GeekwithEnvy

Blog

The Industry is Pushing 4K Television Forward

by Leave a Comment

We are just a week into 2013 and the tone of this year’s technology is already being set. New televisions are popping up left and right from manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, LG and Visio and this time they’re bringing with them some new tech. What new tech? Well, 4K to be more precise and sure it’s going to look fantastic but I can’t help but feel like it’s a bit of overkill.

First off what exactly is 4K television? Well, I have addressed this in an earlier post that goes into a little more detail, but to gloss over everything it’s basically twice the resolution of current 1080p television. This new high resolution has been named UHD or Ultra-High Definition. UHD also includes an even higher resolution known as 8K UHD (7680 × 4320).

UHDTV_resolution_chart

Now, all of this looks great and I can’t say I’m against moving technology forward, but my main issue with UHDTV is that it just seems like overkill. There is only so much that we can see with our eyes and unless you’re sitting right in front of your display, like less than 4 ft, I don’t think most people will be able to see the difference. Perhaps I am wrong, I didn’t think that I would be able to tell the difference with Apple’s Retina display, boy was I wrong. Plus these new resolutions will allow for some ridiculously awesome television sizes. I have seen some TV’s pushing the 80″+ range and they still look amazing.

A big issue with UHD is cost. These TV’s are selling for around $25,000 which isn’t exactly appealing to a very large audience. However, this year’s CES press conference from Sony has shown that 4K is becoming more affordable. Content is king, this is true for many things in life and it’s also true for UHDTV. There just isn’t much 4K content out there to enjoy on your new UHDTV set. This is the same problem we ran into when we first got into HDTV, there was little to no content and cable/satellite providers took years to get a decent amount of programming together, not to mention all of the issues they will have trying to get enough bandwidth together to broadcast 4K or even 8K.

Here is the new 65″ 4K TV that Sony unveiled at their CES Press Release.

SonyUHDTV
65″ 4K Ultra HD TV
Model number: XBR-65X900A (Source:Sony)

The industry will catch up and the move to UHDTV is most likely inevitable, so these problems will eventually be overcome. For the average consumer we will just have to wait and watch until something more affordable comes down the line.

Nvidia Unveils Project Shield

by Leave a Comment

Nvidia Shield Onstage

Nvidia has unveiled Project Shield which is a handheld gaming device that runs on the new Tegra 4 processor along with the Android OS. The new gaming device will allow you to play games directly on the device itself or by using it as a controller to remotely control your PC games using Steam.

Nvidia has mentioned that the handheld device will take advantage of Nvidia’s new GRID technology, which is an advanced cloud gaming system. Imagine how Netflix works but with games instead. I wrote an article earlier last year talking about GRID. I am really exited about the direction that gaming is heading and I think we’re in for a big year for gaming.

 

CES only a Few Days Away

by Leave a Comment

Yes, it’s the world’s largest annual innovation event and one of my favorite things about starting the new year! The International Consumer Electronics Show will feature thousands of new gadgets to check out and of course we will do our part to bring you updates.

The International CES will be held in Las Vegas on January 8th – 11th. It truly is a major geek out and I can’t wait to see what comes out of this years event. You can get all the event info on the official CES website.

Here’s a look back at CES 2012.

Play PS2 XBOX and More on Your PC Monitor

by Leave a Comment

It sounds simple enough, you want to play your Playstation 2 (PS2), XBOX, or other gaming console that uses composite video, on your computer monitor. Turns out that doing this can prove to be quite difficult, but here’s a solution.

You may start out looking for adapters on Amazon or eBay and within seconds you find tons of different adapters. Some of these adapters look like they will work just fine, RCA inputs on one side and VGA or HDMI on the other side. What’s even better is that you likely get a great deal on the adapter, perhaps it will only set you back $1.50.

Unfortunately, this will leave you without an image on your PC monitor and you will find yourself trying to figure out how to get your $1.50 back. The truth is these adapters weren’t designed to work the way you think they would. Most of these kinds of adapters were meant to work the other way around and were never intended to be used to hook a gaming console up to a PC monitor. Luckily there is a simple solution that will get you up and running quickly.

PETRH RGB to HDMI PS2 Xbox to PC monitor

You can use the PETRH RCA Component RGB YPbPr to HDMI v1.3 Video Converter or one similar to this. Not many monitors have composite video hookups so this will be very helpful as it will provide you with an HDMI connection to plug right into your monitor. This is the fastest way to get up and running without getting all caught up in the adapter game. This converter also handles audio which is a nice addition that some adapters might not have. The key to finding a working adapter in this case is one that is powered and comes with it’s own power supply.

Please note that you will also need to get a component cable for your PS2 or original Xbox as the original cable provided with these consoles only offers composite video (Red, White and Yellow). After that, the only other connection you need to make is to hook up the power supply to the converter box and you’re ready to game. Of course you don’t have to just use this converter for games, you can use it for just about anything you want to hook up that only accepts and HDMI signal. You can pick this unit up for around $25.00 on Amazon or eBay.

 

WoW Players Preferred Over Harvard MBAs?

by 1 Comment

In a Big Think video John Seely Brown, a notable researcher, discusses the benefits that World of Warcraft gamers have over others. He talks about how World of Warcraft players have a true passion for what they are doing and how that helps drive them towards success. He also talks about how applying the practices of good guilds to the business world could be beneficial and much better than the system we use today. He mentions that self-assesment, group criticism and having employees work on something they genuinely care about is the key to being successful and that we need to rethink the way we do things.

Ask any hardcore raider from WoW and you will most certainly begin to notice that there’s a lot of strategy and structure to what gamers are doing when they are working as part of a guild. After you spend sometime playing in an organized guild, you quickly begin to realize that you have been building a unique skill set that you can easily apply to other situations in the real world. John’s ideas make for an interesting concept and I like the idea of challenging our current system.

[Massively]