Extended display identification data (EDID) is a data structure provided by a computer display to describe its capabilities to a graphics card. It is what enables a modern PC to know what kind of monitor is connected. EDID is defined by a standard published by the Video Electronics Standards Association.

The issue rears its head when you switch your AV Receiver away from your HTPC (or boot-up without your AV Receiver/ TV on and selected to your HTPC) you Video Card loses the signal and thinks that there is no longer any Monitor or Audio device “attached” to your HDMI port.  EDID override was possible using a registry hack provided at AVSforum.com (thanks Tulli!).  However, the hack was device specific and was complicated to implement.

ATI finally decided to address the EDID issue with the release of Catalyst 10.4 drivers for their video cards.  Apparently the fix only works on Windows 7 machines.

Making HTPCs more like a normal consumer electronic device is almost like hitting a moving target.  The elimination of EDID problems is just another small step in that process.

Bigger is better, right? People buying shiny new TVs always struggle as to how big a TV you should buy. With the prices of HDTVs falling, people can afford to buy bigger and bigger TVs.

To help everyone find the right size TV, THX has developed a quick process for calculating the optimum viewing distance for 1080p HDTVs.

• Step 1: Measure the diagonal screen size
• Step 2: Divide by .84

Basically, the methodology revolves around preserving a 40 degree viewing angle between where you sit and the width of your TV. I personally think this is kind of crazy. Take a 42″ TV. Dividing 42 by 0.84 gives you 50 inches. The optimum viewing distance is just over 4 feet! Talk about going blind.

To watch a movie 10 feet away from the screen, you would need over a 100 inch screen according to the good folks a THX. Wow. I suddenly feel very inadequate.

ReplayTV, once a rival to Tivo, is now focusing their efforts on the computer platform. The initial version of the ReplayTV software was severly lacking, especially since it was not able to handle ASTC over the air HD broadcasts. For those of you keeping score, ATSC support is now included for free with Windows Vista. I currently use BeyondTV to watch HDTV on my computer.

If you are still interested in the ReplayTV HD beta, the list below is what ReplayTV is asking of its beta testers:

• Sign the ReplayTV Beta Agreement
• Participate in online beta forums and answer weekly surveys
• Provide data files or logs when requested
• Download the beta releases at the tester website
• Submit bug reports at the tester website
• Complete specific testing tasks through September 2007

All you need is an antenna and a tuner. The Snapstream blog has a list of 10 reasons why they love their antenna. From the post:

A couple of years ago, after another rate hike and a bad customer service experience, I took the plunge and canceled my cable. I was just fed up. It took about two weeks before I got over missing my Food TV, but the withdrawal was truly minimal. Looking back on that decision, I’m very happy I made it.

I use an indoor antenna to receive HD on my Windows XP computer. In total, the hardware costs were just about $100. I use my computer monitor as a second TV set and it looks awesome. It is a great way to watch HD programming, especially without all the drama of CableCards and switched digital video. The indoor antenna is alittle flaky but I have nto been motivated enough to mount the antenna in my attic.

Make sure you check these two HD websites before you invest the money in hardware. With the costs of a Vista Media Center with a digital cable tuner almost over $3,000 (like this Niveus system), the costs savings for using over the air HD can be substantial. You can take the savigns from your cable bill and pit it towards a Drobo for back-up.

Most consumers have not made the plunge of purchasing the next generation of high definition DVDs, either Blu-ray or HD-DVD. With prices of Blu-ray and HD-DVD drives dropping all the time, it is becoming more tempting to take the leap to HD. However, the competing formats have muddied the water. I have no idea who is going to win the format war. It looks like Blu-ray is in the lead but that can change. Here are some tips to avoid being a casualty in that format war:

1. Buy the cheapest player available. Right now the cheapest player available is a refurbished Toshiba HD-A1 from TigerDirect. For $199, you can get a fairly good HD-DVD player that can also upconvert your standard definition DVDs. If you have a X-box 360, consider getting the HD-DVD add-on.
2. Do not buy any movies. Rent them. The true cost of the next generation DVDs are not the players themselves, rather the individual movies. HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies are crazy expensive. $30 to $40 per movie adds up real quick, especially if you pick the wrong format. Netflix and Blockbuster (online only for HD-DVD) offer both formats for rental. There also is no extra charge for renting HD movies. Once the format war is decided, then start buying your movies.
3. High end solution: Buy a media center computer with the LG combo drive. For the truly adventurous, this is the most expensive option. HP is now selling the LG combo drive as a $500 add-on to their M8010Y media center. The $500 dollars will get you access to both drives, rendering the format war pointless. One note of caution, if you are going the media center route, plan on using PowerDVD Ultra as your playback software. Nero is really buggy so stay away from it. The main advantage of a media center is that you can rip the movies to a hard drive.
4. Wait for a Winner. If none of the options above entice you, I would suggest sticking to the sidelines of the format war and wait for a winner.

By lowering CPU utilization, and integrating seamlessly into Microsoft Windows Vista™ and Windows® XP environments, Broadcom’s media PC solutions enable mainstream PCs featuring integrated graphics to play back high definition content from either a Blu-ray Disc™ or HD DVD, as well as from HD downloaded or broadcast content. The new Broadcom® media PC solutions are available in three add-in card formats (including desktop PCI Express®, PCI Express mini-card or ExpressCard™ 34), and as a chipset solution for PC motherboard applications.

The chipset solution for PC motherboards sound interesting and could lead to not only small form factor media centers but also cheaper prices. Here are more details on this chipset:

The BCM70010/BCM70012 chipset introduces the advantages of the next-generation high-definition H.264 and VC-1 video compression algorithms to PC applications such as the playback of Blu-ray and HD DVD disks. The chipset is a single stream HD AVC/VC-1/MPEG-2 decoder solution capable of full HD real-time decoding. The high performance and low power consumption of the solution allow reduced CPU utilization and support for mobile platform designs.

All of the Broadcom hardware supports HDCP and are available today to OEMs for prices around $40, much cheaper than an NVidia. Expect laptops to be available soon using this technology.

TVFool.com is much like Antennaweb.org. It provides you a list of available television stations based your address. Unlike Antennaweb.org, it provides TV coverage maps for the top 261 metro markets. From the site:

If you’re wondering what your local broadcaster’s coverage area looks like, then here’s a way to find out. The files listed here contain transmitter placemarks and coverage maps for viewing in Google Earth (available for free). Each package, organized by metro, lets you “see” the TV environment for all the local broadcasters, and lets you explore their coverage maps in a virtual 3D world.

I currently use an indoor antenna and a TV tuner card in my computer to watch high definition programming. The results from TVFool.com accurately depicted what stations I should and should not be able to receive. It also provides some suggestions to improve your reception, like mounting your antenna in your attic or second floor.

From the article:

“Eighty-year-old technology is being redesigned and rejiggered to deliver the best picture quality,” said Richard Schneider, president of Antennas Direct. “It’s an interesting irony.”

With cable costs seemingly always increasing, over the air HD broadcasts provide a cheap alternative, especially for second TV sets in the house. I currently use a indoor antenna and a tv tuner for my computer to watch high definition TV on my computer monitor. It is a great way to add another TV to your household.

I am always amazed that people do not know that the major networks are broadcast for free in HD. Hopefully the message will get out with more articles like this one at CNN.com.

Check out my HDTV round-up to learn more about watching broadcast HD.

In our head-to-head, we took Vista Ultimate and used a 360 as a Windows Media Extender. With this setup, we came to the conclusion that the hulking white box ekes out the slimmer, shorter Apple TV—unless you have a standard XP computer with Media Center, or copious amounts of Apple iTunes DRM’d content.

I think the Xbox 360 is just starting to tap its potential. One overlooked aspect of the 360 as a media center is the wide library of plugins available. For instance, through the Transcode 360 plugin, the Xbox 360 is able to stream Divx video, something the Apple TV is not capable of doing at all. Plugins allow the Xbox, when connected to a Vista computer, to constantly add new capabilities.

The Xbox 360 and a Vista computer make a formidable combination, especially with the release of digital cable tuners. The Apple TV would be attractive to anyone that purchases large amounts of video from iTunes.

PC Magazine has a review of the Dell XPS 410 with CableCard. It is a lengthy review of a prototype product that is not currently available for public consumption. The fact that Dell will offer CableCard-ready PCs provides hope that we might see a sub $1000 Vista media center PC that is capable of watching high definition cable TV (especially since you cannot build a CableCard ready PC yourself because of the certification process). One thing is clear from the review: the potential is there but CableCard makes you jump through a lot of hoops just to watch TV on a computer. I still do not understand the appeal for external CableCard readers though.

From the article:

Right off the bat, I was able to get standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) channels, and all of the usual MCE functions were functioning properly. HD and SD viewing on basic and premium channels, pause and resume, and recording favorite shows also worked. Quality of Service (QoS) was another issue: While the Dell folks assured me that the system worked fine in Dell’s labs, in the apartment where I was testing, HD content and some SD content had stuttering and video artifact issues. While it’s still watchable, the occasional stuttering would be annoying during critical viewing. We’ll be keeping an eye on this to see whether it is somehow related to our second QoS issue.

The article reinforces that the Xbox 360 also appears poised to be the focal point of the home theater. Serving as a media extender, up to 5 Xboxes can stream HD video content from one computer, all the while using the Vista MCE interface. It makes you wonder why Microsoft did not include a HDMI connection with the Xbox, instead relying on component connections.

I am sure more reviews will be trickling in for CableCard-ready PCs. Hopefully such computers will be available to the public soon.