NIVIDIA announced yesterday the release of their new drivers for Purevideo, enabling playback of HD-DVD and Blu-ray content ona computer. I see this as just a step in the march towards next-gen DVDs on the PC. Of course, you still need HDCP compliant hardware throughout your computer, and not to mention your TV/Monitor. Maybe when the formats are floundering in a year, the DIY community will be more embraced by the tech and content companies. Seriously, isn’t HDCP the biggest reason to download pirated high definition content?
From the press release:
“This is a milestone in PC entertainment,” said Scott Vouri, general manager of multimedia at NVIDIA. “NVIDIA is proud to be the first graphics processing company in the world to make it possible for consumers to build or upgrade a PC to play HD DVD and Blu-ray movies.”
I guess Purevideo is just about optimizing HD performance on your PC. I am still trying to figure out if it adds any true value. Based on the press release:
PureVideo HD provides hardware acceleration for decoding H.264, VC-1, WMV and MPEG-2 movies to display crystal clear images that have up to six times the detail of standard DVD movies. In addition, the PureVideo discrete video processing core offloads the CPU and 3D engine of complex video tasks, freeing the PC to run multiple applications simultaneously. PureVideo HD delivers the ultimate high-definition movie experience on a PC.
I really wonder who is going to be watching HD movies while having other applications running. Maybe I am just too old.
I originally saw this information on HardOCP.
Fri, Nov 3, 2006
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