They say it's a fool who gets kicked by a donkey, but to get kicked by a donkey twice requires a complete idiot. Of course, in the army you get a medal for getting kicked by the donkey ... and then you get told to do it again!

That's why, on this cold November night, the Sarge and I were crawling through the mud of no man's land with a brand new mission: "Get a closer look at the enemy's top secret new VIA NanoBook, and don't bother coming back until you find it!"

I was armed with a pen, paper, binoculars, a carbine and a bottle of whiskey, which was meant to keep us warm. Sarge, being a veteran of many a skirmish, knew that crawling into enemy territory would require "a very optimistic frame of mind", so we stopped in the first bomb crater to gulp down the whiskey, and after that everything was a lot more fun. We frivoled up slippery slopes and slid through gooey ponds of crater muck until we spotted the NanoBook at exactly the same place we left it a few hours earlier. "Bingo-o-o," said Sarge with a slur in his voice, before uttering something that sounded like a belch and a hiccup. ...

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The Brass said they wanted detailed info on the video output, so we scampered around to get a look at the NanoBook’s right flank. I brought out the binoculars and bingo, there it was, the new and improved output that will soon be replacing VGA: DVI-I, containing all the pins for all types of DVI (Digital Video Interface), including those for dual-link DVI-D.

It became clear to me that this VIA NanoBook was more valuable to the enemy than I had thought. With video output like that it was going to make a lot of the bigger weapon systems look like target practice drones!

Back at base I checked out the intelligence files on DVI. Turns out it’s a video interface standard designed to maximize the visual quality of digital display devices such as flat panel LCD computer displays and digital projectors. When using digital displays (such as LCD) with analog signals (such as DVI’s predecessor, VGA), there’s an array of discrete pixels and a single brightness value must be chosen for each. The decoder does this by sampling the voltage of the input signal at regular intervals. When the source is also a digital device (such as a computer), this leads to distortion and creates crosstalk problems, especially as you increase the screen resolution. The new, digital output system – DVI – solves this problem by cutting out the analog part. At this point the intelligence file got a bit ‘tech-y’: “Scenarios where DVI cabling is used are: computer graphics card to LCD monitor, set-top box to digital TV, DVD player to digital TV, DVD player to audio/video receiver, a/v receiver to digital TV, a/v receiver to projector, etc.” The file also mentioned that there’s a medal in it for anyone who can identify some more types of DVI-using devices.

It became clear to me that DVI is opening up a whole new world of High Definition video output.

I glanced over at our weapons systems lined up in the yard. Every one of them had good old VGA outputs. None of them had DVI.

A shiver ran down my spine. Have we been forced by a lack of foresight to fight with outmoded optical technology?

Visitor

Monday, 09 July 2007

Do you have confirmation it can support dual-link DVI? That seems awfully high-end for a UMPC.

Visitor

Tuesday, 10 July 2007

I think the DVI duel link is not supported from what I read... but I guess the chipset will change for different models and perhaps it will at some point.

Visitor

Saturday, 14 July 2007

It would certainly mean a whole new world!

Visitor

Sunday, 15 July 2007

cool way of introducing me to a whole new technology