The reason they probably buried the tivo like features was during this time TiVo was going nuts suing everyone and their dogs trying to stay profitable so a lot of smaller operations had to hide/jump through hoops to use the time shift features to avoid their litigation.
@fungo6631 yes. And a lot of them straight ripped off Tivo ui and functionality triggering the suits. If you're gonna copy someone's homework at least change some things around lol
*It just works, it will keep working forever, as long as NTSC broadcast exists... BUT THEY WILL NEVER SHUTDO-* Man idk why cutting the sentence right there made me lose my shit so easily, I love your snappy edit and visual gags in balance with the findings you made with these devices, can't help but praise the amount of tinkering you do around to explain the features and the hidden tricks behind it, from disamssembling to analysing the files and hidden partitions, great job of course!.
That's pretty much how I felt when it was announced that it would be shut down, I said no way! That won't happen, It's been around for so long! And then, poof
Analog television has existed for longer than most countries has been independent, most of Africa was still a colony when NTSC was introduced So to see it just disappear in a split of a second was just astounding.
@@tristan6509and with no comparable replacement in terms of reliability. We still have AM radio because it just kinda works, you can pick up AM radio with an LED if you’re doing it right. I can listen to my city’s famous AM station in most of the country at night. There’s no TV equivalent now that NTSC is gone, ATSC can’t just work in that same way.
@@JuneNafziger and lets not forget about shortwave radio which can bounce off the ionosphere you can be anywhere on earth and still be able to pick up a signal just with a single transmitter. Sadly it is very hard to pick up a shortwave signal nowadays due to interference, but in the forest you can still pick up signals A long time ago this was the only form of entertainment for sailors in the middle of the sea.
I had the 2011 model of Qosmio, which had a 3D screen built in and a bunch of other wacky nonsense gadgetry inside its very tacky gamer-core chassis. The Qosmio line seemed to relish throwing in as many enthusiast features as possible and hope it all fit together. I loved it, lol
I believe the Toshiba line of 3D laptops used a lenticular lens 3D display, *NOT* the Nvidia 3D Vision type with shutter glasses. So you didn't even need to charge some glasses up to use, or make sure the IR emitter wasn't blocked. @@brentgoeller8257
There's a maybe a reason for the LCD to be this thicc - As you note, the brightness was way higher than any other laptop at the time. This employs backlighting tech from a desktop monitor if i'm not mistaken.
I'm nearly certain that at the time, LCD monitors and TVs used CFLs for the backlighting. I don't know what would contemporary laptops use, LEDs feel too far off (I remember the LED TV craze among retailers around 2011-2013) but at the same time, what else would fit into a laptop screen?
@@segarallychampionship702 contemporary laptops use CFLs, I've had a few where they failed, they were normally only edge lit though, with some only using 1 along the longest side(and a reflector on the other side) but top and bottom was common as well, completely unsure why this laptop is so thick but the only assumption I can make is they might be using direct backlighting so an array of cfl's possibly along with all the necessary diffusers to keep it from showing severe banding, there's a possibility of leds as well but I'm unsure when that became common, I do know my laptop from 2009 had an LED screen though
@@segarallychampionship702 also this is based on Wikipedia but the first laptop with an LED backlight was made in 2005 with major players only starting to use them around 2008, based on the age of this laptop it's almost certainly a CFL backlight
@@segarallychampionship702it must be CFL white LED's were pretty terrible in CRI back then. I think rather than 2 CFL's setup as edge lighting the display, there may be more setup as a backlight. You'd need the extra space for diffusion plus a bit of space for impact protection.
I've seen some bizarre laptop shell designs in my time but this is the first one I can remember that looks like someone mated 2 Hershey's bars together top to top.
Your buildup of the laptop size gag over multiple episodes only to hit us with the dreadnought had me laughing so hard I had to pause to collect myself. Well done.
5:13 you can still do this! I built my grandparents a media center PC about 3 years ago and I threw in a brand new TV Tuner card so my grandma could watch NCIS. In fact, it's basically the same kind as the one on screen at 5:06 but with 1080i support
As usual a great video from you! I know it wouldn't inscribe in the Quick Start series but I'd love to see you cover the Qosmios from 2008 with the SpursEngine module, the one that has some of the SPEs from the CELL B/E of the PS3. It feels like Toshiba just put those out, no one cared apart from some video geeks that benched it to compare to software encode and decode and then absolutely everyone forgot about it - which makes me feel like it'd be right up your alley. Also funny seeing the GeForce Go 7300 in such a high-end machine when it's the same GPU Apple put in the $300 1st gen Apple TV. I do guess they share a lineage of both being media center products, so that's poetic.
It's not just Toshiba who clings to prehistoric user interfaces. Nvidia has been using the EXACT same GUI for its control panel app at least since Windows Vista. The only difference being a couple added options like Optimus.
Pretty sure a bunch of UI in modern Windows is decades old, some of which gets updated depending if people notice and/or complain about it Kind of wish the GeForce panel got updated, but at the same time didn't since they will try to roll it into GeForce Experience
@@meetoo594 Yes, that's a really good example of what I was talking about, but the principle example I had in mind of this was that there's Windows 3.1 UI elements that are still there if you dig deep enough. That's probably the only example I could feasibly bring up that wouldn't require research to let you prove it yourself.
@@No-mq5lw True, Windows 10 is also very similar to Windows Vista and 7. The Nvidia Control panel is literally the same app it was 16 years ago though. I don't really mind, but it really caught me by surprise when I took out my old Vista laptop and realized that the Nvidia control panel was the same as on my current PC with the latest drivers.
44:50 honestly it seems what they were going for here was a simple UPS feature for the media center. Like sure it doesn't last more than 10 to 20 minutes, but UPSes don't need to. You aren't supposed to keep using your PC in a AC power failure, a UPS is meant to kick in immediately and warn the user that the power has died. So that the user can properly and safely save all their work, and safely shut down their PC for when the power returns.
I never used XP Media Center, but I did use Vista Media Center, and I really liked it. It was pretty slick, and it handled recordings better than anything else I've ever used. It would look at everything you had scheduled to record, and if there were a conflict, it would actually search for alternative times for either program to record instead. I had two tuners in my PC at the time, and it worked seamlessly with both.
I tried using it for a while, since the xbox 360 could connect to it, and play the recorded media. But mediacenter was so crappy I switched to linux and running MythTV fairly quickly.
Man, that intro was MAGIC. I was amazed at how it was running trials, and then I saw it instantly switch and I was like "does that laptop have a f**king capture card built-in?" Edit: Man, I don't understand the trend of developing an awesome feature like that and only going halfway. If you're going to do something awesome, go the full length. It seems like this is a trend with quick start machines.
I like how he never explains how well Trials was running. He even noted later that the nVidia card was barely better than Intel Integrated. But then again, who does?
A weirder one that I've used before was this one called 1seg. It is only used in countries that use 13 segment ISDB/ISDB-T broadcasting like Brazil, the Phillipines and Japan. Basically, they found that they never needed any more than 8 of the 13 segments in its early days so they experimented with some of its functionality, leaving 1 segment free for low resolution long range video (hence the name 1seg). The service is still available today and has gone largely unchanged technologically speaking, so older tuners still work just fine, but it mostly goes unused due to the rise in popularity of streaming services and the widespread adoption of 5G allowing for better connections to those services on the go. Now of course it pales in comparison to having full 1080i broadcasts on 7 inch portable TV's that cost about as much as my emergency tax rebate, but its a fun gimmick for what its worth.
At first I was thinking the LCD was as thick as it was because they found some way to integrate a TV antenna inside of it. Still a really cool laptop, 2006 Ben would’ve been all over this.
Fulluy agree. Full nerd here. But I loved my mce. I had dual analog tuners and then also dual atsc tuners. But the automatic TVGuide from Microsoft was awesome
i liked that i could link my xbox 360 up to it and stream music from my PC to my Xbox whilst in game. that meant i didnt need to go through the tedium of ripping all my cds a second time
One final comment to say that I appreciate the effort you put into your presentation and delivery. I know first hand that it's a particular skill to be able to read from a teleprompter and not sound like you're reading from a teleprompter (let alone actually sound interested in the topic), and there are very few RUclipsrs who do it as well as you. Not to mention any names ... _[cough] Linux Tech Tips! [cough]_ Heck, you do it better than some of my work colleagues, and they get their faces broadcast to millions of homes every day! So thanks for being one of the few who can actually hold my ADHD attention and interest, to the point where I don't feel like I need to be working on something else while I'm watching the video.
51:11 Maybe old flash is more flaky than I know of, but I'd certainly think that you could advertise flash memory as more than just "twice as shock resistant" as hard drives lol. You could even argue flash as basically shock-proof in most scenarios. Weird wording by that article.
I’m very excited for the next installment of your series and glad to hear that there will be more. Hands down the best RUclips Series I watched in a long time!
14:36 I think that the toslink addition makes perfect sense. what if you wanted to have your laptop be an HTPC that you can take with you? you can just pull the cords out and shove it into a bag (or more likely a suitcase)
Before HDMI, I used toslink for digital audio on my laptop. Probably a placebo compared to a regular 3.5mm cable, but I enjoyed having the option built-in.
@@GoTeamScotch it's much better, especially if you have a stereo system, or noticable buzz. Toslink is literally perfect audio as far as most people can discern.
And don't forget losslessly recording your computer output to minidiscs which were still very popular in Japan. At least that's what I would have used it for if I had that computer back then!
I never comment on these videos, but as soon as this series started I wanted to send you my Qosmio. This thing really was for the sailing the seven seas crowd and weighs as much as an infant child. Absolutely wild to see this get mentioned on the channel.
Hey Cathode Ray Dude! I've been watching for quite some time now, but am curious if you know anything about 90s LCD and laser projectors, or some of the first PC projectors to show up in the business world and the history etc etc. Thought it would be a good video idea since it feels like a huge content hole on YT. Thanks for the amazing videos.
This kind of reminds me of a feature I heard some iMacs had, where they could act as a monitor for another mac. I've never had two macs in the same room together, so I don't know how it worked, but I remember hearing that the late '09 iMac model supported it.
Apple dropped the use of display mode on their iMacs back in the day saying something about HDMI and Display Ports not supporting retina screens. Nowadays they keep doing this with the same excuse.
I absolutely LOVED Windows Media Center. I used it as my HTPC for years in combination with a Ceton TV Tuner, which allowed me to watch and record my Cable TV service. WMC was, hands down, the BEST DVR software on the market, and had features that blew away Cable provider DVR's. The only DVR I experienced that was better, was Replay TV, but, unfortunately, Replay TV was sued out of business. Even today, the DVR provided by my cable company still is not as feature rich and intuitive as WMC of old.
In the 2000's I had a Hauppauge TV card for my PC, back when you could still save on Germany's broadcasting tax by not having an actual TV set. As long as you owned a radio and paid the cheaper radio tax, you were good. However it was just a matter of time before the law was expanded to include computers, and finally all households, regardless of whether they had a computer, a TV set or whatever. Now that most people can watch anything anywhere on their phones, even those PC/Laptop cards bring on nostalgia!
About time a big name youtuber reviewed a Qosmio. So underrated. Also a side note: Did you upload the recovery discs (if you have them) to the Web Archive?
NTSC did have a program guide of sorts available to TV's and VCR's that had the Guide Plus+ feature. It would download the guide info from one or sometimes two local broadcast stations (to add redundancy), usually PBS or CBS affiliated stations. The TV would download the data from the vertical blanking interval (VBI), usually when the TV was "off", so it would be updated periodically, especially during the overnight hours when a TV wouldn't be used. Initial setup and download would take 24hrs to get all the guide data for all the local programing. Various manufactures had this guide built-in who had paid royalties to Gemstar TV. I remember my brother had a GE tv with this feature. VCR+ enabled VCR's also used this data stream to set their clocks by accurately. The VCR would on the initial channel scan when setting all the channels would look for the Gemstar VBI signal to synchronize it's internal clock. It would do this when it was "off". I believe the Gemstar VBI signal was originally an offshoot of the VCR+ system when it launched. i.e. they needed a way to reliably set VCR+ enabled VCR's clock, so broadcasting a clock signal on PBS stations came to be, I think it then expanded into the IPG program guide broadcast realm. Gemstar TV owned Prevue channel (later TV Guide channel) on cable and published TV Guide etc.
Master and Commander, yay! This seems like a nice machine for the exact niche you describe, do-it-all dorm room device for the mid-2000s. As these things usually go, there were probably like five kids who did exactly that and it was the hottest shit, and no one else ever knew about this thing.
There was a linux distribution called "Evil Entity linux" back in the day that was meant to provide the tools for the types of video piracy that were common back then. I wonder how this laptop would have paired with that distro.
I've not been with you that long, CRD, but you're definitely one of the special ones; I think I speak for all of us when I say you can drop a 90 minute script on us anytime!
4:40 you can also expand that obs view to a separate window using right click on the screen that is being projected on the main obs window and make it go to the full scale of your laptop screen
Back in the day I used Windows Media Center and at least in my case I never had any issues. I think it depends on the TV tuner you had. I had ATI Theater 550 Pro which was known for being very light on RAM and the CPU. It even had a whopping 16MB DDR cache, not a lot but no other card had it (at least at that point). I remember that it started a lot quicker than the one in Qosmio (and with no freezes). I imagine that the cache was used to buffer data before the HDD was ready to write it.
The B.E.E.R. abbreviation has reminded me of something unrelated, but something you might enjoy nonetheless: P.I.W.O. ("Potężny Indeksowany Wyświetlacz Oknowy", or "Powerful Indexed Window Display" which too, when abbreviated, means B.E.E.R.) As for what it is, well, let's just say IT students in Poland got bored AND drunk one day and decided that chaining the light-switches of their dorm together so that they'd form a display is a good way to spend time. Subsequent iterations introduced colour changes and wireless operation, it's pretty nifty. The project has been touring the country for some time, and thanks to that I've had the opportunity - nay, honor - to watch someone play Snake on my dorm!
I miss MythTV 😆 I built two dedicated MythTV machines (first in 2004, then a new one in 2011 when the first one was dying and was getting to be too obsolete). It was ... tricky to get working, but once it was set up, it was so great. I had to stop using it in 2013 when I got married, moved to a new house, and switched my TV provider away from analog cable; I was never able to get MythTV to control the new provider's set top box. I really enjoyed this video. When I graduated from university and moved into my first apartment, I had no money, no furniture, and no TV. I did have a brand new Athlon computer, though, so I got an ATI TV Wonder capture card and happily watched TV on my monitor for almost two years, until my friend gave me his old tube TV when he was moving to Europe. Something like this Qosmio would have been unbelievable.
YES! I knew you were gonna make a video on those all-in-one multimédia laptops from the 2000's. Those are freakin' awesome. I have an Acer Aspire 9800 that's the same style of machine and i absolutely love it.
That spdif out actually was very useful and on many other mid grade laptops. Made sense, you plug it into a receiver and the HDMI into the TV and you could play your content on the TV at a friends house.
Here in Germany we also had the Medion Notebooks (sold by Aldi) with built in TV Tuners. I had the Medion MD95500 from 2005, it also hat some Quick Start Linux with TV and DVD capabilities. It didn't use Windows Media Center, it used software from Cyberlink. I also think there was a Medion model in 2004 with TV Tuner built in, but I'm not sure
Qosmio is a name I haven't thought of since I worked in a call centre that was outsource contractor that provided official support for Toshiba North America to support their laptops/PDAs/desktop computers/etc... Damn, that was 20 years ago. I'm old.
I actually had an M18 from the pair mentioned at 3:25. It my my work PC given to me by Gigabyte, they would just buy their engineers anything under a certain dollar amount and above a certain spec. I specifically got this one because the monitor on it was the nicest display in my house at the time, and I could slap my xbox into it and game away. I even achieved teenage me's dream by running a really long cable from the desk with the xbox on it to my bed and using the laptop on my lap in bed to play games on the weekend without even getting up.
As someone who worked in a computer repair shop for nearly a decade, I hated having to tear these things down for things like fan replacements however, they were FANTASTIC laptops. Until Toshiba discontinued their Satellite series, they were my top recommended brand for laptops. Well priced, quality build and still easier to repair than Alienware or ROG stuff. I had a customer who kept bringing her Qosmio for nearly a decade. She bought a good laptop and brought it in for annual checkups (clean fans, reapply new thermal paste etc) and that thing lasted FOREVER. I loved getting to play WoW at work to "stress-test her GPU".
For what its worth, I started this video on my beautiful 17in 4K HDR PC. But its 1:30 in the morning and I decided to watch in bed on my phone for comfort. So i got the best of both worlds. Thats not to say i don’t appreciate the work you do to get quality 4K content to us though. Maybe ill switch to the TV to get a trifecta going 😎👌👌
Somehow you didn't mention HP QuickPlay, which admittedly must have entered the market a few years later. I remember the early dv7 -models offering a tuner option also.
I didn't mention it because HP never integrated a tuner in any model that I'm aware of. They had express card tuners you could add, but at that point you could just do it on any machine.
@14:31 the mini SPDIF is great for when you have a nice setup at home with two large screens, a nice mouse and keyboard and a premium audio setup. Out and about you can live with what the machine offers portably, but when you come home, you plug the notebook in and place it where you don't hear it (as much). It's also super handy when you're at a convention center and the line jack produces a drone along with your presentation - electrically decoupling from equipment you have no authority over is super useful. Later: RAIDing your two drives to a mirror is nice when you're on the road when a drive fails and your schedule says to visit four more clients instead of your backup drive. Drive fails - just replace it and over night everything will be fine again. Beats booking a flight home to get the damn thing repaired while possibly losing a contract. (No, you don't carry external backups, they might get stolen and corporate is very very paranoid about that.)
Oh yea, Toshiba were the only people to ever solve the battery problem of having a hole in the bottom. I had a 90's Toshiba satellite that also had a similar battery separating mech. and also I've had an HP elitebook that had an access hatch on the bottom that let you take the battery out along with ram, it spanned the entire bottom of the laptop. ofc there would also be no hole for that externally. and they even included a screw so you could secure the bottom that was optional, it usually was only held closed by a latch.
I had a similar model to this back in middle/high school! I remember that startup sound well. I think I actually had the G20 model based on some googling. I'm visually impaired so I used it to plug in a camcorder over composite to see the board/projector. I carted this monster around school in a rolling case with a few backup batteries to swap out throughout the day. I was actually still using it sparingly all the way until 2012. It's interesting to see all the TV/media features that I never had a need to play with. Interestingly on my model, pushing the (awful capacitive) top buttons actually switched out of Windows IIRC, I don't think it just launched media center. Also, that silver lid got scratched to hell from constantly flipping it over on the desk to swap batteries. I'm glad you covered this, I immediately thought about the Qosmio line when you started this series.
One thing that's vaguely intrigued me about all those built-in DVD player apps is how they handle interlaced content? Since DVDs include metadata flags to indicate whether it's interlaced or native progressive content that a player needs to convert to interlaced for NTSC/PAL-compatible output, I would *imagine* most PC DVD player apps will read those flags, and if it indicates it's progressive, just pipe out the raw video, and if it indicates it's interlaced, will run some basic bob deinterlace filter to output 60/50Hz video so it looks just like it would on a flat panel TV of the era.
Memory unlocked: my video capture card I got as a kid, to pull video from my camcorder. A WinTV I think, Hauupaggghh rings a bell. Thanks for the vid, I hope you're doing well CRD :)
In fact, the first laptop I know with a proper built in TV tuner was Asus W1 released in late 2004, ar least in Russia. I know it precisely because it is still in use at my work as a CCTV monitoring/viewing/recording device. And I know the date because it's inventory number is still inscribed on the cover of said laptop with a thick coat of white paint, and it ends with 04, meaning that it was bought and put on balance throughout 2004 according to our system. It can proudly surprise you with 1.4ghz Pentium M, 512mb of unknown type RAM and windows XP on board. What a machine!
I used to use my laptop (Dell Studio 1555) as a DVR when I was in college. It ran Windows 7 Home Premium and used a USB TV tuner. Honestly, I was very impressed with Windows Media Center in Windows 7. The guide was very powerful and did scheduled recordings in the background without too many issues.
I got a pre-built desktop in 2006 with a TV tuner built-in and you could just watch cable TV in Windows Media Player (and Media Center) complete with a channel guide. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately, it was TV in 2006, so I barely used it for little more than watching Scrubs and Monk.
One interesting thing. At least here in brazil. Some cable tv providers still use the old analog signal to broadcast channels. I managed to connect a 80s gigantic portable tv into my house's cable tv. Also analog antenna signals in here were shut down in 2022. Id love to film you a demo for it of possible
Oh man, that Myth-TV comment brought back some dark memories. I used to have a Pinnacle DVB-S capture card in my main PC with a dual monitor setup, to watch some TV while working. I tried to get Linux working with Myth-TV backend and had to give up after a week or so. 🤨 Great video as always! 👍🙂
This one brought back memories. I never had Windows Media Center but I did have a TV tuner card and an Xbox with XBMC. I used to record shows, cut out the commercials and convert them to Divx myself. Nothing screams 2003 to me more than that Divx logo in the corner of your legitimately acquired video
Awesome stuff! Lookin' good sir! Video was great too! 🍻🌎❤️🖥️🕺 I had a Packard Bell 486/25 (desktop) in 92 or 93 and I specifically got the model with built-in TV tuner and a universal sound card that would act like the different popular sound card options of the day. It had input and could screen shot but no record. I could do some homework, play some SimCity then watch Star Trek TNG before heading to bed. Good times! 🍻❤️
I have always lived somewhere between PC/TV. I never owned a proper DVD or BD player -- just a PS2, an iPod Video, and some early janky streaming media players. While I was in college and single, I used Creative PC-DVD w/ MPEG decoder to watch movies on my monitor (and it had composite out for when I eventually did add a TV), and then later used 3dfx Voodoo 3 3500 and ATI All-in-Wonder cards with video inputs to play console games on my computer. It wasn't really until late XP days, when I upgraded to a video card without VIVO, and added a Blackmagic PCI-e card for video input, that the live video on a PC train came to a screeching halt. That added enough latency that playing GameCube games was difficult, and 240p didn't work at all anymore. It never really has gotten better. It really does seem like external media integration fell to the wayside once computers got powerful enough to actually handle video without struggling. That seems like a missed opportunity.
I did know what a Qosmio was, my high school friend's brother had an outrageous red one styled with autozone speaker grills (X300 I believe). We were in awe of it, but I never saw it in action, it may have less power than we thought. Later on I worked in a computer shop and found out Toshibas from 2012 and later are the worst quality laptops, with hinges that disintegrate, thin shell like plastic, screws that fall out, and "mechanical" failures, like LCD and AC jack cables. Glass touchscreens made the lid sag even worse. I picked up Pentium 133 and a Pentium iii Toshiba, and while they were both well built and full featured (it was cool how many parts were made in house by Toshiba, including fans, HD, RAM, LCD), but they had an inexcusable track point copy with click buttons stacked vertically that clicked mushy as well. How did such a diversified and well resourced company, and the oldest in the field of laptops fumble so badly for so many years? Later Qosmios were just red accents on the highest specced regular junky Toshiba, not a true gaming and media beast like this.
I worked at Geek squad at the time, I found that a lot of people that got this laptop were Truckers. I had a guy show me his truck and he had a pretty cool setup with this laptop. He said he knew other people that had the same laptop just because it had so many options and uses in a limited space Semi-Truck.
Glad you brought up Myth TV because I actually enjoyed Windows Media Center (especially on Vista) and appreciated it a whole lot more after dealing with Myth TV.
I was not expecting this to be an episode in the quick start series. I wasn't really expecting it at all, autoplay, I am not complaining at all. I would argue that they couldn't give you better hardware for the same price, if they wanted to continue operating That is.
I was already building my own PCs back in 2006 and they always had a TV tuner in a PCI slot…not for watching TV, but for converting VHS and camcorder tapes over to digital. I remember watching tv once on my PC just to see it work - but i captured a ton of video. Probably most of these laptops were used the same way.
That opening gag made me do a double take twice, even though I knew what you were doing because I've seen these laptops in thrift stores. Fantastic timing and editing as always. 41:31 I like the sbemail reference I've secured a boxed Kodak PalmPix, would you want it for future review as part of your "wacky portable things" and "bad 90s digital cameras" lineup?
Minor correction - NTSC *DID* have a broadcast guide! TV Guide offered it, one or more analog over-the-air channels would broadcast a digital TV Guide signal hidden among the rest of the data, and compatible devices would support it. I had a Toshiba TV that supported it, and you could even plug in a FireWire hard drive to the TV and record! Sadly, the TV Guide signal stopped being broadcast in 2011. About six months after I acquired my Toshiba TV (used.) It only worked on NTSC, so the NTSC phase-out killed it. Sadly, my Toshiba TV *REQUIRED* this signal be found for its TV recording feature to work, even though it had an ATSC tuner, and supported ATSC guide info, too. So my Expensive Toshiba Firewire hard drive (which only worked with compatible TVs, and TVs required this specific compatible hard drive) also became useless. (Nothing in the manual said the TV Guide signal was required to record ATSC, so I was unpleasantly surprised when ATSC recording stopped working, too.) So this device *MIGHT* have supported guide info when new.
5:00 It's not a market because it wasn't really useful when TV was analog and when it got digital we already had torrents. People who would be tech savvy enough to be able to even install one would also know how to pirate stuff and no one in their right mind would watch TV, if there is an option with 8 times more pixels, no commercial breaks and most importantly instant release instead of waiting when the local TV station decides you can get a new episode of your favorite show. Ok, maybe there was a short time period when I had hacked my windows media center to automatically remove every commercial break and record some shows that I wouldn't think deserved to have all episodes downloaded in chronological order or weren't available because they were just some documentaries that I used as a sleeping aid..
It was always my assumption that the reason inadequate batteries were included with laptops like this was to deal with a momentary lapse in power like a short power outage, moving it to another room in the house, or to give it time to sit in standby in a backpack while traveling between places.
I'm going to bet the IR receiver had it's own remote. I ran into so many machines that people bought back in the day (mainly HPs and Dells I think) that had a remote they never new about. See they made a remote that slid into the ExpressCard or PC Card slot. I would notice the little IR receiver on the front of their machines and ask people if they new what that was. Their answer was usually no idea, I would reach around to the side, eject the card remote, hit the Media Center button, and watch them get a very puzzled look on their face. Fun fact I think the Media Center remote could also interface with the XBox 360 IR receiver or you could plug the adapter in and it would work. I may be miss remembering that, but I don't think so. I had a MC remote with a much tinier IR receiver and I seem to remember using that remote with the 360 since it was the first console that made using it as a multimedia device reasonable. I know I programmed a generic universal remote to work with the IR on the 360. I still occasionally use it as a DVD player.
My Hauppauge PCIe WinTV card manages to increase the "10 seconds, if that" boot time of my modern PC to like 2-3 minutes just by having it connected to the motherboard. Now that's a hell of a driver.
And, of course, that card is only connected if I really need to connect a game console to the composite/s-video breakout box that i ripped out of a dead HP Pavilion that had a PCI equivalent WinTV card. I use hibernate a lot so the issue surfaces barely at all if i even use the card, but seeing a PC fail to fast boot just due to one driver's thiccness strikes me with either awe or fear. Or both.
In 2006 I actually owned a stupidly expensive Asus laptop (I sold PCs at the time and purchased at cost) that had TV tuner built-in, mini remote that hid in the side and functioned like a full media centre with live TV recording. Brushed metal exterior and half the thickness of the Toshiba models. Model number was W1N (I think sometimes known as W1000N). Pics of this beauty and even spare parts are available online, but good luck finding the actual laptop itself! I know, I have been looking for years. My original was unfortunately stolen years ago. 😢
@CathodeRayDude The model you want is the Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV680. I found an eBay auction for one that ended (unsold) about a week ago. Spec: Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 1080P, HD DVD-R drive, HDMI output, external TV tuner, remote, Harman Kardon speakers with subwoofer, Windows 7. Good luck!
This would’ve been the laptop of my dreams in its time haha. Game compatible, records TV, plays DVD, my anime pirating, RUclips downloading self would’ve been in love lol
I still have my LG Plasma 42" TV, built in hard drive for time shifting, and recording, SD and HD recording. I had so many kids shows saved for the kids to keep from watching unwanted shows for the kids...
On MythTV ... I was one of those nerds in college. Except what we did was basically what SlingBox ended up doing later. I ran MythTV on a box in a friend's dorm, where they had free basic cable and 100Mbit Internet with effectively static IPs. I was off-campus and cheap, so I had my PC hooked up to the TV via S-Video which would connect to that MythTV and remotely control the tuner functions. With a remote (the one that came with the SoundBlaster LiveDrive). There was some lag because we only had shitty DSL, but so long as the power didn't go out at the pirate head-end or I decided to update something, it worked well enough. I also ran Linux on the desktop back then, so I had a whole separate X server running on the S-Video output, controllable exclusively with the remote, so my roommates would be channel surfing while I worked on a paper that was due in 20 minutes.
![A CD-R, that's only partly a CD-R [Ricoh Encryptease]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_5ucImqdKbY/mqdefault.jpg)
![DDG & G Herbo - Nosey [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I9Ra0Zc2NlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
The reason they probably buried the tivo like features was during this time TiVo was going nuts suing everyone and their dogs trying to stay profitable so a lot of smaller operations had to hide/jump through hoops to use the time shift features to avoid their litigation.
@fungo6631 yes. And a lot of them straight ripped off Tivo ui and functionality triggering the suits. If you're gonna copy someone's homework at least change some things around lol
@@fungo6631 bout tree fiddy
JVC should sue TiVo for usage of the classic Play/Stop/Rew/FF icons which probably predate JVC as well
*It just works, it will keep working forever, as long as NTSC broadcast exists... BUT THEY WILL NEVER SHUTDO-*
Man idk why cutting the sentence right there made me lose my shit so easily, I love your snappy edit and visual gags in balance with the findings you made with these devices, can't help but praise the amount of tinkering you do around to explain the features and the hidden tricks behind it, from disamssembling to analysing the files and hidden partitions, great job of course!.
That's pretty much how I felt when it was announced that it would be shut down, I said no way! That won't happen, It's been around for so long!
And then, poof
Best gag of the whole video
Analog television has existed for longer than most countries has been independent, most of Africa was still a colony when NTSC was introduced
So to see it just disappear in a split of a second was just astounding.
@@tristan6509and with no comparable replacement in terms of reliability. We still have AM radio because it just kinda works, you can pick up AM radio with an LED if you’re doing it right. I can listen to my city’s famous AM station in most of the country at night. There’s no TV equivalent now that NTSC is gone, ATSC can’t just work in that same way.
@@JuneNafziger and lets not forget about shortwave radio which can bounce off the ionosphere
you can be anywhere on earth and still be able to pick up a signal just with a single transmitter.
Sadly it is very hard to pick up a shortwave signal nowadays due to interference, but in the forest you can still pick up signals
A long time ago this was the only form of entertainment for sailors in the middle of the sea.
I had the 2011 model of Qosmio, which had a 3D screen built in and a bunch of other wacky nonsense gadgetry inside its very tacky gamer-core chassis. The Qosmio line seemed to relish throwing in as many enthusiast features as possible and hope it all fit together. I loved it, lol
They seem to have been competing with Viao with this line. The Japanese Sony PC's had more multimedia functions like minidisc playback.
I believe the Toshiba line of 3D laptops used a lenticular lens 3D display, *NOT* the Nvidia 3D Vision type with shutter glasses. So you didn't even need to charge some glasses up to use, or make sure the IR emitter wasn't blocked. @@brentgoeller8257
I'm glad you kept with the "I don't think they should make laptops smaller than this" gag 😂
The gag was always "they shouldn't make laptops larger than this" but I guess for giant laptops he reversed it lol.
running jokes are so good. "two of them" also makes an appearance here.
Me watching this on my 12 inch MacBook 😂
Joke?
What do you mean?
They SHOULD never make smaller screens than 17”, or larger ones than 10”, or larger ones than 12”, or or or
I hope we see more of the two wieners joke.
You’re looking healthier & happier since you quit your job. Video’s great, as always. Keep up the good work!
There's a maybe a reason for the LCD to be this thicc - As you note, the brightness was way higher than any other laptop at the time. This employs backlighting tech from a desktop monitor if i'm not mistaken.
I'm nearly certain that at the time, LCD monitors and TVs used CFLs for the backlighting. I don't know what would contemporary laptops use, LEDs feel too far off (I remember the LED TV craze among retailers around 2011-2013) but at the same time, what else would fit into a laptop screen?
@@segarallychampionship702 contemporary laptops use CFLs, I've had a few where they failed, they were normally only edge lit though, with some only using 1 along the longest side(and a reflector on the other side) but top and bottom was common as well, completely unsure why this laptop is so thick but the only assumption I can make is they might be using direct backlighting so an array of cfl's possibly along with all the necessary diffusers to keep it from showing severe banding, there's a possibility of leds as well but I'm unsure when that became common, I do know my laptop from 2009 had an LED screen though
@@segarallychampionship702 also this is based on Wikipedia but the first laptop with an LED backlight was made in 2005 with major players only starting to use them around 2008, based on the age of this laptop it's almost certainly a CFL backlight
@@segarallychampionship702 Laptops used CCFLs as well (very thin ones). Laptops with LED backlights started appearing around 2010 IIRC.
@@segarallychampionship702it must be CFL white LED's were pretty terrible in CRI back then.
I think rather than 2 CFL's setup as edge lighting the display, there may be more setup as a backlight. You'd need the extra space for diffusion plus a bit of space for impact protection.
I've seen some bizarre laptop shell designs in my time but this is the first one I can remember that looks like someone mated 2 Hershey's bars together top to top.
Your buildup of the laptop size gag over multiple episodes only to hit us with the dreadnought had me laughing so hard I had to pause to collect myself. Well done.
5:13 you can still do this! I built my grandparents a media center PC about 3 years ago and I threw in a brand new TV Tuner card so my grandma could watch NCIS. In fact, it's basically the same kind as the one on screen at 5:06 but with 1080i support
As usual a great video from you!
I know it wouldn't inscribe in the Quick Start series but I'd love to see you cover the Qosmios from 2008 with the SpursEngine module, the one that has some of the SPEs from the CELL B/E of the PS3. It feels like Toshiba just put those out, no one cared apart from some video geeks that benched it to compare to software encode and decode and then absolutely everyone forgot about it - which makes me feel like it'd be right up your alley.
Also funny seeing the GeForce Go 7300 in such a high-end machine when it's the same GPU Apple put in the $300 1st gen Apple TV. I do guess they share a lineage of both being media center products, so that's poetic.
It's not just Toshiba who clings to prehistoric user interfaces. Nvidia has been using the EXACT same GUI for its control panel app at least since Windows Vista. The only difference being a couple added options like Optimus.
Pretty sure a bunch of UI in modern Windows is decades old, some of which gets updated depending if people notice and/or complain about it
Kind of wish the GeForce panel got updated, but at the same time didn't since they will try to roll it into GeForce Experience
@@No-mq5lwWindows fax and scan must almost be as old as me, dont think its changed in 20+ years.
@@meetoo594 Yes, that's a really good example of what I was talking about, but the principle example I had in mind of this was that there's Windows 3.1 UI elements that are still there if you dig deep enough.
That's probably the only example I could feasibly bring up that wouldn't require research to let you prove it yourself.
@@No-mq5lw True, Windows 10 is also very similar to Windows Vista and 7. The Nvidia Control panel is literally the same app it was 16 years ago though. I don't really mind, but it really caught me by surprise when I took out my old Vista laptop and realized that the Nvidia control panel was the same as on my current PC with the latest drivers.
Even Windows itself has various programs and even screensavers that are obviously for Windows Vista and/or 7
44:50 honestly it seems what they were going for here was a simple UPS feature for the media center. Like sure it doesn't last more than 10 to 20 minutes, but UPSes don't need to. You aren't supposed to keep using your PC in a AC power failure, a UPS is meant to kick in immediately and warn the user that the power has died. So that the user can properly and safely save all their work, and safely shut down their PC for when the power returns.
I never used XP Media Center, but I did use Vista Media Center, and I really liked it. It was pretty slick, and it handled recordings better than anything else I've ever used. It would look at everything you had scheduled to record, and if there were a conflict, it would actually search for alternative times for either program to record instead. I had two tuners in my PC at the time, and it worked seamlessly with both.
I still use Windows 7 Media Center. Other than the Internet Channel Guide that was shutdown everything still works great with satellite TV.
I tried using it for a while, since the xbox 360 could connect to it, and play the recorded media. But mediacenter was so crappy I switched to linux and running MythTV fairly quickly.
Man, that intro was MAGIC. I was amazed at how it was running trials, and then I saw it instantly switch and I was like "does that laptop have a f**king capture card built-in?"
Edit: Man, I don't understand the trend of developing an awesome feature like that and only going halfway. If you're going to do something awesome, go the full length. It seems like this is a trend with quick start machines.
This was precisely my chain of reactions.
"How the fsck?" followed up immediately with "What the fsck?!"
I like how he never explains how well Trials was running. He even noted later that the nVidia card was barely better than Intel Integrated.
But then again, who does?
@@Dong_Harvey i think it's a prerecorded video he was acquiring from somewhere.
A weirder one that I've used before was this one called 1seg. It is only used in countries that use 13 segment ISDB/ISDB-T broadcasting like Brazil, the Phillipines and Japan. Basically, they found that they never needed any more than 8 of the 13 segments in its early days so they experimented with some of its functionality, leaving 1 segment free for low resolution long range video (hence the name 1seg). The service is still available today and has gone largely unchanged technologically speaking, so older tuners still work just fine, but it mostly goes unused due to the rise in popularity of streaming services and the widespread adoption of 5G allowing for better connections to those services on the go.
Now of course it pales in comparison to having full 1080i broadcasts on 7 inch portable TV's that cost about as much as my emergency tax rebate, but its a fun gimmick for what its worth.
At first I was thinking the LCD was as thick as it was because they found some way to integrate a TV antenna inside of it.
Still a really cool laptop, 2006 Ben would’ve been all over this.
I cannot express how much I miss Windows Media Center, both XP and Vista/7 version.
Fulluy agree. Full nerd here. But I loved my mce. I had dual analog tuners and then also dual atsc tuners. But the automatic TVGuide from Microsoft was awesome
i liked that i could link my xbox 360 up to it and stream music from my PC to my Xbox whilst in game. that meant i didnt need to go through the tedium of ripping all my cds a second time
using a laptop as a extra monitor is a feature I've been wondering about why it wasn't a thing for ages
One final comment to say that I appreciate the effort you put into your presentation and delivery. I know first hand that it's a particular skill to be able to read from a teleprompter and not sound like you're reading from a teleprompter (let alone actually sound interested in the topic), and there are very few RUclipsrs who do it as well as you. Not to mention any names ... _[cough] Linux Tech Tips! [cough]_ Heck, you do it better than some of my work colleagues, and they get their faces broadcast to millions of homes every day!
So thanks for being one of the few who can actually hold my ADHD attention and interest, to the point where I don't feel like I need to be working on something else while I'm watching the video.
51:11 Maybe old flash is more flaky than I know of, but I'd certainly think that you could advertise flash memory as more than just "twice as shock resistant" as hard drives lol. You could even argue flash as basically shock-proof in most scenarios. Weird wording by that article.
I’m very excited for the next installment of your series and glad to hear that there will be more. Hands down the best RUclips Series I watched in a long time!
14:36 I think that the toslink addition makes perfect sense. what if you wanted to have your laptop be an HTPC that you can take with you? you can just pull the cords out and shove it into a bag (or more likely a suitcase)
Before HDMI, I used toslink for digital audio on my laptop. Probably a placebo compared to a regular 3.5mm cable, but I enjoyed having the option built-in.
@@GoTeamScotch it's much better, especially if you have a stereo system, or noticable buzz. Toslink is literally perfect audio as far as most people can discern.
And don't forget losslessly recording your computer output to minidiscs which were still very popular in Japan. At least that's what I would have used it for if I had that computer back then!
also TOSlink was a toshiba invention (Toshiba Link) lol
I never comment on these videos, but as soon as this series started I wanted to send you my Qosmio. This thing really was for the sailing the seven seas crowd and weighs as much as an infant child. Absolutely wild to see this get mentioned on the channel.
Hey Cathode Ray Dude! I've been watching for quite some time now, but am curious if you know anything about 90s LCD and laser projectors, or some of the first PC projectors to show up in the business world and the history etc etc. Thought it would be a good video idea since it feels like a huge content hole on YT. Thanks for the amazing videos.
23:25 i LOVE the sound the UI makes on button-press
This kind of reminds me of a feature I heard some iMacs had, where they could act as a monitor for another mac. I've never had two macs in the same room together, so I don't know how it worked, but I remember hearing that the late '09 iMac model supported it.
Apple dropped the use of display mode on their iMacs back in the day saying something about HDMI and Display Ports not supporting retina screens. Nowadays they keep doing this with the same excuse.
@@xeienar Classic Apple.
I absolutely LOVED Windows Media Center. I used it as my HTPC for years in combination with a Ceton TV Tuner, which allowed me to watch and record my Cable TV service. WMC was, hands down, the BEST DVR software on the market, and had features that blew away Cable provider DVR's. The only DVR I experienced that was better, was Replay TV, but, unfortunately, Replay TV was sued out of business. Even today, the DVR provided by my cable company still is not as feature rich and intuitive as WMC of old.
In the 2000's I had a Hauppauge TV card for my PC, back when you could still save on Germany's broadcasting tax by not having an actual TV set. As long as you owned a radio and paid the cheaper radio tax, you were good. However it was just a matter of time before the law was expanded to include computers, and finally all households, regardless of whether they had a computer, a TV set or whatever. Now that most people can watch anything anywhere on their phones, even those PC/Laptop cards bring on nostalgia!
About time a big name youtuber reviewed a Qosmio. So underrated. Also a side note: Did you upload the recovery discs (if you have them) to the Web Archive?
thank you for forgiving me for watching on my phone,
from my browser's preview window,
while I'm watching David Lynch's Island Empire
NTSC did have a program guide of sorts available to TV's and VCR's that had the Guide Plus+ feature. It would download the guide info from one or sometimes two local broadcast stations (to add redundancy), usually PBS or CBS affiliated stations. The TV would download the data from the vertical blanking interval (VBI), usually when the TV was "off", so it would be updated periodically, especially during the overnight hours when a TV wouldn't be used. Initial setup and download would take 24hrs to get all the guide data for all the local programing. Various manufactures had this guide built-in who had paid royalties to Gemstar TV.
I remember my brother had a GE tv with this feature. VCR+ enabled VCR's also used this data stream to set their clocks by accurately. The VCR would on the initial channel scan when setting all the channels would look for the Gemstar VBI signal to synchronize it's internal clock. It would do this when it was "off". I believe the Gemstar VBI signal was originally an offshoot of the VCR+ system when it launched. i.e. they needed a way to reliably set VCR+ enabled VCR's clock, so broadcasting a clock signal on PBS stations came to be, I think it then expanded into the IPG program guide broadcast realm. Gemstar TV owned Prevue channel (later TV Guide channel) on cable and published TV Guide etc.
Master and Commander, yay!
This seems like a nice machine for the exact niche you describe, do-it-all dorm room device for the mid-2000s. As these things usually go, there were probably like five kids who did exactly that and it was the hottest shit, and no one else ever knew about this thing.
There was a linux distribution called "Evil Entity linux" back in the day that was meant to provide the tools for the types of video piracy that were common back then. I wonder how this laptop would have paired with that distro.
I've not been with you that long, CRD, but you're definitely one of the special ones; I think I speak for all of us when I say you can drop a 90 minute script on us anytime!
4:40 you can also expand that obs view to a separate window using right click on the screen that is being projected on the main obs window and make it go to the full scale of your laptop screen
the first 44 seconds of this videp are pure magic to watch
Back in the day I used Windows Media Center and at least in my case I never had any issues. I think it depends on the TV tuner you had. I had ATI Theater 550 Pro which was known for being very light on RAM and the CPU. It even had a whopping 16MB DDR cache, not a lot but no other card had it (at least at that point). I remember that it started a lot quicker than the one in Qosmio (and with no freezes). I imagine that the cache was used to buffer data before the HDD was ready to write it.
Thank you for showing Frasier. One of my favorite shows to this day still watch it as background feel good TV show.
The B.E.E.R. abbreviation has reminded me of something unrelated, but something you might enjoy nonetheless: P.I.W.O. ("Potężny Indeksowany Wyświetlacz Oknowy", or "Powerful Indexed Window Display" which too, when abbreviated, means B.E.E.R.) As for what it is, well, let's just say IT students in Poland got bored AND drunk one day and decided that chaining the light-switches of their dorm together so that they'd form a display is a good way to spend time. Subsequent iterations introduced colour changes and wireless operation, it's pretty nifty.
The project has been touring the country for some time, and thanks to that I've had the opportunity - nay, honor - to watch someone play Snake on my dorm!
I miss MythTV 😆 I built two dedicated MythTV machines (first in 2004, then a new one in 2011 when the first one was dying and was getting to be too obsolete). It was ... tricky to get working, but once it was set up, it was so great. I had to stop using it in 2013 when I got married, moved to a new house, and switched my TV provider away from analog cable; I was never able to get MythTV to control the new provider's set top box.
I really enjoyed this video. When I graduated from university and moved into my first apartment, I had no money, no furniture, and no TV. I did have a brand new Athlon computer, though, so I got an ATI TV Wonder capture card and happily watched TV on my monitor for almost two years, until my friend gave me his old tube TV when he was moving to Europe. Something like this Qosmio would have been unbelievable.
Those monk marathons were absolutely wild 😂
YES! I knew you were gonna make a video on those all-in-one multimédia laptops from the 2000's. Those are freakin' awesome. I have an Acer Aspire 9800 that's the same style of machine and i absolutely love it.
That spdif out actually was very useful and on many other mid grade laptops. Made sense, you plug it into a receiver and the HDMI into the TV and you could play your content on the TV at a friends house.
Here in Germany we also had the Medion Notebooks (sold by Aldi) with built in TV Tuners. I had the Medion MD95500 from 2005, it also hat some Quick Start Linux with TV and DVD capabilities. It didn't use Windows Media Center, it used software from Cyberlink. I also think there was a Medion model in 2004 with TV Tuner built in, but I'm not sure
Qosmio is a name I haven't thought of since I worked in a call centre that was outsource contractor that provided official support for Toshiba North America to support their laptops/PDAs/desktop computers/etc...
Damn, that was 20 years ago. I'm old.
To be fair to that 10 second boot up, we forget how long it took for CRTs to warm up. :P
I actually had an M18 from the pair mentioned at 3:25. It my my work PC given to me by Gigabyte, they would just buy their engineers anything under a certain dollar amount and above a certain spec. I specifically got this one because the monitor on it was the nicest display in my house at the time, and I could slap my xbox into it and game away. I even achieved teenage me's dream by running a really long cable from the desk with the xbox on it to my bed and using the laptop on my lap in bed to play games on the weekend without even getting up.
moved to computer from phone so I can see your beautiful 4k face on my 4k monitor
As someone who worked in a computer repair shop for nearly a decade, I hated having to tear these things down for things like fan replacements however, they were FANTASTIC laptops. Until Toshiba discontinued their Satellite series, they were my top recommended brand for laptops. Well priced, quality build and still easier to repair than Alienware or ROG stuff. I had a customer who kept bringing her Qosmio for nearly a decade. She bought a good laptop and brought it in for annual checkups (clean fans, reapply new thermal paste etc) and that thing lasted FOREVER. I loved getting to play WoW at work to "stress-test her GPU".
For what its worth, I started this video on my beautiful 17in 4K HDR PC. But its 1:30 in the morning and I decided to watch in bed on my phone for comfort. So i got the best of both worlds. Thats not to say i don’t appreciate the work you do to get quality 4K content to us though. Maybe ill switch to the TV to get a trifecta going 😎👌👌
I don't know if it's just your camera, but damn, that panel seems to have stellar black levels.
Somehow you didn't mention HP QuickPlay, which admittedly must have entered the market a few years later. I remember the early dv7 -models offering a tuner option also.
I didn't mention it because HP never integrated a tuner in any model that I'm aware of. They had express card tuners you could add, but at that point you could just do it on any machine.
@@CathodeRayDude Page 13 of this service manual indicates otherwise:
www.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01689926.pdf
@14:31 the mini SPDIF is great for when you have a nice setup at home with two large screens, a nice mouse and keyboard and a premium audio setup. Out and about you can live with what the machine offers portably, but when you come home, you plug the notebook in and place it where you don't hear it (as much). It's also super handy when you're at a convention center and the line jack produces a drone along with your presentation - electrically decoupling from equipment you have no authority over is super useful.
Later: RAIDing your two drives to a mirror is nice when you're on the road when a drive fails and your schedule says to visit four more clients instead of your backup drive. Drive fails - just replace it and over night everything will be fine again. Beats booking a flight home to get the damn thing repaired while possibly losing a contract. (No, you don't carry external backups, they might get stolen and corporate is very very paranoid about that.)
Qosmio.
How did you write this 20 hours before the video was published? Are you a time traveler? Haha 🌈 I hope not
@@robertschnobert9090patrons get early access to vids
Oh yea, Toshiba were the only people to ever solve the battery problem of having a hole in the bottom. I had a 90's Toshiba satellite that also had a similar battery separating mech.
and also I've had an HP elitebook that had an access hatch on the bottom that let you take the battery out along with ram, it spanned the entire bottom of the laptop. ofc there would also be no hole for that externally. and they even included a screw so you could secure the bottom that was optional, it usually was only held closed by a latch.
11:45 watching your video with 7 inch tables and it's still awesome.)
I had a similar model to this back in middle/high school! I remember that startup sound well. I think I actually had the G20 model based on some googling. I'm visually impaired so I used it to plug in a camcorder over composite to see the board/projector. I carted this monster around school in a rolling case with a few backup batteries to swap out throughout the day. I was actually still using it sparingly all the way until 2012. It's interesting to see all the TV/media features that I never had a need to play with. Interestingly on my model, pushing the (awful capacitive) top buttons actually switched out of Windows IIRC, I don't think it just launched media center. Also, that silver lid got scratched to hell from constantly flipping it over on the desk to swap batteries. I'm glad you covered this, I immediately thought about the Qosmio line when you started this series.
One thing that's vaguely intrigued me about all those built-in DVD player apps is how they handle interlaced content? Since DVDs include metadata flags to indicate whether it's interlaced or native progressive content that a player needs to convert to interlaced for NTSC/PAL-compatible output, I would *imagine* most PC DVD player apps will read those flags, and if it indicates it's progressive, just pipe out the raw video, and if it indicates it's interlaced, will run some basic bob deinterlace filter to output 60/50Hz video so it looks just like it would on a flat panel TV of the era.
Memory unlocked: my video capture card I got as a kid, to pull video from my camcorder. A WinTV I think, Hauupaggghh rings a bell. Thanks for the vid, I hope you're doing well CRD :)
The "perfect size" laptop joke never gets old.
I'm glad this was almost an hour! Thanks for documenting all of these weird bits of computing history
In fact, the first laptop I know with a proper built in TV tuner was Asus W1 released in late 2004, ar least in Russia. I know it precisely because it is still in use at my work as a CCTV monitoring/viewing/recording device. And I know the date because it's inventory number is still inscribed on the cover of said laptop with a thick coat of white paint, and it ends with 04, meaning that it was bought and put on balance throughout 2004 according to our system.
It can proudly surprise you with 1.4ghz Pentium M, 512mb of unknown type RAM and windows XP on board. What a machine!
I like how you leave the bloopers in line
Don't worry, I'm not watching you on my phone screen.
I'm watching this with my phone in my pocket and the screen off, just listening to the audio.
I used to use my laptop (Dell Studio 1555) as a DVR when I was in college. It ran Windows 7 Home Premium and used a USB TV tuner. Honestly, I was very impressed with Windows Media Center in Windows 7. The guide was very powerful and did scheduled recordings in the background without too many issues.
When I was 12 I wanted a Qosmio x305 so bad... For some reason, I really enjoyed media center PCs. Thank you for the trip down memory lane.
i didn't saw that bottle cap until you mentioned it 😂😂
I got a pre-built desktop in 2006 with a TV tuner built-in and you could just watch cable TV in Windows Media Player (and Media Center) complete with a channel guide. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately, it was TV in 2006, so I barely used it for little more than watching Scrubs and Monk.
One interesting thing. At least here in brazil. Some cable tv providers still use the old analog signal to broadcast channels. I managed to connect a 80s gigantic portable tv into my house's cable tv. Also analog antenna signals in here were shut down in 2022. Id love to film you a demo for it of possible
Oh man, that Myth-TV comment brought back some dark memories. I used to have a Pinnacle DVB-S capture card in my main PC with a dual monitor setup, to watch some TV while working. I tried to get Linux working with Myth-TV backend and had to give up after a week or so. 🤨
Great video as always! 👍🙂
This one brought back memories. I never had Windows Media Center but I did have a TV tuner card and an Xbox with XBMC. I used to record shows, cut out the commercials and convert them to Divx myself. Nothing screams 2003 to me more than that Divx logo in the corner of your legitimately acquired video
Awesome stuff! Lookin' good sir! Video was great too! 🍻🌎❤️🖥️🕺 I had a Packard Bell 486/25 (desktop) in 92 or 93 and I specifically got the model with built-in TV tuner and a universal sound card that would act like the different popular sound card options of the day. It had input and could screen shot but no record. I could do some homework, play some SimCity then watch Star Trek TNG before heading to bed. Good times! 🍻❤️
I have always lived somewhere between PC/TV. I never owned a proper DVD or BD player -- just a PS2, an iPod Video, and some early janky streaming media players. While I was in college and single, I used Creative PC-DVD w/ MPEG decoder to watch movies on my monitor (and it had composite out for when I eventually did add a TV), and then later used 3dfx Voodoo 3 3500 and ATI All-in-Wonder cards with video inputs to play console games on my computer.
It wasn't really until late XP days, when I upgraded to a video card without VIVO, and added a Blackmagic PCI-e card for video input, that the live video on a PC train came to a screeching halt. That added enough latency that playing GameCube games was difficult, and 240p didn't work at all anymore.
It never really has gotten better. It really does seem like external media integration fell to the wayside once computers got powerful enough to actually handle video without struggling. That seems like a missed opportunity.
I did know what a Qosmio was, my high school friend's brother had an outrageous red one styled with autozone speaker grills (X300 I believe). We were in awe of it, but I never saw it in action, it may have less power than we thought. Later on I worked in a computer shop and found out Toshibas from 2012 and later are the worst quality laptops, with hinges that disintegrate, thin shell like plastic, screws that fall out, and "mechanical" failures, like LCD and AC jack cables. Glass touchscreens made the lid sag even worse. I picked up Pentium 133 and a Pentium iii Toshiba, and while they were both well built and full featured (it was cool how many parts were made in house by Toshiba, including fans, HD, RAM, LCD), but they had an inexcusable track point copy with click buttons stacked vertically that clicked mushy as well. How did such a diversified and well resourced company, and the oldest in the field of laptops fumble so badly for so many years? Later Qosmios were just red accents on the highest specced regular junky Toshiba, not a true gaming and media beast like this.
I love the dry humor in your videos. It really suits 🙂
But the content and detail in these are really top notch stuff 👌
I worked at Geek squad at the time, I found that a lot of people that got this laptop were Truckers. I had a guy show me his truck and he had a pretty cool setup with this laptop. He said he knew other people that had the same laptop just because it had so many options and uses in a limited space Semi-Truck.
Glad you brought up Myth TV because I actually enjoyed Windows Media Center (especially on Vista) and appreciated it a whole lot more after dealing with Myth TV.
It blew my mind when you opened the laptop. I thought you had two laptops, stacked.
Good old days when my Dreambox 600 was worth something.
That thing was amazing..
I was not expecting this to be an episode in the quick start series. I wasn't really expecting it at all, autoplay, I am not complaining at all. I would argue that they couldn't give you better hardware for the same price, if they wanted to continue operating That is.
No whining or noise actually made it into the finished video
He said, “Oh shoot, House is coming on!”
House was so savage!!
I was already building my own PCs back in 2006 and they always had a TV tuner in a PCI slot…not for watching TV, but for converting VHS and camcorder tapes over to digital. I remember watching tv once on my PC just to see it work - but i captured a ton of video. Probably most of these laptops were used the same way.
That opening gag made me do a double take twice, even though I knew what you were doing because I've seen these laptops in thrift stores. Fantastic timing and editing as always.
41:31 I like the sbemail reference
I've secured a boxed Kodak PalmPix, would you want it for future review as part of your "wacky portable things" and "bad 90s digital cameras" lineup?
Minor correction - NTSC *DID* have a broadcast guide! TV Guide offered it, one or more analog over-the-air channels would broadcast a digital TV Guide signal hidden among the rest of the data, and compatible devices would support it. I had a Toshiba TV that supported it, and you could even plug in a FireWire hard drive to the TV and record! Sadly, the TV Guide signal stopped being broadcast in 2011. About six months after I acquired my Toshiba TV (used.) It only worked on NTSC, so the NTSC phase-out killed it. Sadly, my Toshiba TV *REQUIRED* this signal be found for its TV recording feature to work, even though it had an ATSC tuner, and supported ATSC guide info, too. So my Expensive Toshiba Firewire hard drive (which only worked with compatible TVs, and TVs required this specific compatible hard drive) also became useless. (Nothing in the manual said the TV Guide signal was required to record ATSC, so I was unpleasantly surprised when ATSC recording stopped working, too.)
So this device *MIGHT* have supported guide info when new.
I'd totally watch the hour-and-a-half uncut version
5:00 It's not a market because it wasn't really useful when TV was analog and when it got digital we already had torrents. People who would be tech savvy enough to be able to even install one would also know how to pirate stuff and no one in their right mind would watch TV, if there is an option with 8 times more pixels, no commercial breaks and most importantly instant release instead of waiting when the local TV station decides you can get a new episode of your favorite show. Ok, maybe there was a short time period when I had hacked my windows media center to automatically remove every commercial break and record some shows that I wouldn't think deserved to have all episodes downloaded in chronological order or weren't available because they were just some documentaries that I used as a sleeping aid..
It was always my assumption that the reason inadequate batteries were included with laptops like this was to deal with a momentary lapse in power like a short power outage, moving it to another room in the house, or to give it time to sit in standby in a backpack while traveling between places.
I'm going to bet the IR receiver had it's own remote. I ran into so many machines that people bought back in the day (mainly HPs and Dells I think) that had a remote they never new about. See they made a remote that slid into the ExpressCard or PC Card slot. I would notice the little IR receiver on the front of their machines and ask people if they new what that was. Their answer was usually no idea, I would reach around to the side, eject the card remote, hit the Media Center button, and watch them get a very puzzled look on their face. Fun fact I think the Media Center remote could also interface with the XBox 360 IR receiver or you could plug the adapter in and it would work. I may be miss remembering that, but I don't think so. I had a MC remote with a much tinier IR receiver and I seem to remember using that remote with the 360 since it was the first console that made using it as a multimedia device reasonable. I know I programmed a generic universal remote to work with the IR on the 360. I still occasionally use it as a DVD player.
Adversarial DVD challenge let's gooo!
My Hauppauge PCIe WinTV card manages to increase the "10 seconds, if that" boot time of my modern PC to like 2-3 minutes just by having it connected to the motherboard. Now that's a hell of a driver.
And, of course, that card is only connected if I really need to connect a game console to the composite/s-video breakout box that i ripped out of a dead HP Pavilion that had a PCI equivalent WinTV card. I use hibernate a lot so the issue surfaces barely at all if i even use the card, but seeing a PC fail to fast boot just due to one driver's thiccness strikes me with either awe or fear. Or both.
Am I still forgiven for watching this in a picture in picture window which shrinks you to an even smaller postage stamp?
6:17 damn that heritage minute gets around
In 2006 I actually owned a stupidly expensive Asus laptop (I sold PCs at the time and purchased at cost) that had TV tuner built-in, mini remote that hid in the side and functioned like a full media centre with live TV recording. Brushed metal exterior and half the thickness of the Toshiba models. Model number was W1N (I think sometimes known as W1000N). Pics of this beauty and even spare parts are available online, but good luck finding the actual laptop itself! I know, I have been looking for years. My original was unfortunately stolen years ago. 😢
YOU MUST NEVER STOP MAKING VIDEOS
@CathodeRayDude The model you want is the Toshiba Qosmio F45-AV680. I found an eBay auction for one that ended (unsold) about a week ago. Spec: Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 1080P, HD DVD-R drive, HDMI output, external TV tuner, remote, Harman Kardon speakers with subwoofer, Windows 7. Good luck!
This would’ve been the laptop of my dreams in its time haha. Game compatible, records TV, plays DVD, my anime pirating, RUclips downloading self would’ve been in love lol
I still have my LG Plasma 42" TV, built in hard drive for time shifting, and recording, SD and HD recording. I had so many kids shows saved for the kids to keep from watching unwanted shows for the kids...
I'm gonna be waiting patiently for the real Trials HD video :)
On MythTV ... I was one of those nerds in college. Except what we did was basically what SlingBox ended up doing later. I ran MythTV on a box in a friend's dorm, where they had free basic cable and 100Mbit Internet with effectively static IPs. I was off-campus and cheap, so I had my PC hooked up to the TV via S-Video which would connect to that MythTV and remotely control the tuner functions. With a remote (the one that came with the SoundBlaster LiveDrive). There was some lag because we only had shitty DSL, but so long as the power didn't go out at the pirate head-end or I decided to update something, it worked well enough. I also ran Linux on the desktop back then, so I had a whole separate X server running on the S-Video output, controllable exclusively with the remote, so my roommates would be channel surfing while I worked on a paper that was due in 20 minutes.