The rebuild for 4500€ without the amp - the original for 24000? Neat. ^^

And I know that my rack is not the best - first it's a portable one and then it's like with PC's as soon as you buy it a better model is bound to be released. (As for IEMs I have to say it's like a cold war - can't even imagine how they manage to stuff more and more drivers into these little casings)

Its improved massively and if you have major problems you can always grab one of the frontends out there to do it all for you :P

Heh, it's a piece of cake with countless frontends, alternative builds or whatever available on-line. Right now I'm using a pretty old version of MAMEUI - ie the most used Win32 build of MAME with a graphic shell. But the possibilities are countless, really.

P.S.You need the ROMs of the game's original chips to be emulated, of course.

Why have you locked into codecs of all things to point the finger at when there are many other parts involved in getting something to your laptop screen? If it were true it would be effecting more than just your personal laptop. It would be effecting everyone regardless of their screens.

Heck if you are using Vista or later it could be lowering the output quality of the signal if its not wired up as a DVI or HDMI screen (some uncool copy protection nonsense) There is far more that could be wrong than a codec, and you need to do far more testing before making a diagnosis like that. Well you should anyway. You can do as you please I guess.

first time i saw computer was on tv and it was talking, and i thought computer was awesome it can do so much stuff, by ages upgraded from dos to win 7 now, the bastard still cant talk , well atleast its good at other things

Yes master.

Frontends that makes it easier? What is this new thing? ;)
I think I'll have a new look at MAME then. :)

Nice! I think I'll check if I still have the ROMS somewhere then. I really miss my old Amiga games. :)

I've had a lot of technological shocks in my life:
-The first time I saw a 1 Gb IDE Hard Drive and tought: Who needs all that space?
-The first time I played Pokemon and Metal Slug in my computer using emulators. I was amazed I could play Gameboy and arcade games using a computer with 64 mb of Ram and 266 Mhz Processor.
-The first time i bought a 128 mb micro sd card. All that space in a card the size of one of my fingernails?
-The first time we had DSL at home. I was happy that now i could be online all the time. Also that my parents wouldn't scream at me when they needed to use the phone or when the bill arrived at the end of the month.
-The time I discovered that i could download Dreamcast games, burn them and play them without using a modchip.
I could go on. But you catch my drift.

On the other hand, I was appalled how bad SD programs/movies look on many HDTVs. Like when I was at my friend's place recently, the TV was open and something like "The King of Queens" reruns were coming out... WTF was that? The actors' faces were like messy blops making them almost unrecognazible compared to how they look on my ages old Philips 32" SD tube.

That's a bit of problem because most TV channels/programs sent here are still SD, we are still in the process of moving completely to HDTV world (seems the state is still trying to figure out which version of HD to jump to exactly, for aired antenna channels etc.). So I'd really need a HDTV that doesn't show SD programs with such subpar quality. I'd actually want to get one now so that I could connect my laptop to it via HDMI.


A positive "shock": recently I got at last a new-ish PC monitor at work, and most importantly, I got a dock station for my laptop that has also DVI-out, not just VGA-out. So now whenever I'm at my desk at work, I have my laptop on the dock station and using the hires monitor, something I haven't done in years (at work). Done everything on the 14.1" laptop screen until now.

The shock was how useful having a two monitor setup actually is. Now I have the laptop on the dock station with the lid open, so the laptop 14.1" screen is the secondary monitor for me. I use the "extend" option so I can move windows freely between the two monitors.

I used to roll my eyes earlier when I saw at work some people having two (or even three?) external full size monitors taking all their desk space, and wondering is it really worth it. Well, I still don't know, but at least now the laptop screen is useful also on the dock station. (I personally still wouldn't want two external monitors on my desk, but this is a good compromise.)

I have always bitched about how bs it is that Windows doesn't have several workspaces like any Linux, MacOS (I think) etc. do, but this certainly eases the pain quite a lot also on Windows. Also since my laptop screen has a privacy filter (so that no one else can see the screen, except when they are exactly behind me), I can keep all the private stuff (incl. emails, web banking, GOG forum etc.) on that screen, and the work stuff on the big external monitor.

I think this is one example to AlKim why using an external monitor with a laptop might actually make sense, since then you have two monitors at the same time. ;)

Man, I can't wait to connect my laptop to a HDTV, using it the same way with two monitor setup...

timppu, you are right. And this is simply because the video is stretched out like hell on fullhd tv when it's broadcasted in SD - not to mention much lower bitrate, etc.

But even in a third world country which Poland certainly is, most of the channels have HD broadcast now - but mostly via satellite. (well, some of them are "fake" hd) My friend is a web dev, and he simply refuses to work without two monitors :D

Some channels "Fake" HD. For most of the day they broadcast in SD and only a few films a day are in HD, for example. I don't know if that's the case in this store.

Also, it may be that this channel was broadcasting in 720p when the screen resolution is 1080p, you can tell the difference.

In my nearest store, they are showing BluRay movie trailers mostly, and they look sharp as crazy.

Premium channels on my parents' satellite tv look amazing, so does the sports channels (football and boxing in HD look gorgeous...).

And they're not that expensive. I've seen a couple of 42 inch LEDs for equivalent of 500 EUR. It's not that much, compared to the prices a year or two back.

It's mostly because 3D TVs are real hip now. But they are not worth that money. First of all, you have to watch the tv from correct angle, not matter if passive or active 3D, secondly, it's not that impressive as in cinemas (if cinema 3D is impressive to begin with...)

IMHO, 3D tv is a waste of money.

I had the same issue back in the day at our local stores, Best Buy was famous for it, and when I checked it out it was due to the splitter.

The stores all had a single feed in for their displays and used a massive video spitting unit (or many smaller ones chained together) to get the feed to all the televisions. Between splitting a signal 100 times and chaining together 5 or six splitters, plus using old splitters with only coaxial connectors, they were putting up the worst possible signal into these top end displays. Eventually they replaced them all with HDMI splitters and got true HD content and now it is like walking into tech Disneyland when you go to the TV section. :)

The BluRay example you saw is what HD content is supposed to look like, and if the TV signal coming in to your place is high quality and HD it will be on par with it. We use DirecTV here at my house and their HD broadcasts are right on par with my discs now. First time I watched (American) football and saw each blade of grass AND it's shadow I was in awe of HD content and can never go back. Beware. :)
I think 3D will be common in another 5 years or so, but for now I agree it is just a gimmick that adds cost with no real benefit to the average person. Between the seating/glasses issues you mentioned, the fact that not everyone can watch 3D (nausea, blurriness, headaches, and not seeing the effect) and the need for the largest displays to be effective it just doesn't make sense right now to me. If I had an HD projector and a bare two story wall in a man cave I might be tempted to recreate the theater experience, until then I will go with HD and just love on it for a few more years. :)

With laptops, the screen quality and specs are pretty well down the list of what customers check out when they shop for one, price, screen size, weight ram, cpu and whatever coming in first.

Hence, laptops have pretty bad screens. Particularly the ones in the ballpark of $500.

Cheap 32" LCD TV's as well. LED backlighting used to be a great thing for image quality, but nowadays everything is LED because that's what customers want.

But still... TV reviews put a big weight on image quality, so the manufacturers try to make sure they have that covered. Especially for the more expensive models.

What im finding is that when you look to buy stuff like this, its hard to get spec details easily from the stores....lot of detail basic stuff not listed to help make a more informed decision.Instead get told to google it. wtf LOL