-  Powerful graphics engines provide true HDTV (such as 1080i format) — provided the game uses high-resolution video.

-  S-Video and component-video connections bring higherquality video into your television.

-  Optical drives (usually DVD) store game software, which means more storage space for better graphics.

-  Surround-sound formats (such as Dolby Digital) provide a truly immersive gaming experience. If an image stays still for too long on-screen, it can cause burn-in — the phosphor coating on the screen stays illuminated with a certain image long enough for it to become permanent. (Hey, that’s why screen-savers were invented.) Susceptible TVs — such as plasma screens, CRT projection systems and — to a lesser degree — CRT direct-view TVs — can suffer burn-in from excessive gaming. When you have burn-in, you always see a “ghost” image on-screen of whatever has become burned in. Certain images tend to be in the same place all the time when you play a game (like your race car’s speedometer, or your ammo indicator), so you could experience burn-in if you put in lots of gaming time. You can pretty much avoid this problem by simply -  Setting up your TV properly (brightness down) -  Not gaming for hours and hours every day LCD (liquid-crystal display) screens, LCD projectors, and DLP TVs are immune to burn-in. They’ll take as much gaming as you (and your sore thumbs!) can throw at them. Meet the Consoles You may have an older gaming console (or three) lying around the house — such as an original PlayStation or a Super NES system. By all means, if you’d like, connect these to your HDTV. You may just have one old game that you can’t help but pull out and play every once in a while (for Pat it’s the old Nintendo version of Dr. Mario that he just can’t give up). Just keep in mind that these older consoles (typically using an RF modulator or — at best — a composite video connection) won’t rock your world on an HDTV. Aside from the primitive graphics, the resolution is limited to standard-definition specs. We focus our attentions in this article on the latest versions of the major gaming consoles (the Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft consoles), because these give you the best results with your HDTV. All of these consoles have been on the market for a few years, they’ve become quite affordable (well under $200 each), and there are hundreds of games for each system. The PlayStation 2 The most popular gaming console — and the one with the most games available — is Sony’s PlayStation 2. As with all the consoles we’re discussing, the PS2 (that’s what all the cool kids call it) is really a powerful computer, based on a 300 MHz CPU (central processing unit). 300 MHz may not sound fast (compared to a 3 GHz Pentium 4 PC), but the PS2 has some other stuff that makes it great for games, including these goodies:

-  A powerful graphics chip: Called the Graphics Synthesizer, this chip — not the CPU — does all the heavy lifting to create the gaming images that show up on your HDTV screen.

-  32 MB of RAM: Computer memory to hold the actual game code being executed by the CPU and the Graphics Synthesizer.

-  A DVD-ROM drive: PS2 games are burned onto DVD discs — you can also use this drive to play regular DVDs and CDs, and even older PlayStation (the original version) games.

-  Ports and connections: The PS2 is loaded with ports and connections for attaching peripherals — including connectors for game controllers and USB peripherals, a slot for memory cards, and an i.LINK (FireWire) port for connecting multiple PS2s together for head-to-head gaming.

-  An optional network kit: For the ultimate in PS2ing, you can buy a network kit that provides an Ethernet interface for connecting the PS2 to a home network and the Internet. Online gaming is the ultimate goal here — the ability to play with people thousands of miles away! (We talk more about home networking in Article 17.) The PS2’s graphics capabilities could theoretically support HDTV resolutions, but the system is designed for lower resolutions. With the optional component video cables — and a game that supports it — you can have progressive-scan gaming (480p) on your HDTV. The PS2 can support Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround sound (as long as you use a digital-audio cable to connect the PS2 to your A/V receiver or surround-sound decoder). Most games, however, provide only two-channel stereo sound. The back of a game’s packaging has the Dolby Digital logo if a game supports Dolby Digital. Gaming with the Cube Another popular choice among gamers (particularly the younger crowd — if you have kids, you probably already know this) is Nintendo’s GameCube. The GameCube is slightly less powerful than the PS2 or the Microsoft Xbox, but it makes up for this by being the cheapest console at $99.99 retail. The GameCube is also amazingly compact (6 inches or less in all directions). Nintendo (in what we assume is a cost-saving measure) has, as of the summer of 2004, removed component-video connection capability from new GameCubes. Many games support 480p progressive scan, but you won’t get that through a new GameCube. If progressive scan is important to you, consider looking for a used GameCube on eBay or elsewhere. So what’s inside the GameCube? How about all this good stuff crammed into that small package . . .?

-  A powerful graphics processor: Jointly designed by ATI (big in the PC graphics chip market) and Nintendo, this chip (codename: Flipper) can crank out up to 12 million polygons per second — which is a lot of video on-screen.

-  40 MB of system memory: For storing gaming code.

-  Four ports for gaming controllers: So three friends can come over and play head to head.

-  Two memory card slots: For storing game “state” information, so you can start back up where you left off.

-  A proprietary optical disc that’s smaller than traditional DVDs or CDs: In other words, no double duty as a DVD player for the GameCube. As we mentioned earlier in this section, many GameCube games can provide non-HDTV, progressive-scan signals (480p) to your HDTV — but the hardware (at least in the latest versions) is lacking. If you’ve got an older GameCube, you can take advantage of this progressive-scan signal by using component-video cables. Is it a console or a PC? We’ve mentioned the fact that gaming consoles are really just specialized PCs dressed up in fancy, living-room-friendly clothing. Well, a company called Apex Digital (you may not have heard of them, but they are actually one of the world’s largest manufacturers of DVD players, among other electronic gizmos) has just announced a new console that’s even more PC than the rest. The Apex Digital ApeXtreme Media & Game Console, due on the market by the time you read this, is a special-purpose console designed for playing PC games (not PS2 or Xbox or GameCube games) on your TV instead of on your PC monitor. Basically, the ApeXtreme console is a combination of a DVR (see Article 12), a DVD player, and a gaming console, all in one slick package. We got to see an early prototype at the Consumer Electronics show and were impressed — we still haven’t seen the final version, but we’re waiting with bated breath. The big advantage of this new console is that it plays any PC game (there are tons and tons) — so you aren’t locked into a certain console type when you go to choose games. All this for only $499 (list price). You can find more information about the Media & Game Console on Apex Digital’s Web site: www.apexdigitalinc.com. If you want surround sound with GameCube games, set your A/V receiver to Dolby Pro Logic II. The GameCube doesn’t have a digital audio connection to hook up your surround-sound decoder, so there’s no support for Dolby Digital surround sound. X (box) marks the spot The king of the gaming consoles for HDTV is the Microsoft Xbox. That’s because the Xbox is the only console that -  Supports true HDTV outputs (720p or 1080i):

• Just connect the picture via component-video cables, choose the right games, and you’re in HDTV gaming heaven.

• The Xbox supports Dolby Digital 5.1 channel surround sound, and many games support this directly. -  Has (at least a handful of) games that support HDTV: It isn’t just the console that gives you an HDTV gaming experience — the game software must support HDTV, too. This support means loads of painstaking work for all the engineers and artists creating the game, so there are just a few HDTV games on the market as we write. We expect that this number will grow — particularly as the next generation of these game consoles reaches the market. The Xbox, more than any other console, is built around a PC-style architecture. (This probably isn’t surprising, given that Microsoft is involved.) The heart of the system is a fast CPU from the Pentium III family. The graphics are handled by a scorchingly fast chip dubbed the X Chip, built by NVIDIA (another big PC graphics-chip maker). Other key components of the Xbox include the following:

-  A built-in 8GB hard drive: Instead of using relatively small memory cards, the Xbox has a generous-size hard drive for saving game-state information. You can also “rip” your own CDs onto this hard drive to create your own game soundtracks.

-  64MB of high-speed RAM: Not a lot of RAM by PC standards, but considerably more than PS2 or GameCube for holding game code.

-  A built-in Ethernet port: While networking kits are optional for the PS2 and GameCube, every Xbox includes this Ethernet port for connecting to the Internet — and to online gaming via a home network with a broadband cable or DSL connection.

-  A DVD optical drive for games, CDs, and video DVDs: So you can play DVDs and CDs with your Xbox (keep in mind, however, that the remote control that enables DVD playback is optional). Connecting to Your HDTV When you connect a gaming console to your HDTV, it’s decision time. Out of the box, each of these consoles usually has only -  A composite video connection (the yellow connector) -  A pair of analog audio cables (the red and white connectors) If you’re buying one of the many, many different bundle packages, you might get some different cables in your box, but it isn’t likely. Video connections Most video games come with a yellow composite video connector. If you want to get the most from your gaming console and your HDTV, consider buying a higher-quality S-Video or componentvideo connection, in either of these ways: -  Directly from the manufacturer of your console -  From a third-party cable vendor like Monster Cable (which sells a wide range of video console cables) Going with composite A composite-video connector provides the standard, out-of-thebox” connection for any of these gaming consoles. A compositevideo connection is also the bottom of the video-connection hierarchy; it gives you a lower-quality picture than either an S-Video or component-video connection. If you aren’t playing any games that are specifically designed for HDTVs (that is, no HDTV games on your Xbox, no 480p-resolution games for any console), then this connection usually is adequate (though not optimal). But we recommend you consider a better connection. An S-Video connection can provide a significant picture boost over composite video for your console, but if you ever plan on playing progressive-scan or HDTV games, you should definitely skip over the composite-video connection and move on up to a componentvideo connection. If you use the composite video connection (maybe you’re just a casual gamer, or the console is just for the kids and they move it around a lot and can’t handle the complicated cabling), you can connect several ways: All these methods work equally well. -  You can run a cable directly into one of the composite-video inputs on the back of the HDTV set. -  You can use the front-panel input (if your TV has one). -  You can connect through your A/V receiver (if you’re using one) and use its video-switching facilities. If the game is for the kids, and they may either move it to the bedroom TV or take it to a friend’s house, use the front panel connections on your TV — just to keep the kids from messing around with any connections on the back of your system. Stepping up to S-Video S-Video is a big step up over composite video because it separates the luminance and the chrominance (the brightness and the color information in the video signal) onto their own conductors instead of trying to cram all that information into one signal (on one conductor) and then separate it when it’s inside the TV. If you aren’t playing 480p or high-def games on your console, you can probably just use S-Video to connect your console to the TV. There’s a definite convenience factor at work here — your HDTV is bound to have more S-Video connections available than it does component-video connections. In fact, most HDTV front-panel connections include an S-Video connector, so you can easily plug and unplug the console whenever you want to move it around. S-Video connectors are the biggest pain-in-the-you-know-what in the audio/video world. They’re prone to bent pins. If you’re going to let the kids make this connection, make sure you teach them how to line things up correctly before making the connection. Depending on your equipment, you can connect S-Video the same three ways as composite video: direct to the back of the TV, to the front, or through an A/V receiver. Just pick the method that’s most convenient for you. Going component When you really want the best for your HDTV gaming experience, use component-video cables. They give you progressive-scan video for games that support it, instead of just relying on your HDTV’s internal scaler system to convert the game video to progressive scan. Component-video cables also give you higher-resolution video (at least on the Xbox) for true HDTV gaming. As we mention earlier in this article, the very newest (as we write) versions of the Nintendo GameCube console have had their component- video support removed in a production change. You can still use component-video cables with GameCubes built before the summer of 2004, but not with the newest versions. Yes, we think this was a stupid move, too! There’s nothing complicated about using component-video cables with your console — just buy the appropriate cable system and plug it in. Keep in mind a couple of things: -  Most HDTVs don’t have component-video connections on the front panel, so you must connect to the rear of the TV. -  Most HDTVs have few component-video connections (often only one set), so you may have to decide whether to connect your game, cable box, or DVD player to your HDTV. If you don’t have enough component-video inputs on your TV, you can route your game console through an A/V receiver’s component-video switching system. If you run component video through your A/V receiver, and you want to get progressive scan (480p), make sure that your receiver’s video switching has at least 10 MHz of bandwidth; to get HDTV, you need at least 30 MHz of bandwidth. You can find out how much bandwidth your video switch has by reading your A/V receiver’s manual. When you get your component-video connection set up, don’t throw away that composite-video connector that came with your console. We’ve heard that some combinations of HDTV and consoles play through component-video cables (and work well!) but require a composite-video cable for some setup work in the console’s built-in menus and controls. Dealing with audio Your game system probably has two connectors (red and white) for analog stereo sound. If your system has digital surround sound, you may be able to connect it to your home-theater audio system for wall-to-wall sound. Analog audio With analog audio cables, you can get some nice stereo sound from your HDTV or A/V receiver. You can even — if your A/V receiver supports Dolby Pro Logic II — get some synthesized (that is to say, fake) surround sound. Analog audio cables don’t have the true surround sound that’s encoded in an increasing number of games. So you’ll miss out on some fun audio effects (like the sounds of the bad guys creeping up behind you — literally!). Digital audio To get true surround sound from a PS2 or Xbox console, you must upgrade to a digital audio cable. This connection is made using a Toslink optical cable — often sold as part of a package with the component-video cables. There’s no option for digital audio with the GameCube. Usually, you connect this Toslink cable to one of the “digital audio in” connectors on the back of an A/V receiver. Very few HDTVs accept this connection directly to their own built-in audio systems. For real surround sound, we highly recommend using a separate A/V receiver and speaker system. This approach gives you use of your five front, center, and rear speakers, plus a subwoofer — so you can really feel those explosions rock the room. What systems do we have? Pat loves his Xbox, and Danny’s kids stick with their PS2 . . . all connected with component-video and Toslink cables into our HDTVs. Nice, very nice.