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FiringSquad: The Media Center Edition drivers with the wizard-based configuration is actually very cool. That said, I can't help but to notice that the MCE drivers always lag behind the standard ForceWare release. What other differences are present between the MCE drivers and the ForceWare drivers?

Scott Vouri: All NVIDIA drivers are built using the Unified Driver Architecture model, so our Media Center drivers come from the exact same code base as our standard ForceWare release. Media Center drivers can take longer to test and release due to the extra QA and certification processes necessary for the Designed for Media Center and Imaging Science Foundation certifications. While this is a situation we strive to avoid, it is worth it in order to provide the home theater quality video output covered by these standards.

FiringSquad: Where do the Digital Vibrance and Image Sharpening algorithms get applied? By the GPU or at some post-processing stage? Would it ever be possible to have application-specific digital vibrance or image sharpening settings?

Scott Vouri: These algorithms are applied as the pixels are output from the graphics core to the DAC, TMDS, or TV encoder. Which means that they benefit the entire display. We are investigating ways to subjectively apply them to application-specific portions of the display.



FiringSquad: How does the advanced mode of color profiling work with ICC/ICM files? It seems like I cannot load a file produced by a hardware calibration tool such as MonacoOptix?

Scott Vouri: ICM profiles are operating system level profiles set by via the Microsoft provided control panel and are used by ICM aware apps. Currently users cannot set separate ICM tables per monitor with other applications.

FiringSquad: Will future revisions of the ForceWare allow me to apply different color LUTs to different monitors in a multiple-monitor setup in Windows XP the same way it does on MacOS X?

Scott Vouri: Actually we support this today. To do this, go to the NVIDIA Control Panel and then browse to the nView page, right click on the monitor you want to change and choose color correction. However, if you are using ICM profiles, the changes get applied to both monitors due to the issues stated above.

FiringSquad: nStant media seems like a under-advertised component of the PureVideo Decoder. What are NVIDIA's long-term plans for this?

Scott Vouri: nStant Media is our cross-platform home entertainment application that includes a “ten-foot” user interface and supports TV tuning and PVR programming, DVD movie viewing, music listening and photo viewing. Since it is cross-platform from both a GPU and an OS perspective, I think you will see it deployed in a number of different ways over the coming months.