Extract From Byte Magazine - July 09 - five multimedia tools

[Steve Bildermann]

As BYTE is now a subscription service I thought some people might enjoy reading some extracts.

Every year I torture test dozens of multimedia tools, from cameras to video workstations to printers. Most of the them turn out to be pretty decent these days, but a few always rise to the top. Last month I ran across no less than five: NEC's 20.1 inch portrait mode MultiSync 2080UX LCD display, Pioneer's multiformat DVR A05 DVD/CD burner, VIA'S M10000 Mini ITX mainboard, GN Netcom's 9120 cordless phone, and Contour's ShuttleXpress audio and video jog shuttle.

NEC'S 2080UX LCD

When NEC released its $12,000 2010 flat panel about five years ago, it represented the state of the art of LCD display technology. It had a big 20.1 inch screen, 1280 x 1024 resolution, and compared to the 21 inch glass tube behemoths it replaced, was positively svelte. NEC's current 2080UX LCD, which I found selling on the web for as little as $1200, shows how far LCD display technology has come.

Like the 2010, the 2080UX features a 20.1 inch diagonal viewing area, but its native resolution is 1600 x 1200 pixels (UXGA), it has nearly twice the 2010's contrast ratio, and its image detail is significantly sharper than what you get with top of the line glass tubes. At 23 pounds, the 2080UX is lighter than the 2010, and a third the weight of 21 inch CRT.

The 2080UX's physical design is elegant. It comes in black or silver gray, has a slim profile, a small footprint, and a very thin bezel. The height of the screen is adjustable, and it tilts and swivels for optimal viewing. A great feature is its ability to rotate 90 degrees from landscape to portrait mode.

In portrait mode, the screen can display the entire front page of The New York Times on the Web. If you work with any kind of word processing, page design, or publishing software whose final output will be a vertical sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch paper, the ability to view your document in high resolution in the format in which it will ultimately be published is invaluable. In landscape mode, you can display two full pages side by side with sharp text.

The 2080UX provides a very bright, saturated image. I was a little disappointed with its on edge viewability, but head on the image is excellent. Like all LCDs I've tested, there are some color spectrum gaps in the blue purple and blue green ranges, however these deficiencies only matter if you're doing highly demanding color work.

The color characteristics of the best glass tubes on the market are by no means perfect either. LCDs deliver truer whites and blacks and are significantly sharper, while Trinitron tubes have a slightly more extended color gamut. I reference both for color critical applications.

The 2080UX is equipped with both analog VGA and digital DVI inputs. The VGA signal provides a very good image, but the DVI signal is rock solid. These days most graphics cards come with a DVI output; you probably should have one with 32 MB of RAM to drive this screen. It also has a 25 ms response time, yielding good video playback rates, which is often a problem with flat panel displays.

In terms of performance and price, the 2080UX is a great buy. NEC's 15, 17, and 18 inch LCD offerings, with prices starting at a little over $300, are worth checking out as well.

Pioneer's DVR A05 DVD Burner

True to its name, Pioneer often gets there firstest with the mostest in the DVD races. Its internal IDE/EIDE DVR A05 writes DVD Rs at 4X speed and rewritable DVD RWs at 2X, as well as CD Rs at 16X and CD RWs at 8X. In the case of DVD R, that translates to filling a 4.7 GB disc in about 15 minutes.

DVD technology is stalemated in the R/ RW versus +R/+RW format war. There are signs that +R/+RW camp may win out in the end even though +R/+RW products were late out the gate, but currently there are more units out in the real world that reliably read R/ RW than +R/+RW. Meanwhile, consumer DVD players that read both formats are becoming more prevalent. So far we've had good success with R/ RW video playback on a variety of consumer level players.

BYTE Media Lab associate Dan Spisak, who conducts a lot of our video compression and DVD authoring tests, has this to say about the DVR A05: "The unit's burn speeds are easily Good Enough for most tasks. The software bundle is adequate, but could be improved by replacing Sonic's MyDVD with a lite version of Ulead's DVD Workshop. If the Roxio Easy CD Creator Basic software was replaced with Ahead's Nero Burning, it would have the perfect bundle."

You can pick up a DVR A05 for about $200. That's a great deal even without software. Pioneer has also released the DVR A06, which can read and write DVD +R/+RW as well as R/ RW at a street price of around $330.

VIA'S EPIA M10000 Mini ITX Mainboard

We've built quite a few computers at the BYTE Media Lab over the years. These days there's less reason to, since almost any computer you buy today, even the ones costing a few hundred bucks, are Good Enough to handle most computing tasks. So there has to be a good reason to build a system from scratch.

VIA's 17 x 17 cm M10000 Mini ITX mainboard provides two good reasons. With those dimensions, obviously you can build a really small machine. And because it's so small, you can integrate a system into almost anything. Companies like Casetronic sell small cases that look more like stereos than computers, but you could also plug one into a musical instrument, a sculpture, or a jewel box.

Despite its tiny footprint, the M10000 is not a trivial computing device. It's amazing how much VIA has jammed onto this board. The heart of the system is Via's low power, low noise 1 GHz C3 CPU with a Nehemiah core. The CPU has a heatsink and mini fan molded on to it. This processor uses 0.13 micron fab technology, and is the smallest that runs X86 architecture, so you can run Windows XP without any problems.

The board also incorporates integrated AGP 4X graphics, an MPEG 2 decoder, USB 2 and FireWire ports, S video and RCA video outputs, analog and SPDIF digital audio connectors, and 5.1 channel surround sound.

The M10000 has only a single PCI slot and one memory slot, so you're limited to a maximum of 1 GB of DDR 266 or 200 RAM, but that's more than ample for any garden variety computing task. This is not a machine you'll want to edit huge Photoshop files or a major motion picture with, but for office work, web surfing, playing DVDs, or sound editing, it should be fine.

The M10000 does have some high end applications. Because it has a PCI slot and good sound output, you can add a professional level sound board to your customized system and become the proud owner of an extremely portable and powerful audio workstation with much better performance than you could achieve with a standard portable.

VIA's M10000 is a remarkable bit of technology. You should be able to pick one up for around $160.

GN Netcom's 9120 Phone

GN Netcom's 2.4 GHz 9120 is not your father's cordless phone. Weighing in at 1 ounce, it's extremely light and has an exceptionally good conferencing capability. The 9120 can be used as a traditional hands free headset, but it can also be converted into a right or left earpiece that fits in a shirt pocket.

Up to four 9120s can be synched for conference calls via a single base unit. It has a 300 foot range, so everyone can roam freely while participating in the call. This beats a group of people anchored to a table talking into a speakerphone.

You can control the 9120's volume directly from the earpiece, as well as mute the microphone. The Mute feature is great for people who work out of a home office either full or part time, and have to contend with the occasional ruckus of children or howling dogs in the background. (These days that includes nearly everybody, even executives at major corporations.)

The 9120's sound quality is very good. The signal is secured with 64 bit Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS) encryption that hops frequencies 90 times per second. The base unit doubles as a battery charger that delivers eight hours of talk time from a fully charged battery.

I had a little trouble setting the 9120 up because the base station needs to hook up with a corded handset, and all our handsets are cordless. Eventually, I found an old one stashed away on a shelf. To initiate and end calls, you must pick up and reseat the corded handset. An optional handset lifter, the GN 1000, lets you start and end calls on the go.

The GN 9120 lists at $349. The handset lifter will run you another $70. That's pretty steep for a telephone in an era where you can buy a full featured computer for the same price. But if you need secure mobile phone conferencing, this is the best solution I've seen.

Contour's SpaceShuttle A/V

If you edit audio or video, you need Contour Design's $49 SpaceShuttle A/V. SpaceShuttle A/V is a 4 3/8 inch diameter rubberized USB jog shuttle. Its frame accurate dial controller has seven variable Forward and Reverse speeds you can control tape decks or navigate software timelines with.

SpaceShuttle A/V has five programmable shortcut buttons. Contour provides software that customizes the buttons for a wide variety of commercial editing and animation packages, including Adobe's Premiere and After Effects, Apple's Final Cut Pro, Avid's Xpress DV, Macromedia's Flash MX, Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge and Vegas, and many others. You can easily reprogram the buttons to suit your needs.

After you've done some editing with SpaceShuttle A/V, you'll wonder how you ever got by without it.

[Taro Toporific]

...NEC's 20.1 inch portrait mode MultiSync 2080UX LCD display...selling on the web for as little as $1200, shows how far LCD display technology has come.

OH LUST, I MUST GET ONE!!