Media is making major steps forward right now- The Hulu desktop that came out recommends a dual core processor at around 2.0 gigs and that's the first edition of it. If I were buying right now I'd be trying hard to futureproof.
If you weren't a gamer, the past few years have been very kind to people buying new computers because computers kept getting more powerful but technology was as stagnant as technology could be. I would bet with the dawning of streaming media, especially HD streaming, that low end computers are going to be obsolete a lot quicker than we recently have seen. My HP Pavillion dv6000 which I bought last summer barely meets the specs to run Hulu. Imagine when they start streaming in 1080i or p (they're at 480p right now).
jfg wrote:Media is making major steps forward right now- The Hulu desktop that came out recommends a dual core processor at around 2.0 gigs and that's the first edition of it. If I were buying right now I'd be trying hard to futureproof.
If you weren't a gamer, the past few years have been very kind to people buying new computers because computers kept getting more powerful but technology was as stagnant as technology could be. I would bet with the dawning of streaming media, especially HD streaming, that low end computers are going to be obsolete a lot quicker than we recently have seen. My HP Pavillion dv6000 which I bought last summer barely meets the specs to run Hulu. Imagine when they start streaming in 1080i or p (they're at 480p right now).
Ok but this is assuming you are streaming on an HDTV from your laptop. A 15.4 inch screen will never require HD quality due to it's size.
1200 pixels on a 15.4 inch screen looks much better then 1200 on a 50 inch screen
jfg wrote:Media is making major steps forward right now- The Hulu desktop that came out recommends a dual core processor at around 2.0 gigs and that's the first edition of it. If I were buying right now I'd be trying hard to futureproof.
If you weren't a gamer, the past few years have been very kind to people buying new computers because computers kept getting more powerful but technology was as stagnant as technology could be. I would bet with the dawning of streaming media, especially HD streaming, that low end computers are going to be obsolete a lot quicker than we recently have seen. My HP Pavillion dv6000 which I bought last summer barely meets the specs to run Hulu. Imagine when they start streaming in 1080i or p (they're at 480p right now).
Alright. Let's play a guessing game. Let's assume I want to be able to stream 720p on a 50" TV. Is processor speed more important than RAM? Is 4 gigs RAM the minimum I should be looking at? What kind of video card should I be looking into? Or more specifically, what specs on a video card should I be looking into? Any insight into what to look for would be much appreciated.
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jfg wrote:Media is making major steps forward right now- The Hulu desktop that came out recommends a dual core processor at around 2.0 gigs and that's the first edition of it. If I were buying right now I'd be trying hard to futureproof.
If you weren't a gamer, the past few years have been very kind to people buying new computers because computers kept getting more powerful but technology was as stagnant as technology could be. I would bet with the dawning of streaming media, especially HD streaming, that low end computers are going to be obsolete a lot quicker than we recently have seen. My HP Pavillion dv6000 which I bought last summer barely meets the specs to run Hulu. Imagine when they start streaming in 1080i or p (they're at 480p right now).
Alright. Let's play a guessing game. Let's assume I want to be able to stream 720p on a 50" TV. Is processor speed more important than RAM? Is 4 gigs RAM the minimum I should be looking at? What kind of video card should I be looking into? Or more specifically, what specs on a video card should I be looking into? Any insight into what to look for would be much appreciated.
If that computer is running windows (which I'm sure it is) you need at least 4gb of RAM to run Vista smoothly. The more the better.
You have no frame of reference, Donny. You're like a child who walks into the middle of a movie...
4gigs? considering 32bit vista (which is what majority of users have) can only recognize upto 3gb, you don't need 4gb to run it smoothly.
to run HD, you don't need a crazy computer. modern dual and quad core CPUs are powerful enough to decode HD without a fancy video card. in fact, that's what i am doing. i have a quad core but a onboard video (my nvidia 8800gt got fried) and it runs HD fine. if you have a fancy graphics card, sure it will be nice and all and take the load off the CPU, but if you have onboard video, it will off load to the CPU.
BitterDodgerFan wrote:4gigs? considering 32bit vista (which is what majority of users have) can only recognize upto 3gb, you don't need 4gb to run it smoothly.
Well I have 64bit, and run Vista on 2 machines. A desktop and a laptop and I've had nothing but issues with both machines lagging. I uninstalled windows and ran XP and it ran a lot better. I'm only speaking from personal experience. I know this to be the case with a couple of friends too. Windows is a resource hog and always has been.
You have no frame of reference, Donny. You're like a child who walks into the middle of a movie...
BitterDodgerFan wrote:4gigs? considering 32bit vista (which is what majority of users have) can only recognize upto 3gb, you don't need 4gb to run it smoothly.
to run HD, you don't need a crazy computer. modern dual and quad core CPUs are powerful enough to decode HD without a fancy video card. in fact, that's what i am doing. i have a quad core but a onboard video (my nvidia 8800gt got fried) and it runs HD fine. if you have a fancy graphics card, sure it will be nice and all and take the load off the CPU, but if you have onboard video, it will off load to the CPU.
jfg wrote:It still needs to be processed no matter what size the screen.
My point is there is no reason to Stream HD on a 15" screen. Now if you are hooking up to your HD TV then yes. But 480p and 1080i will look very similar on a 15 inch screen
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by jfg » Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:22 pm 
