NVIDIA today announced they are bringing the first 2 GPUs of their GeForce GTX 400 Series product line which support DirectX 11 to market: the GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470. The GTX 480 will be available at retail for an estimated price of $499 USD and the GTX 470 will be available at retail for an estimated price of $349 USD.

 

NVIDIA wanted to have the first of their DirectX 11 capable GPUs available around the same time Windows 7 hit the market in October but needed more time to further “bake” the architecture. They have put a lot of investment in the new architecture present in these new GPUs. And if NVIDIA were bakers, and these GPUs were cupcakes – these new GPUs we’re talking about today would be some very delicious cupcakes.

Previously known simply by the codename “GF100”, the GTX 480 and GTX 470 are the first of NVIDIA’s next-generation GeForce GPUs and based on NVIDIA’s new Fermi architecture. The new features and capabilities of the GTX 480 and GTX 470 are exposed especially in Windows 7 where NVIDIA has taken advantage of the enhancements Windows 7 offers users today – such as DirectX 11. With DirectX 11, the GTX 480 and GTX 470 can offer some impressive effects through scalable hardware tessellation. Tessellation offers the ability to create rich detail in through either games or software applications with geometric realism – it’s better at doing geometric processing. A realistic render of water with one of these GPUs renders up to 1.6 billion triangles a second! See this post from NVIDIA on some impressive DirectX 11 demos. Through SLI, two GTX 480s together offer up a 90% performance increase in scaling if you want even more powerful graphics for your PC. With the GTX 480 and GTX 470, NVIDIA’s goal was to provide cinema quality visuals and to enable game developers and software developers the ability to create cinema quality visuals for their products.

The GeForce GTX 400 Series GPUs bring to market NVIDIA’s new 3D Vision Surround Technology. With 3D Vision Surround, you can do full HD gaming in 3D across 3 HD monitors at 5760x1080 resolution! 3D Vision Surround also supports gaming across non-3D capable displays as well. To enable 3D Vision Surround, 2 GTX 400 Series GPUs with SLI and 3D Vision capable displays and glasses are required. For more on 3D Vision Surround, I recommend reading this blog post from NVIDIA’s Bryan Del Rizzo.

NVIDIA will be providing software with each that showcases the capabilities of the GTX 480 and GTX 470. NVIDIA’s Design Garage application lets you create and design a car that utilizes things like DirectX 11 and real-time “ray tracing” (the tracing of light for shapes and shadows), one of the first consumer GPUs to offer such a feature.

I was unable to get my hands on one of these new GPUs at the writing of this blog post. However you can expect another post to come once I do!

Microsoft Hardware has announced today TrueColor Technology - designed to enhance the color and brightness of webcam video in the worst of lighting conditions. TrueColor Technology is a new image processing technology that automatically adjusts the picture quality to provide more colorful video.

In support of TrueColor Technology, Microsoft Hardware is also announcing 3 new LifeCam models that support TrueColor Technology. All of these new LifeCam models not just support TrueColor Technology, but include 720p HD sensors and Auto Focus technology as well.

LifeCam HD-5000

LifeCam HD-5001

LifeCam HD-6000 for Notebooks

The LifeCam HD-5000 and the LifeCam HD-5001 will have an estimated retail price of $49.95 and will be available later this month. The LifeCam HD-6000 will have an estimated retail price of $59.95 and be available in May. The LifeCam HD-5000 and LifeCam HD-6000 will be available for pre-sale on Amazon.com and Buy.com starting today.

If you’re a LifeCam Cinema owner like me, you’ll be happy to know there is both LifeCam software and a firmware update for the LifeCam Cinema available now that enables TrueColor Technology!

The Microsoft Hardware folks have also launched a new Microsoft Hardware blog today. Check it out and make sure to subscribe to their RSS feed!

Lately, folks have been talking a bit about HDMI. HDMI is a special type of connection designed to deliver digital content from one device to another audio or video device through a single connection. That content can be standard definition (SD) or high definition (HD) movies or something as simple as MP3 music. HDMI is a completely digital connection, as it transmits uncompressed digital data. It is a standard that is replacing the old-style analog connections such as S-Video and VGA. A common use for HDMI today is connecting devices like a PC or an Xbox 360 to a HDTV.

As I had been seeing a lot of talk about HDMI, I realized that HDMI is very common today in Windows PCs. In looking at the PCs I currently have in my office and at home, the majority of them have HDMI. Those PCs include my Dell Studio 1555, Dell Inspiron Zino HD, Acer Aspire Revo, Toshiba Satellite E205, Acer Aspire 1420P (the “PDC laptop”), ASUS G71Gx, HP TouchSmart 600, and HP Envy 13. These PCs span a variety of form factors from small “nettops” to full-blown all-in-one PCs. Even netbooks are now shipping with HDMI (it’s smaller than the VGA connection).

All the above mentioned PCs are running Windows 7 of course. What’s great about Windows 7 and HDMI is that when I plug any of these laptops into a HDTV via HDMI, it recognizes the display and sets the screen resolution correctly. And because HDMI does not just do video but audio too, it also brings in the audio. During the holidays while visiting my parents, I connected the HP Envy 13 I was using at the time to my dad’s 52” HDTV. We rented several movies from the Zune Marketplace and watched this in full HD on his HDTV.

Of the PCs I mentioned above – the Acer Aspire Revo and Dell Inspiron Zino HD are prefect little Home Theater PCs (HTPCs) with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center. And with HDMI – a single cable connected to an HDTV is all one needs to watch movies, play music, go through family photos, watch DVDs, or even watch live TV*.

*You’ll need a TV tuner to watch live TV in Windows Media Center. Some PCs are so small they don’t support any additional hardware inside the actual system. Not to worry! You can pick up a USB TV tuner which works just fine! I’ll talk about this in a later blog post.

You can also add HDMI to existing desktop PCs (for the folks out there that like building their own desktop PCs) fairly inexpensively. Many graphics cards today are shipping with HDMI built in. Earlier this month, I blogged about 2 new affordable DirectX 11 graphics cards from AMD: the Radeon HD 5570 and Radeon HD 5450.Both these graphics cards come with HDMI.

Many Windows PCs ship with Blu-ray playback capabilities. You can use your PC to play Blu-ray movies. With HDMI, you can connect a Windows PC to an HDTV and watch Blu-ray movies on your HDTV without having to go out and buy a standalone Blu-ray player. Most of Windows PCs that ship with Blu-ray also ship with software for Blu-ray playback. I also did a blog post about Corel WinDVD Pro 2010 last December which is Compatible with Windows 7. Corel WinDVD Pro 2010 is an excellent application for Blu-ray playback in Windows 7 as well.

About a month ago, I took a trip to Mt. St. Helens while returning to Redmond from Portland. It was a beautiful day and thought I would shoot some video and take some photos for readers of the blog who may not be able to make it to the Pacific Northwest. And to bring it all together I used Windows Live Movie Maker. I shot both video and photos with my new Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. The PowerShot SX20 IS shoots both 12.1 megapixel photos and 720p HD video.

I used Windows Live Movie Maker to bring together all the clips of videos I shot (edited of course to make sense) with several photos spliced between the clips as I headed up the mountain. Windows Live Movie Maker is great for bringing both video and photos together into a single project that you can then then publish out as a video to be shared with others like friends and family. I like to think of using Windows Live Movie Maker to take in content from an experience from a location (or multiple locations), bring it all together, and make it sharable.

 

As you can see in the above screenshot, my “project” in Windows Live Movie Maker wasn’t too complicated – 4 video clips and 10 photos. I added a few animations to the photos (static photos are too boring!) and transitions between both the video clips and photos too.

I edited the project in widescreen 16:9 which is the native aspect ratio of the video I shot. You’ll notice the photos are also in widescreen. This took some extra part on my part to make happen. I wanted the end-result video to be completely 16:9 widescreen and 720p HD which is 1280x720 in resolution. Because my images were all at a very high resolution, I used Paint.NET 3.5 (now updated to 3.5.1) to edit the photos down to 1280x720 to fit the resolution of 720p HD video.

So here’s the end-result video:

You can also check out my Flickr set of Mt. St. Helens photos from the trip here. I uploaded these photos to Flickr via Windows Live Photo Gallery. I also created several panoramic stitches in Windows Live Photo Gallery as well which are included in the set.

You can download both Windows Live Movie Maker and Windows Live Photo Gallery as part of Windows Live Essentials here at http://download.live.com today if you haven’t already!

Remember to check out the Windows Live Movie Maker Holiday Contest too!

A few days ago you may have heard about a new webcam from Microsoft Hardware that does 720p High Definition widescreen video. Well… meet the new LifeCam Cinema!

 

The LifeCam Cinema records video at 720p HD in 16:9 widescreen up to 30 frames per second (fps). It uses ClearFrame Technology for smooth, detailed video and has an improved de-noiser. The improved de-noiser reduces image graininess - especially in low light. It also has a faster image-processing technology that keeps video smooth at any resolution. The LifeCam Cinema also has a high-precision glass element lens for much clearer video quality. You know how some webcams have blurry corners in videos? Yeah – not here! Other features include taking 5.0 megapixel stills, a digital noise-canceling microphone, and a flexible attachment base bends to fit on most surfaces (like the top of LCD monitors and notebook screens, or simply on your desk desk).

Through the LifeCam 3.0 software (which can be downloaded here), LifeCam Cinema users will enjoy integration with both Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Movie Maker which was released yesterday. To record video and take still photos with the LifeCam Cinema, you will need the LifeCam software installed. After recording a video, you can quickly launch Windows Live Movie Maker to edit that video and share with friends and family online. Using Windows Live Movie Maker, you can add transitions and other animations to videos recorded with the LifeCam Cinema as well as music, captions and more. When taking still photos, you can view those photos in Windows Live Photo Gallery and edit and add tags.

The LifeCam Cinema will be available starting in September 2009 for an estimated retail price of $79.95 (U.S.).

For more information on the LifeCam Cinema, click here for the press release.

I am currently giving the LifeCam Cinema a spin myself – courtesy of Microsoft Hardware. Expect to see some movies created with the LifeCam Cinema and edited with Windows Live Movie Maker in the very near future.

As you probably already noticed, I’ve been doing quite a bit of posts that include video demos of devices and software in my posts. A few folks have asked me how I produce these videos and I’d like to outline the exact process I use in producing these videos for a blog post.

For software demos (like my recent Windows Live SkyDrive demo) I use Camtasia Studio 4 to capture my screen and I publish out to a WMV file I then upload to MSN Soapbox.

However when shooting actual footage of me demoing a device (like the Fingerprint Reader) or events coverage (like WinHEC 2007) - I have a pretty standard step-by-step process I use every time I shoot video. First off: I always shoot video in HD (1080i specifically). Secondly: in grabbing and editing video I shoot of my digital camcorder, everything I use is a feature that ships in Windows Vista.  Let’s take a look at my step-by-step process to see what I mean:

Step 1: I shoot the video using my Sony HDR-HC3 HDV Handycam which shoots in 1080i and 16:9 widescreen. For events, such as when I was at WinHEC, I shoot usually without a tripod. For footage such as close-up demos of hardware and devices - I have a tripod that I use with the camcorder to get steady footage. I don’t want to make anyone seasick with wobbly video. The HDR-HD3 comes with a remote which allows me set up the camcorder and tripod for the best shot and quickly hit record without having to physically be behind the camera. I can focus on doing the video.

Step 2: After I shoot the video, I hook up my HDR-HDC to my Windows Vista PC via Firewire. Windows Vista automatically detects the camcorder without the need of searching for any required drivers which is absolutely wonderful.

Step 3: I open up Windows Movie Maker to import the footage off my HD-HDC. Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate come with the built-in ability to bring in raw HD footage off of a HD camcorder. I use Windows Vista Ultimate on the PC I use for producing my videos.

Step 4: Using the Import Video Wizard in Windows Movie Maker - I import my HD video shot from my camcorder into Windows Vista.

Step 5: Using Windows Movie Maker - I edit the clip I want to publish. I split the video, move video around, add transitions (I usually use “Fade”) and also add custom graphics such as my Windows Vista Team Blog graphic you can see at the end of several of my videos.

Step 6: After I have the video edited to how I like it - I publish the video from Windows Movie Maker.

Step 7: Windows Movie Maker gives you several options in publishing videos. I choose to publish videos under the “Windows Media Portable Device” template which publishes videos out at 1.0Mbps, 640×480, and 30 frames per second. I’ve found this sitting gives me decent quality and small file sizes for publishing videos on MSN Soapbox.

Step 8: I take the video I published out from Windows Movie Maker and import it into MSN Soapbox. MSN Soapbox then lets me embed the video into a blog post.

That’s how I produce videos for blog posts from shooting the footage to embedding the Soapbox player in a post.

Take note that Windows Vista natively supports bringing in HD content from a HD camcorder and lets you edit those HD videos. After importing my HD footage into Windows Vista, I can take that HD content and stream it to a HDTV using my Xbox 360. It looks wonderful. I can also burn it onto a DVD and give it to friends or family to watch too (just not in HD though). I sometimes take my HD video and put it onto my laptop to edit video while traveling too.

Because of the ease of producing videos with Windows Vista, you can continue to expect to see more videos here moving forward.