Hands on: Time for giving

Graphics
I’m no 3D gamer, but the latest graphics cards have made a big difference to me this year. As an evangelist of high-definition video, modern graphics chipsets have become an essential part of my media PC for ensuring smooth and efficient playback.

High-definition video in its many formats is quite simply a tricky customer. Most of the compression systems employed on modern HD titles are tougher to decode than DVD, and making it harder still are the generally higher bit rates.

Throw enough processing muscle at HD and you’ll decode it smoothly, but in PC hardware terms it’s like taking a hammer to crack a nut. What you really need is a specialist tool, and just like decoding DVDs, the answer to HD’s tough requirements is a hardware-accelerated graphics chipset.

Graphics chipsets have offered hardware acceleration of HD material for some time now, but many only give a small boost. If your main processor is fast enough and not working on anything else, this could be sufficient to get the job done, but otherwise you’ll still suffer from choppy playback.

Luckily the latest graphics chipsets have the answer: 100 per cent acceleration of HD. Nvidia’s Geforce 8500 and 8600 desktop GPUs, along with certain ATI Radeon HD 2x00 GPUs, can take the entire strain of decoding the toughest HD material, leaving even modest processors with power to spare.

You will need to update your software player to exploit this acceleration, and also be running the latest driver ­ which for Nvidia, means Vista only at the moment. But for many people, upgrading their graphics card will represent a cheaper and more effective solution for smooth HD playback than fitting a faster processor ­ see November’s Performance column for more details.

Storage
Physicists have long known that a gas will always fill the available space, and I’m beginning to feel the same applies to data and hard disks. It doesn’t matter how big a hard disk is, because you’ll invariably fill it ­ probably sooner than later too.

In recent times though, it’s not so much capacity that’s been my primary concern, but backup and transportability. Hard disks will fail at some point, so you’d better have a backup somewhere and, if you’re protecting against fire, flood or theft, that backup had also better be elsewhere.

As someone who’s PC case is rarely closed, I’m perfectly happy to connect an internal hard disk to a spare port and copy data right on to it. Bare hard disks offer the best price per gigabyte and a direct connection is quick. Slip the disk into an anti-static bag with some padding around it and your data should be well protected.

I realise this may sound reckless to some, so another device which I’ve long used for portable backup could be more appropriate: an external laptop hard disk. These are small and light enough to carry almost anywhere, can normally be powered by one or two USB ports, thereby eliminating the need to lug around an AC adapter or voltage converter, and while the price per gigabyte is much higher than desktop drives, it’s acceptable for the benefits. My latest is a Seagate Freeagent Go which sports 160GB.

HD drives
If you’re interested in watching HD DVD or Blu-ray movies, the cheapest point of entry could be your PC. You will need a suitable software player like PowerDVD Ultra, which costs about £55, but so long as your processor and graphics are up to the task, all you’ll then need is a suitable optical drive.

Pioneer’s recently released BDC-202 drive is the cheapest way to play Blu-ray movies on your PC as, while it can read and write CDs and DVDs, it saves money by only reading Blu-ray discs; it costs around £150. The bargain of the year as far as I’m concerned though is the Microsoft HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360, which can be bought for £90. As a USB2 device, it’ll connect to PCs and there are drivers for both XP and Vista. This drive and a copy of the BBC’s Planet Earth on HD DVD from Amazon have been two of my best buys this year.