Specs aside, Nvidia sent us this box to take a look at PureVideo HD, the decoding software that helps complete the PC's end of the HDCP chain. Having a "secure" system won't be an issue until roughly 2010, when Hollywood may or may not kick in the copy-protection technology that will "down-res" HD movies when you play them on unapproved hardware, but it's nice to have that box checked early. Perhaps more importantly, when you play a Blu-ray or HD-DVD movie, PureVideo HD will help the graphics card, Windows, and your HD movie player software to communicate, ideally ensuring an optimal HD movie-watching experience.

To get an idea of what this experience looks like, we plugged Nvidia's test box via an HDMI cable into the highly rated Sony KDS-R60XBR2 60-inch television. Coming fresh off of its November 11 review, we chose that TV because it was handy, but also because it'll do HD resolutions up to 1080p, and we already had its image-quality settings set. Even after eliminating the television as a source of any trouble, we still found mixed results.

We were happy to see that Nvidia's drivers recognized our television and autoset the screen to 1080p resolution. Nvidia's software includes a few easy-to-use tools for calibrating RGB color accuracy and brightness. It took some tweaking, but eventually we were happy with the color temperature and other settings. One drawback we found is that any changes you make to the video don't show up on the fly. You have to close whatever you're watching and restart it for any adjustments to kick in, making the process overly cumbersome. This lack of real-time feedback has always been an issue with PC video, though, so it's nothing new.

In terms of actual movie playback, we were generally pleased with 1080p and 720p. We used Swordfish and The Last Samurai as our test discs, and we compared them against output from a standard HD-DVD player. On the Nvidia system, we noticed some false contouring (distinct lines appear where gradients of color should transition smoothly), fewer fine details in shadowy areas, and some noticeably choppy frames during some more difficult pans, but at no time did we feel like were we utterly disappointed in the quality. We still saw much of what we've come to expect from HD video, things such as individual stubble hair and crisp background details, and the frame rates generally kept up.

The 1080i output was a different story. For some reason, Nvidia's test system wouldn't stay at 1080i on the Sony 60-incher. When we set that resolution in the drivers, it kept bouncing back up to 1080p. To eliminate the problem, we connected the PC to our Sony KD-34XBR960, an older, Editors' Choice-winning, 34-inch direct-view CRT that will only go as high as 1080i. When we finally got 1080i output to stick, all of the issues we noticed at 1080p were magnified: The contouring was terrible, diagonal lines were covered in shimmery moire effects, jagged edges marred both the foreground and the background, and the slight stutter we saw during certain scenes became much more pronounced. We're not sure whether the video card or PureVideoHD itself is to blame, but the result is that 1080i looks significantly worse than either 720p or 1080p. Early adopters who want an HD television and can't wait for 1080p to become more prevalent will feel this problem the most.

For progressive output, at least, we're mostly happy with PureVideo HD and the system that Nvidia sent us. We haven't had the opportunity to test an HD drive-equipped PC that has AMD/ATI's Avivo video-decoding technology, so we can't say what the PC competition is like. What we can say is that while a living room PC remains inferior to standard home theater components in terms of movie-image quality and general ease of use, Nvidia's PureVideo HD gets the quality part rather close on progressive content.

• Read also: Desktops, home video
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