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Usage - Instant On

Instant On functionality will become crucial for mainstream acceptance for the PC to function as a living room electronics component. The instant on ability of the EA65 is fantastic. Within about five seconds, the user can be watching TV, listen to music or have a DVD spin up. The EA65 functions in different modes which can be scrolled through using the buttons adjacent to the power button. Standard PC mode takes the users through the regular Windows boot process while every other choice uses the Instant On software.

The XC Cube Remote

DVD Output

The Instant On DVD component of the Aopen XC Cube AV outputs at 800x600 (native NTSC DVD resolution is 720x576). The picture quality looks pretty good and is on par with output from current generation graphics card using an overlay approach on the Windows desktop. Navigating through the DVD with the remote is a breeze and is just like any other DVD player. Both fullscreen and widescreen movies displayed fine. An useful feature for the feature might be brightness and contrast controls on the Cube itself. The onboard VGA output of the 865G chipset is brighter than the 9600XT I am using and subsequently the picture was a little too bright. Adjusting the monitor might not be an avenue that everyone would like to take.

Instant On TV Tuner

The instant on TV Tuner gives pretty good results also. One caveat is that channels will not change until the scan button on the remote is hit. Hit the scan mode and it will whip through all available channels. Quality on the TV Tuner output is comparable to the Leadtek TV Tuner we looked at recently and this is not surprising since both solutions rely on the Conexant chip. Similar features are available on both units including frequency tuning.

One of the surprising things is that TV Out is not a standard option on the EA65 and I feel this is an oversight. While picture quality with both the DVD and TV Tuner on a monitor was quite good, I think a lot of people are still adverse to watching movies and television on a computer. Although that attitude is changing, I think that having TV Out as a standard option is something that AOpen should seriously consider in an updated model.

Instant On VCD/Music

VCDs and Music can also be played back on the EA65 with the Instant On feature although the media will have to be on an optical disc - the Instant On software cannot read from the Windows partition. The MP3 playback interface is not as friendly as WinAMP or iTunes as far as navigation goes but is more akin to the CE type MP3 playback supported on some DVD players and in cars.