hdmi

At last year's CES, Intel Wireless Display was one of our Best of CES nominees, standing out for its potential to bring streaming Internet video to an HDTV from a laptop over its own dedicated wireless channel, including audio. In fact, it was your pick as Best in Show, winning the People's Voice Award (as determined by a user poll).

Let's go back to early 2010: back then, connecting a laptop to a TV with a wired connection was still the best way to get Internet video content such as Hulu and Netflix without an additional set-top box. Despite having a slight delay in the video/audio signal, and requiring a $99 Push2TV box from Netgear plugged into an HDTV or non-HD television to receive the signal, the benefits seemed clear, and for those looking to make a laptop into a home entertainment solution, there was no better choice.

Times have changed, indeed, although Intel Wireless Display really hasn't. The debut of Apple's iPad, and its support of Netflix, Hulu Plus, and other streaming services, has changed the equation a bit, even if the iPad doesn't support Flash. Video game consoles now have Netflix across the board, and even (on the PS3, at least) Hulu Plus and Vudu. TV sets are including an ever-increasing number of Internet apps for accessing digital content, and set-top boxes such as the Boxee Box, the next-gen Roku box, and Apple TV offer a variety of solutions.

When it comes to methods of getting Internet or computer-stored video content on your TV, your options come to this: … Read more

I get a lot of questions from readers, and by far, this is the one that seems to be on everyone's mind: "I have an old receiver, and I was considering upgrading to a newer model with HDMI switching and Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio processing. Would I notice a dramatic difference in sound quality from what I have now?"

It's a hard question to answer for a lot of reasons, starting with the fact that one man's "dramatic" is another man's "subtle" difference. I think the best new … Read more

Amid a week featuring the debut of a fashionably small laptop, Dell has announced a line of products that move firmly in the opposite direction. The new XPS line of laptops are a high-end-targeted set of media-featured notebooks aimed squarely at the HP Envy and MacBook Pro crowds. The design, from a backlit keyboard to lots of anodized and brushed aluminum, feels like an upscale fusion of the Studio and Adamo lines. They aren't flashy, but they seem quite sleek, and Dell offers its arsenal of Design Studio tweaks for anyone looking to pop these XPS models up a … Read more

Getting PC content onto the more communal view screen of the living room TV has always been a challenge. Media Center PCs, which plug directly into your home theater setup, are cumbersome and necessarily tethered to a single location; media streamers and hubs only work with a subset of content, and can't handle games or social networking. Plugging your laptop directly into the back of a TV isn't always convenient, especially if you want to still access the keyboard and touch pad at the same time.

One solution worth looking at is wirelessly transmitting the video output from your laptop to any nearby television or monitor. Two current laptop-focused choices in this area are Intel's Wireless Display and wireless HDMI boxes such as the Asus WiCast.

We've been reasonably positive about Intel's Wireless Display technology since its introduction earlier in 2010, but the platform has a handful of major issues keeping it from being a tool mainstream users will embrace.

If you're not familiar with WiDi, it's essentially a technology built into select laptops running Intel's latest CPUs and chipsets that allows the laptop's display to be wirelessly duplicated on a remote screen (say, a big-screen TV). Though the transmitting hardware is built into the laptop itself, the receiver is a small box that retails for $99 and plugs in to the HDMI port of your TV. The big problem with WiDi is that there's perceptible lag between the laptop and TV, making it fine for set-it-and-forget-it video playback, but useless for gaming or real-time Web surfing. It also can't play certain kinds of DRM-protected content, such as Blu-ray, and the current version tops out at a 720p resolution signal.

The Asus WiCast system solves many of those problems, while injecting a few of its own.… Read more

The revision of Apple's self-professed "hobby," the Apple TV, left a lot of people excited for the small, inexpensive, set-top steaming box. Unfortunately, if your Apple TV is connected to an older HD TV, you may experience video distortion. Users have reported that the new Apple TV may not be compatible with some television sets only five years old.… Read more

This is an update to one of my most popular posts.

As regular Cheapskate readers know, HDMI cables are insanely overpriced. Pity the uninformed consumer who walks into, say, Best Buy, and walks out $30, $40, or even $50 poorer. Happens all the time.

But it doesn't have to. Help me spread the word: Buy.com has four 6-foot HDMI cables for $8.19 shipped, for a total of just $2.05 per cable.

Just in case you're new to all this, HDMI cables are used to ferry digital audio and video signals between your HDTV and gear … Read more

New models of AV receivers always roll out later in the year and we're in the midst of rounding up the best midrange models of 2010. AV receivers certainly don't change as quickly as other home theater products, like HDTVs and Blu-ray players, but every year there are few new features that are important to be aware of when making a buying decision. Here's a quick look at some of the changes to look out for this year in the midrange price level.

3D pass-through Even though it's a completely new feature for 2010, 3D compatibility … Read more

Blu-ray, Intel Wireless Display, HDMI--there are a lot of ways laptops can make themselves killer TV-friendly media machines. In fact, for a reasonable price, there are a lot of options out there. Between Blu-ray playback and wireless streaming of online video, it's easier than ever to get your laptop to effortlessly play nicely with a big-screen HDTV. The trick is knowing which machines have these features. While Blu-ray laptops are often heavily plastered with stickers, Intel's Wireless Display technology is often invisible, and sometimes not even mentioned as a feature at all.

For your convenience, we've rounded up notable media laptops from our back-to-school 2010 retail laptop guide, focusing on the features in each. We've also noted whether these laptops have discrete graphics for gaming (it's not always a given). Whether or not they're gaming friendly, they're all well suited for video. Our roundup came up with several laptops from Sony and Toshiba, including a Sony Vaio EA24FM/W that offers an affordable Blu-ray/Wi-Di one-two punch for $799.

Note: we've seen some other compelling Blu-ray and Wi-Di laptops recently, including the Gateway NV5933u, but our list below focuses on retail configurations from our recent guide.

Editors' note: See our roundup of retail laptops in all price ranges.

Check out details of each system below:… Read more

Today on preGame we heroically emerge from the summer's gaming drought death-grip with two major titles. Join us as we host live demos of Madden 11 and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

Football is right around the corner and CNET editor Scott Stein joins us today to play a full quarter of Madden 11 between the New York Jets and New York Giants. We'll discuss major changes to the game, and what we think of Gameflow, the new mode that speeds up play-calling.

Though the Tomb Raider franchise has had a healthy dosage of sequels over … Read more