Mass Storage
Finding the right video source for our High Definition tests was a little more difficult than we anticipated. We thought of several titles that would be perfect for generating stunning video playback sequences, but each title was available in either HD-DVD or Blu-ray formats only. In the end, we chose a couple of titles that offered very good visuals but more importantly were available in SD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray formats. These two titles are Mission Impossible 3 and Swordfish. While we would love to show Halle Berry's special scene in Swordfish, we will instead focus on one of the colorful action scenes in the beginning of the movie. Mission Impossible 3 affords us a scene where Tom Cruise is scaling the wall at the Vatican, and that will separate the good from bad when it comes to moiré patterns in 1080P.
In order to display those movie sequences we need the latest HD software, so we naturally used
CyberLink's PowerDVD Ultra and
Corel's InterVideo WinDVD 8 Platinum HD/BD . Both programs gave us migraines under Vista up until the latest patches, and we are still a little on edge during scene switching and extended playback. Of course, this is almost standard fare with Vista, but we will cover these issues and others in a separate article. On a side note, we are also utilizing the
HD HQV Benchmark to evaluate the picture quality output of our graphics solutions and Intel's
Digital Home Capabilities Assessment 2.0 Tool to verify our platform's digital video capabilities and expected stability when playing back various video formats.
Having the software available for viewing and playback does little good if we do not have the proper optical drives that are up to the task. As an offshoot of this particular roundup we will start reviewing optical drives again at AnandTech in the near future. In the meantime, our HD capable test drives consisted of the
Plextor PX-B900A , Toshiba
SD-H802A , and Pioneer
BDC-S02BK . Our standard DVD playback drive is the
Lite-On LH-20A1P and we might even throw in a playback comparison between the Toshiba SD-H802A HD-DVD drive and the Microsoft
Xbox 360 HD DVD Player. Unfortunately, we were hoping to receive the
Toshiba SD-H903A HD-DVD writer to compare directly to the new low cost Pioneer BDC-S02BK Blu-ray writer but our sample has been delayed. However, we should receive it in time for the optical drive reviews.
While we are on the subject of storage, it turned out one of the most difficult choices we had to make was choosing what hard drive to utilize. In keeping with our silent and inexpensive theme we settled on the Samsung
SpinPoint T166 500GB for our standard test bed. That said, we wanted to try something a little different for our featured HTPC buildup and selected the
Seagate DB35.3 750GB hard drive that is designed for DVR-specific challenges such as power consumption, video streaming performance, acoustics, and long term reliability. For those that like to throw caution to the wind, we also will be testing two of the Seagate DB35.3 500GB drives in RAID 0 and RAID 1 to see how well they perform against our standard Samsung T166 500GB in video specific testing. As if that's not enough, we also have the
Seagate SV35.2 500GB drive engineered specifically for use in digital video surveillance systems. Not to be left out, Western Digital is trying their hardest to get us production level
GreenPower hard drives for our home office platform buildup and Hitachi has promised a
CinemaStar 7K1000 for our HTPC buildup.
(Ed: Did we mention the Feature Creep yet?)
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yyrkoon - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
Well you see . . . I often take reviews from *any* review site with a grain of salt anyhow (personally). There are many reasons why, but one of the major reasons is that most reviewers only test a single board. I like to read user reviews from sites like newegg to get a broader 'idea' of how the board works in use, and potential problems that may crop up. Granted, you need to weed out the 'weenies' and their reviews to get at the heart of the matter. This is one factor why I choose ABIT boards, they have a very active forum, and if there are problems with a board, you can bet it will be plastered all over ABITs forums. That, and often times you can get your problem solved very quickly there, and I have seen Anandtech staff there helping ABIT make their boards the best they can be. However, I really do wish ABIT would do away with their current replacement policy, but I guess it is to be expected (replacing bad parts with remanufactuered/recertified parts, would be nice to get a new part, for a new part). Thankfully, I have rarely had the need to replace any motherboard from ABIT.Alyx - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
I must agree, it is their choice. Personally I skip most articles too, I read the first and last pages and maybe glance at charts. Its mostly just to keep me informed.If I'm buying though I read every word. Devil's in the details.
ATWindsor - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
"While performance is important, does a few tenths of second or an additional two frames per second in a benchmark really mean that much when you cannot get a USB port working due to a crappy BIOS release or your system does not properly recover from S3 sleep state when you are set to record the last episode of the Sopranos? "I couldn't agreee more, the main thing is that the board works, miniscule performance-differnces comes far behind in importance.
AtW
Mazen - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
The timing of this article couldn't be better. I really look forward to see what you guys have to say. Question is, how long do we have to wait before we can read it (yes, impatient!). I'll contribute coffee!JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
Word on the street is Gary will have the first part posted within the next week. Beyond that... guess we'll see.Mazen - Thursday, August 9, 2007 - link
Woooo Hoooo! Can hardly wait for next weekAlyx - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
Where in the world did you find these? I see newegg has the lower end Swan stuff but I couldn't seem to find any retailers that sold these speakers.Must be to new?
Alyx - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
nvm. Looks like The Audio Insider is the only place to carry them that I can find. Didn't realize that they sold speakers (Based on the name I thought they did reviews).http://www.theaudioinsider.com/product_info.php?pr...">http://www.theaudioinsider.com/product_info.php?pr...
Bozo Galora - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
OMG!! Reviews that reflect actual "in use" reality??
Reviews that dont fear to tread on alienating a manufacturer that ADVERTISES on AT??
Articles where the reviewer is not terrified that the vendor will cut them off from free samples and insider info??
No more hand selected or engineering sample salivating previews????
Are you saying after 8 years of "we are sure the next bios release (due out in 2 days) will fix everything", you are finally breaking free???
This is unprecedented.
Who woulda thunk it.
Will wonders never cease.
It may even start a trend - ha
sprockkets - Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - link
Do any of the tuner cards you tested allow you to record Xvid and mp3? My leadtek did but some other programs for other tuner cards didn't allow you to use the direct show codecs directly.Also, does vista in general not allow you to use the CDROM/AUX input on the sound card? I have a Foxconn nForce 4 board with onboard audio, and when using Vista on it, it decided I didn't need the cdrom audio input anymore, but kept all the others. I can't use the Leadtek tuner card because that is how it outputs audio. Thanks Microsoft!