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By Chris Angelini |
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Look at a motherboard's back panel for a minute. More than likely, you'llsee PS/2 plugs for a keyboard and mouse, perhaps a parallel printer connector, a handful of USB ports, analog audio outputs, and maybe even a coaxial jack. Yes, all of those ports, plugs, and connectors make it easy to attach any number of peripherals to your white box systems, but if you pay close attention, you'll notice a lot of redundancy. Most printers nowadays communicate over USB, so why bother with the parallel port? Mice and keyboards seem to be transitioning from PS/2 to USB. And audio—well, there are plenty of different scenarios where you'd want to use analog versus digital and vice versa. Quite simply, you have a lot of choice when it comes to interfacing with other devices. Check out video cards, external hard drives, and LCD monitors. They all usually give you two or three options for sending and receiving signals. Unfortunately, vendors rarely make an effort to recommend one interface over another. That's a real shame because your customer's experience may vary widely depending on the connectivity choices you make. The Diverse World of Displays Modern displays are perhaps most eclectic, giving you a handful of options when it comes to attaching an LCD, CRT monitor, or even television. A typical graphics card supports two principal interfaces: DVI and VGA, the former a digital output and the latter analog. Higher-end boards often sport a pair of DVI connectors, which can be converted to VGA through bundled adapters. Common sense suggests that digital is the way to go whenever possible, but you rarely hear why. The occasional rumor surfaces that analog outputs offer better color or are every bit as sharp thanks to improved ADCs (analog to digital converters) in the panels themselves, but neither is true. An LCD panel is digital by nature, so your best output quality will always come from a DVI connection.
Though not related to interface technology, I often catch customers switching their LCDs to non-native resolutions, yielding worse image quality than if they were using analog output. The reasoning is always the same—the fonts and icons are too small on a 20" monitor at 1600x1200 or a 17" display at 1280x1024. Get your customer back on track by specifying larger font sizes under the Appearance tab within Display Properties, found in the Windows Control Panel. Running at a native resolution is the only way to enjoy a benefit from using a DVI connector instead of VGA. There are several other popular display connectors besides those two, though. For instance, if you're getting involved with Viiv and selling to folks who're using television sets instead of traditional monitors, HDMI might be a more future-proof alternative. Additionally, older TVs feature composite, S-Video, and component connectors—all analog. It turns out that a number of discrete graphics cards also support those aging analog standards. Composite and S-Video are the two most basic video signals. They're both limited to 480 interlaced lines of resolution, so neither is going to give your customer a great experience on a high-def display. Between them, however, an S-Video connecter does deliver better picture quality since it separates the luminance (brightness) and chrominance (color) signals whereas composite transmits them together. Most of the products still supporting such legacy connections tout VIVO (video in and video out) as a feature. Composite and S-Video consequently prove useful when your customer hooks up an old 8mm camera or PlayStation 2 console. On the other hand, they won't want to rely on either standard for day-to-day Web browsing or word processing.
Newer video cards claiming HDTV output often include a special dongle exposing component connectivity. Like the preceding interfaces, component video is also analog. It does support high-definition resolutions though, such as 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. A component connector consists of three RCA cables usually colored red, blue, and green. Those three cables carry a luminance signal and two chrominance components. Based on that trio of elements, the third color is automatically derived. When exactly does it make sense to use component output? Although the addition of advertised HDTV output is fairly recent (within the past couple of years, at least), component shouldn't be your first choice. Rather, DVI and VGA are both preferable, whether you're talking televisions or LCD monitors. DVI, of course, passes a digital signal so all color and brightness information persists, unmolested by conversions to and then from analog. VGA is theoretically better as well since it can output resolutions other than 720p and 1080i. In reality, certain TVs will handle VGA and component differently, making it a little more difficult to choose between the two top analog signals. But when neither DVI nor VGA are available, component should be your go-to for high-definition output.
We're missing one last display interface here, which wouldn't even be mentioned if it weren't for a recent announcement by Sapphire Technologies. HDMI is the very latest digital hookup positioned toward home theater folks. It carries the same pristine video signal as DVI with the addition of up to eight channels of audio. Connecting an HD-DVD player to a stereo receiver, for example, becomes much neater with HDMI. Things work a little differently on the PC, though. Graphics cards output video, while either an add-in card or onboard audio codec handles sound. Thus the need for one connector juggling both audio and video really isn't a priority. Sapphire nevertheless designed a Radeon X1600 Pro card with an HDMI output. Slated for availability in April, the half-height card should be a perfect addition to home theater boxes in need of some 3D oomph. And best of all, Sapphire's offering is the first retail board with HDCP support. HDCP and Me (and You) Ah, yes. HDCP—another acronym to drive you mad. Pay attention though, because this one will only get more important as Microsoft's Vista approaches. HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is the digital rights management scheme required by Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drives for full-resolution playback. Customers upgrading to Vista will need an HDCP-compatible monitor and graphics card if they hope to enjoy the quality improvements of those blue-laser technologies. What does that have to do with a story about interfaces? Simple—HDCP protects the digital signals in DVI and HDMI. Using any of the analog options will still work, but at a mere one-quarter of the resolution. An HDMI or DVI connector does not guarantee HDCP compliance, though. Additional hardware is necessary. And while Radeon and GeForce chips support the technology, not one vendor has added the requisite keys to decode protected content, at least until now. The only board with slated retail availablity is—you guessed it—that Sapphire Technologies Radeon X1600 Pro card with HDMI output. Every other card on the market will play hi-def content on next-generation players at a fraction of their intended resolution. If you're selling Viiv boxes, either keep your eyes out for Sapphire's card and milk HDCP compliance for all it's worth or be careful in how you market any system's multimedia capabilities. Both ATI and NVIDIA have had to do some back-peddling as a result of this HDCP fiasco; you don't want to follow suit. White Boxes Wired for Sound Audio interfaces might be more confusing than the wooly world of display outputs, even if there are only three that receive much attention. Maybe it's because sound is often thought to be more subjective than video, complicating the inevitable quality analyses. As with graphics, you have analog and digital outputs. Analog outputs may take a couple of forms, but most PC sound cards and motherboards utilize 1/8" mini-jacks, each of which carries two distinct channels (left and right front, for instance) of audio. The digital alternatives include coaxial cable, transmitting signals electronically, and optical, using light over a fiber optic cable. Quality-wise, there's very little separating the coaxial and optical interfaces since they both carry digital signals. This is where the caliber your cables comes into play and really does make a difference. Electrical signals diminish over long distances and can be negatively affected by interference. Using a standard RCA cable to connect a coaxial source and receiver may result in lessened sound quality. You'll instead want to use a dedicated digital coaxial cable, which has the shielding and bandwidth needed for an optimal signal. An optical cable needs no such protection and is thus better suited to environments with a lot of unshielded wiring. With that said, light can be adversely affected by sharp bends, so an optical cable won't allow contours around walls and furniture. Your customer will have to pay more for optical cable per foot, but when you run lengths longer than 50 feet, a better signal makes the cost worthwhile.
At the end of the day, your decision to go optical or coaxial will probably be situational and contingent on whichever is more convenient. The two digital options are your best bets for worry-free audio in a home theater environment though, since the signal stays digital right up until it hits the customer's receiver. Plus, you're transmitting multiple channels over a single cable, keeping things neat. That's not to say multi-channel analog isn't a viable option. In fact, anyone desiring DVD-Audio output through a Creative Labs Audigy or X-Fi card, for instance, actually requires those analog outputs. An analog setup won't be as organized; your typical 5.1-channel configuration involves three cables with 1/8" stereo plugs on one end and a pair of RCA jacks on the other. But that's what many desktop speaker systems use, even if they're not the audiophile's first choice. Additionally, you're can really improve the sound quality of analog connections for discerning customers by upselling higher-end cables. Making the Peripheral Connection Plenty of CE devices interface with displays and sound systems—those capabilities aren't particularly special. Where PCs really stand out is peripheral connectivity. Between PS/2, USB, FireWire, and soon eSATA ports, there's no end to the number of available add-ons. Upsell opportunities abound at the enterprise level, on the desktop, and specifically for road warriors. The real secret is helping your customer pick the right devices with the proper interface to maximize their experience. Let's start with an external hard drive as an example. Some drives feature USB 2.0, others do FireWire 400. USB tops out with a theoretical speed of 480 Mbps. FireWire 400, as its name suggests, sits at 400 Mbps. Right off the bat, USB 2.0 seems like the logical choice, but it turns out that FireWire actually turns in the best performance in many cases. Looking for an even more compelling upsell? Offer FireWire 800, which Maxtor's OneTouch II FireWire 800 Edition supports. It yields an impressive speed increase that's particularly nice for backing up large amounts of data. Although USB 2.0 might not be the fastest interface out there, it's truly ubiquitous. High-end and mainstream motherboards alike come with plenty of USB 2.0 ports built-in, so it's perfect for attaching less performance-sensitive components like printers, scanners, wireless adapters, mice, and keyboards. When it comes to I/O, USB enjoys the benefit of hot-plug support, while PS/2 devices cannot be connected at will. USB is also much faster than any parallel port, which gives your workgroup customers a marked performance advantage. Leaving No VAR Behind It'd sure be nice if hardware vendors gave you a nice breakdown of preferred interfaces and connection types. Instead, choice seems to be the trend du jour, leaving many resellers in the dark. There's no need to be overwhelmed by the myriad of video, audio, and peripheral connectors, though. Only a few should be downright avoided, and you'll be fairly safe with most of the others. For those customers who do express particular interest in improving quality or plan a long distance installation with, say, a digital coaxial cable stretching 60 feet around a theater room, suggest upgraded cables. High-end cables offer a real value in the appropriate environment, though they often take a bad rap as being over-hyped. Teaming up with the right vendor, such as Belkin or Monster, would be a great way to educate customers on the potential gains of a better cable. |
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