet and doing database calculations. With some simple set up, the Media Center software will download and constantly update a television guide for your local area.
You’ll need to feed the computer with an Internet connection and a television signal from a source such as the coaxial cable snaking out of your wall.
Navigate through the guide to choose a program currently on television, or use the PVR feature to record a show for viewing later. You can choose to record a show once or automatically record all episodes whenever they appear. The process is similar to PVR services available through satellite or digital cable services — only better. The software’s elegant movie search feature automatically serves up a list of upcoming movies listed in the program guide or lets you search a comprehensive database of films by actor, director, genre, title and rating.
Asearch for “ Woody Allen,” for example, turns up 59 films along with a biography. Choose Annie Hall from the list and you get a description of the film’s plot, a review, cast information and a perceptive listing of “similar movies” ( including When Harry Met Sally
and High Fidelity). Even if Annie Hall isn’t scheduled to appear on television in the near future, you can command the software to record it — or any other movie of interest — in future, whenever it does show up in the listings.
It’s not long before you start turning on your computer to find a growing library of movies serendipitously recorded onto your hard drive as you slept. The next version of the software may even pop the corn as you boot up.
Television is only one element to the Media Center software. It also makes displaying your digital photos in a slideshow, complete with a soundtrack from your music library, a snap. And you can play videos, DVDs and pre- set your favourite radio stations. The HP and Toshiba machines feel and function with similar efficiency doing all of this. HPs provocatively titled zd8110us machine makes hooking up the television signal more complicated thanks to a separate TV tuner device that sits between the cable and the computer. With the Toshiba machine, you can plug a live television signal directly into the computer wherever you are. That said, the HP machine has the notable advantage of dual tuners that allow you to record one show while recording or watching another.
We’ll need better portability and battery life before announcing that the utopian vision of an all- in- one portable computer/ television/ PVR/ radio/ jukebox/ digital picture frame has become reality. But the pristine simplicity and visual impressiveness of Media Center machines brings us a good distance in the right direction. Robert Cribb can be reached at rcribb@thestar.com