[hickey]

I saw a commercial for an HP laptop yesterday and they were emphasizing a new feature for it called "Quick Play." It said you can now play your movies and music with one touch of a button without starting up your system. Im confused as to what they mean by "Without starting up your system," do they mean it can play a DVD without booting the computer and running the OS. If so I find it very hard to believe thats possible, but I could be wrong.

Anyone here know anything about this?

[DarwinX]

That was also my impression though I can neither confirm or deny it.

*EDIT*

BOOM!: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/artic...,117595,00.asp

[DarwinX]

Er, I can confirm it:

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/artic...,117595,00.asp

[hickey]

damn

[tooki]

Originally Posted by hickey

Im confused as to what they mean by "Without starting up your system," do they mean it can play a DVD without booting the computer and running the OS. If so I find it very hard to believe thats possible, but I could be wrong.

It's easy. Just don't boot a full OS, but rather a really limited one funning from firmware. Macs already do this for the Startup Manager (the thing to let you choose the startup disk on the fly) as well as Target Disk Mode.

tooki

[hickey]

thanks tooki, does anyone see this as a real benefit though, does it help anything by only booting a limited OS.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by hickey

thanks tooki, does anyone see this as a real benefit though, does it help anything by only booting a limited OS.

It might mean better battery life, if, for example, you just wanted to watch a DVD or listen to a CD on a airline flight. Since the optical drive is a fairly major battery drain by itself, though, I'm not sure how much extra battery life you'd get in the long run.