TechJapan

NEC - VALUESTAR TX - Digital Video Recording (and more!) PC

Desktops / NEC
Posted by Harvey on Jan 09, 2004 - 07:57 PM

(Nippon Electric Company) NEC will begin shipping the industry's first terrestrial digital/BS Digital/100 degrees CS digital, digital video supporting desktop PC, the "ValueStar TX" (VX980/8F) on January 29th. The price is open, but expected retail price is projected at around 500,000 yen.

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VX980/8F

Shipping January 29th
Standard Price: Open Pricing
Contact: NEC 121 Contact Center

(Nippon Electric Company) NEC will begin shipping the industry's first terrestrial digital/BS Digital/100 degrees CS digital, digital video supporting desktop PC, the "ValueStar TX" (VX980/8F) on January 29th. The price is open, but expected retail price is projected at around 500,000 yen.

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The product will be placed as the top end model in the desktop pc, "ValueStar TX" series which is aimed at the individual user, and one of the water-cooled, with strong support for AV functionality . It has a Pentium 4 3.2 GHz CPU, 512MB(DDR400) RAM, and a 250 GB hard drive. The video card is a ATI RADEON 9600SE. A DVD +-RW/RAM Drive is equipped, and the write speed of the DVD-RAM is 3x, DVD+R 8x speed, and DVD-R4 is 4x speed, the DVD-RW2x speed.

The machine also includes a 23 inch WXGA LCD Display with a TV tuner. NEC is using their monitor that rivals household televisions, with high brightness, and a wide angle field of vision (Vertical Horizontal 170 degrees). The display is also has an AR coating to protect it against reflections caused by outside light sources. In addition, the front of the display is equipped with NXT flat panel speakers which emit sound by vibrating using "SoundVu" [3] technology. Finally, it includes 8 5W Exciters, and one internal 6W subwoofer.

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The machine also has a GhostWriter, and a three dimension Y/C detached circut which also has high image quality circuits. Image input includes, DVI-D, D4 terminal, S-Video, each included in this single display. The image can be divided into left and right sides, PinP, PoutP functionality is also included, which makes it possible to view a PC screen and TV screen simultaneously.

The PCI slot has a tuner (capture) card which supports these three technologies: terrestrial analog, BS digital/110 degrees CD digital, and terrestrial digital. It can do video recording from the terrestrial analog, BS digital/110 degree CS digital, and terrestrial digital. It includes a B-CAS Card IC cartridge and one B-CAS Card shared between the BS digital/110 degrees CD digital and the terrestrial digital.

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Because there are three tuner cards, there are also three antenna input terminals. All three are do not have through-output, so in almost every environment a splitter device is necessary.

The restrictions against the recording of digital broadcasts are the same as the BS digital/110 degrees CS digital video recording "VALUESTAR T" (VT970/3D) released in August 2002. The digital broadcasts received through the tuner card are streamed and encrypted independently of the Hard Drive. This is also applied to Data broadcasts and playback, and EPG(Terrestrial Analog is ADAMS-EPG/EPG+).

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B-CAS Card Slot

However, even with High-Vision broadcasts, everything displayed on the screen is converted to 480p. Because video output to external devices is only supported by S/Composite, it is impossible to play at High-Vision image quality on the VX980/8F. However, audio AAC can be output via digital fiber.

Also, recorded digital programming can only be played from the internal hard drive. It is possible to backup the data on recordable DVD's, however to play them the data must be copied back to the Hard Drive. Files which are recordings of digital broadcasts are certified by the tuner card, so even if you copy the files over to another terrestrial video supporting VALUESTAR TX the files will be unplayable.

The video/audio software is all separated. For terrestrial analog is "SmartVision", BS Digital/110 degrees CS digital is "SmartVision BS", and the terrestrial digital is "SmartVisiion DG". Because of this, depending on what broadcast you want to watch, you must chose which application to start accordingly. It is possible to play terrestrial analog and digital broadcasts simultaneously, but it is impossible to lay BS digital/110 degrees CS digital, and terrestrial digital at the same time.

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Terristial digital "SmartVision DG" (left), terrestrial analog "SmartVision" (right). The interface is very similar, however the applications themselves are completely separate.

Also, the new software package "Media Garage" is included. This software makes controlling television viewing or recording, and EPG reservations possible with the mouse or remote controller. The software also supports the ability to play AV contents from other PC's on the network. However, this does not support digital broadcasting.

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Included Remote

NEC's "VALUESTARG TYPE TX" which is only available to through direct orders on the web, will also have a new model supporting similar features available for order Janurary 15th. Another direct order model is also available for purchase, and has a Celeron 2.60GHz processor, and a 120GB Hard drive. This smaller model goes for 166,000 yen.

Original Article
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20040106/nec.htm [10]