Toshiba has its head office in Breda, a comprehensive demonstration of the capabilities of its Quad Core HD processor Tweakers.net given. Can the processor really dvds real-time converting into image in hd-quality?
The demonstration, however, was anything but convincing. The attendees, including yours truly, were too far from the screens to see the difference in quality to be able to perceive. In addition, there was no comparative hd-video is shown and was chosen to film an animation; these are due to the relative lower level of detail of the picture anyway, it is easier to convert. It was also that the tv’s color difference showed – apparently they were not calibrated –what was the dvd version there is even better like. After the meeting, the tvs simply were disabled, despite the promise that the press, the images are still there if face, continued to present with, to put it mildly, skeptical feeling.
Luckily responded the Dutch branch of Toshiba adrem and promised this to the Dutch persdelegatie an exclusive demonstration at the headquarters in Breda. It so happened that five Dutch ict journalists Friday morning on the sidewalk in front of the Toshiba-office stood. The employees of the company had this time three tvs are ready on three laptops connected were: a Qosmio model without quadcore chip, with the Quad Core HD, and an older Toshiba laptop with hd-dvd drive. So could the chip by ge lwa pscalede dvd-images are compared with both the normal dvd and the hd images. The three hdtv’s were the same way adjusted. Was chosen for the movie The Phantom of The Opera , and was attempted to the three films is equal to start.
Indeed it was now clear to see that the Quad Core HD processor real-time processed images look better in appearance than the dvd images that without this chip were ge lwa pscaled. The colors looked a lot better and there was also a little more detail to see. It was opposite that the images are very slightly jerky seemed to be and that the quality of the hd images are still far superior. Because the Nvidia 9600M GT gpu, the Qosmio laptop about image enhancing options at the upscale property, was also briefly considered whether a similar quality achieved could be. This was not the case. Both ATI as Nvidia are, however, working hard on their gpu’s a wider range of settings so Toshiba can on this plane, the necessary competition to meet. In conclusion it can be said that Toshiba’s co-processor actually does its job, but that the claim that hd-quality with sd-material can be obtained, however, not been realised.
More impressive was the, what Toshiba calls ‘upconversion’ of an sd mpeg2 file to h.264 format at full hd resolution. Via a Vista Sidebar gadget that was made to see that the four 128-bit sims risc cores, 1.5 GHz, full force were at work to the file to convert. The taskmanager of Vista showed that the processor, the Qosmio laptop, however, little was charged. The dvd source clip from the film ‘Apollo 13’ was of lower quality than the previously shown ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and the resulting video file that the Quad Core HD in a few minutes managed to squeeze looked much better. Also here can Toshiba, however, competition is expected from ATI and Nvidia, who advertise with the the – and encoderingskwaliteiten of their gpu’s
Finally, demonstrated Toshiba is still the face and gebarenherkenningsmogelijkheden of the Quad Core HD. In combination with a proprietary application of the company makes the chip possible, the faces of a video file to index. The application displays all the found faces, then again, and makes it searchable. Although wondered how often this feature will be used it works fine. The chip indexeerde quickly and and found a huge number of faces in the selected film; on one of the results click played the appropriate clip.
More convenient was the gesture. Through the web camera recognized the Qosmio the raised hand of the Toshiba employee who is behind the laptop sat. He could himself in a window to sit, taking his hand in a green box was displayed. When he and his fist moving up and down, moving the mouse pointer in the picture. By the hand or the thumb on the stitches can elements be clicked. It requires some practice and fast movements go wrong, but to operate the Windows Vista Media Center and media player runs quite quick. Also at a distance of two metres to recognize the camera in the hand and the laptop to operate. Also web browsing is possible, though the operation works harder for small clickable objects.
With the demonstration, Toshiba has a large part of our skepticism is removed and show that the Cell-based Quad Core HD interesting possibilities. Details about the processor, performance and energy consumption, as well as an extensive review about the above-mentioned features, we bring the end of August, as the Qosmio notebooks available in the Benelux countries.
