The only constant in the PC platform is change.

Even in the last year, we’ve seen multicore processors come to very mainstream systems, and quad-core and even eight-core systems are now on the market too. Multicore means not only more performance, but more capabilities.

Problem is, most benchmarks out there don’t measure capabilities. They measure speed. But isn’t speed a capability, you ask? Sure it is, and a darn fine one at that. But capabilities extend beyond speed and get more to the heart of the matter for most consumers: the quality of experience. That may sound a bit warm and fuzzy, but there’s an entire scientific field called perceptual modeling behind it. And its this science that Intel® DHCAT applies to evaluating PC platforms.

We’ve learned a lot creating versions 1.0 and 1.5 of Intel® DHCAT, and we’ve rolled that learning into version 2.0. That new goodness takes several forms: support for Windows* Vista*, shorter run-time, and more intense workloads.

Want to find out more? Click Next to read on.

Key New Features

Since we released Intel® DHCAT 1.5, many users of this tool have been providing us with valuable feedback and recommendations of new digital home usages, digital home features and how we can make the tool more useful. We listened to all these suggestions and we did our best to incorporate these new ideas in Intel® DHCAT 2.0.

Microsoft* Windows* Vista* Support

Intel® DHCAT 2.0 is one of the only capability assessment tools built from the ground up to support Windows* Vista*.

Version 2.0 is also backward-compatible with previous versions of Microsoft* Windows* (i.e. XP* and Media Center Edition*). All the same usages and features are available to all operating systems.

Improved Run Time

Lowering the overall run-time of Intel® DHCAT is a key requirement that we have steadily improved with every release, and version 2.0 is no exception.

For Intel® DHCAT 2.0 many of the video quality assessment components run faster, which let us include additional and emerging video quality assessment tests, and still reduce overall run-time. A DHCAT test-run now takes a little under two hours.

Improved Utilities

Intel® DHCAT 2.0 contains several new utilities as well as improvements to existing utilities.

Auto-Update: Intel® DHCAT 2.0 can check here at ICF for new updates to this tool. These will include point-release versions, as well as new scenarios and workloads. This feature will help us get new features and service releases to you faster.

NOTE: Note that your test-system will need Internet access to use this feature, and that the tool won’t initiate an auto-update check unless you tell it to. The only information transmitted between the PC under test and the update server is the installed version of Intel® DHCAT on the system where this utility is initiated.

Compare Results

The Results Comparison Utility was a new utility introduced in Intel® DHCAT v1.5, and we’ve added some handy new features to make it easier to use.

Now you can choose which specific results you want to look at, and focus on only those results. Previously, results were ordered alphabetically, which made the tool less easy to use. The comparison report now shows detailed platform information, making platform comparisons easier.

Improved Platform Scanner

The Platform Scanner, formerly known as the “Platform Check Utility,” was first introduced in Intel® DHCAT 1.5. We completely revamped this utility to provide a more comprehensive snapshot of all hardware and software components in the system.

Intel® DHCAT 2.0 invokes this utility before every test run so that you know exactly which components your system has installed, and which are not present/installed.

We do this to ensure that the expected and correct hardware and software components are present on the system before initiating a run. That way, the final DHCAT results should be more in line with expectations, eliminating the need to rerun the test.

Updated Usage Category Hierarchy

The previous versions on Intel® DHCAT contained three categories:

1. Basic
2. HD
3. Connected

We have now expanded these three categories into six, which now describe the expanded capabilities of today’s (and tomorrow’s) digital home platform based on key usages. Each successive Usage Category builds upon its previous one.

Each Usage Category is a collection of scenarios whose usages closely tie into the Usage Category that they belong to.

The new Usage Categories are as follows:

• ENJOY (video playback)
• RECORD (video recording)
• SHARE (video streaming)
• RECORD & SHARE (video recording and streaming)
• HD RECORD (HD video recording)
• HD RECORD & SHARE (HD video recording and streaming)

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)

Platform Capability Matrix Screen

Intel® DHCAT 2.0 has a new Platform Capability Matrix Screen which shows the results of all the Scenarios and Scenario Instances that were performed with their respective perceptible quality values for each.

The six new Usage Groups can be seen with their respective Scenarios and Scenario Instances within each within each Usage Group.

Platform Detail Report

Intel® DHCAT 2.0 as in previous versions provides a detail report of every run stored on the machine. The detail report in this version has vastly improved over previous versions. One key difference is the inclusion of more detailed and more concise system configuration information.

This new system configuration information not only contains standard system information (CPU, Memory, Graphics Card, etc.), but it also outlines most of the digital home software and hardware components that are detected on the system such as:

• Video Codecs (e.g. DivX*, Microsoft Windows Media*, MPEG-2*, etc.)
• Hardware (e.g. TV Tuner(s), Blu-Ray* Disk Drives, etc.)
• Services (e.g. DLNA* Media Server, etc.)
• Other Hardware features (e.g. HDCP* enabled graphics card, High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)

Here you can see a section of the detailed System information (hardware and software) in the detailed report. Below, you see part of the detailed Digital Home elements found on the test system.

Stay Tuned…

We’ve got plenty more news and info coming about Intel® DHCAT 2.0, including a how-to about getting your system ready to run the tool, and how to configure all the needed bits setup to get the most out of your system.

Intel® DHCAT 2.0 is designed to challenge both today’s and tomorrow’s systems. Think your rig is up to the task? There’s only one way to find out. Request your DHCAT 2.0 DVD today, and stop back here often for info.

To demo our new AutoUpdate feature, there's a small patch already available for Intel® DHCAT 2.0, which you can access via the tool's AutoUpdate feature. Or, if you prefer, you can download it by clicking HERE.