VillageTronic ViBook USB Graphics System Budget
January 16, 2010 | Peripheral, Portable Storage | 2 CommentsThis despite innovations such as ION nVidia up support for digital video outputs. Not only is netbooks, and even some laptops and desktops budget continues to suffer from the lack of a digital video output. Not to mention poor quality digital to analog avoiding some monitors now very much in favor of DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort, it can be a real problem. Fortunately, ViBook VillageTronic’s + provides a solution.
This little device uses a technology called DisplayLink (not to be confused with DisplayPort, which is a standard connector) to output a digital video signal through a regular USB 2 ports. It does this by compressing the original signal using a software-based virtual graphics card, reducing the bandwidth to a level that USB can handle. It unpacks and then again using a chip on the device itself. The result is a standard DVI signal output is apparently a USB port. All this is done in real time and you can run resolutions up to Full HD (1,920 x 1,200) the cheapest ViBook can handle up to 1680 x 1050 or 1600 x 1200.
Since the last time we tried to develop a product DisplayLink, the impressive Toshiba Dynadock U10, technology has been updated to work with MacOS and Windows, although Linux users will have to wait a little longer. [via trustedreviews]
