User Interface Changes

For the most part, Intel® DHCAT 2.0 maintains the same familiar look-and-feel and functional continuity of previous versions. We made navigation easier, so you can more easily find the key functional areas and utilities available.

New Home Launch Page: Intel® DHCAT 2.0’s new home page provides links to the most performed tasks and utilities, as shown here:

Main Results Page Platform Capability Score Screen

The following image is an example of a Platform Capability Score Screen. This screen is displayed upon completion of an Intel® DHCAT 2.0 run. This screen and its information are also available when reviewing data from previous runs as well.

This screen contains two key pieces of information: 

Platform Capability Score: As previously mentioned, this is a numeric representation of platform capability. This number is most useful when comparing two equally configured machines in terms of the presence of optional hardware and software components on both platforms. This number provides a good relative numerical difference. Although this number does not convey anything specifically about what the platform capabilities are. 

Platform Capability Check Items: Prior to every Intel® DHCAT 2.0 run a scan of all the platform hardware and software is made. The purpose of this scan is not only to capture all hardware and software components for the detail report but also determine which key digital home hardware and software are present on the system. Given that Intel® DHCAT is an “Out of Box” capability assessment tool the detection of key digital home components drives what digital home scenarios are tested by Intel DHCAT. The presence or lack of key digital home software and hardware components affect the Platform Capability Score and the overall capabilities of the platform under test.

The key software and/or hardware components will affect the overall capability measured by Intel® DHCAT are:

• Video Encoders
• Video Decoders
• TV Tuner(s) (Standard and High Definition)
• DLNA* Compliant Media Server

There are also software and/or hardware components that do not directly affect the Intel® DHCAT 2.0 score but are specifically detected by Intel® DHCAT because they do provide some unique and valuable capabilities to consumers that are emerging. Even though these features do not affect the score within Intel® DHCAT 2.0, they are likely candidates for inclusion within future Intel® DHCAT digital home usage scenarios which will affect the overall score and capabilities of the platform. For the time being they can still be highlighted as key differentiators of any platform that includes them.

Such features are:

• Audio Capabilities (Stereo or High Definition 5.1 capable audio cards)
• Blu-ray* Drive (Next generation high definition digital content)
• HD DVD* Drive (Next generation high definition digital content)
• HDCP* enabled video card (High Definition Content Protection required to connect a PC to a TV or projector via a digital interconnect (e.g. DVI*, HDMI*) and view premium content (e.g. Hollywood* movies)