Valve Brings Steam to Your TV With New Big Picture Mode

[NLS]

forgive my ignorance but how is plugging your pc to your telly via hdmi any different to this?

Long story short. Yes, you still plug in via HDMI. But the interface and controls are different and actually made for using from your couch to your TV. If you actually watch the video, you'll see there's a difference.

It makes you ask, Why has it not always been like that?

Proper hardware support between PC and TV. HDMI is the killer-cable for this obviously, but not all PCs or TVs have been supporting that standard in the past. My latest media center PC that I built some months ago was a pain in the ass to work with my old TV that didn't support HDMI. HDMI to analog (VGA, S-Video, SCART, Composite) doesn't work at all unless you buy an active converter that'll set you back a few bucks and isn't guaranteed to work. My new PC didn't support VGA either.
Analogue signals are also prone to quality loss over cable, and generally lower resolution and quality. Watching movies or fast gameplay works fine on old CRTs, but static small text on a UI that isn't made for TVs is a no-no. This is mostly remedied by the use of digital signals like HDMI, SPDIF, DVI and such. But there's still some older hardware out there without full support.

And generally I'd say PC-gaming has been seen on as mouse and keyboard in front of a close screen thing for many years. It's just the way we're used to doing it. We're seeing a lot of games with native controller support in the later years, especially with the increase of console-to-pc ports. It's been a long gradual shift, but as long as RTS and FPS are better played with keyboard and mouse in front of a small screen, it's gonna be a split between this new couch PC-gaming and the "old" way of doing it.

Also: Bonus: You either need a separate PC close to your TV (which costs money), or move your gaming rig closer to you TV (which makes normal desktop use harder, or requires you to move your weighty thing every time you feel like gaming). Or exceptionally long video cables, which would be prone to signal loss, or limitations in the specification, such as the need for repeaters. This may have been remedied a bit by the introduction of wireless HDMI which is starting to come out now.

We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[zumbledum]

nice any more options and stuff is always good to see. of course not owning a TV a couch or many games that play well on controllers doubt ill get much use out of it personally

 

[Vigormortis]

I honestly can't even figure out how to turn it on. I have played with my TV as my monitor for probably close to a decade now so I wouldn't mind trying this out.

How do I turn big picture mode on?

You have to go to your Steam settings and opt into the Steam Beta. Once Steam restarts you'll see a big "big picture beta" button near the upper right. Just click it and away you go.

"It's the world's first first person browser"

Ծ_Ծ

Ya, and my guess is it'll be the last.

Have you actually tried it? It's actually pretty damn intuitive. It's definitely a far sight better than any of the consoles browsers.

Will it replace Firefox, Chrome, etc. Hell no. Of course not. But even so, I was thoroughly surprised at how easy it was to surf the web.

----------------------------

For that matter, the Daisywheel is itself ingenious. It's not faster than using a keyboard but it's sure as hell a lot faster than using some awkward virtual keyboard.

*cough* Xbox Dashboard *cough*

Makes me wonder two things:
1: Why has no one else thought of this before? It's so much more natural for typing with a controller. Seriously. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have had consoles out for over a decade. How have none of them thought of this?

2: How soon can we expect everyone else to start copying the Daisywheel?

 

[PoweD]

Onlive much?
Could be streamed from PC, but from servers could be possible too.

I don't really need this(i don't own a TV), but i do like the game-pad typing thing they have in mind.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Well this just murdered OnLive.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

It is pretty impressive. I cannot not believe someone has come up with a way for typing with a controller that is usable.

My tv is already on my desk as a monitor but now I'm eyeing the 40" in the living room with covetous eyes. I don't think anyone in the house would mind if I commandeered it, I mean they only use it to watch soaps anyway, I'll put it to better use

 

[synobal]

All of you talking about the new Lotus Virtual Keyboard should know that the original Killzone had something very similar. The lotus keyboard just looks like a further refinement of that. The original Killzone was on the ps2 though and to my knowledge no one has used this style of virtual keyboard for this console generation. Why I'm not sure, I think perhaps a lot of console developers just get tunnel vision and miss obvious innovations as this.

While the lotus keyboard is similar to the one killzone had it isn't exactly the same, it looks a lot nicer and in general looks a bit less confusing to use with all the color coding and such. Still good on Valve for picking this up and making all the console manufactures look like boobs for not using this style of input before. It makes perfect sense when you sit down and really think about how you would type with a controller.

 

[gabycms]

Well this just murdered OnLive.

And OUYA too.

 

[Scrythe]

"Alright, this will be neat to check out. Just need to change my settings to 'Beta Participation'. Okay, reload is finished, time to warm up my controller and hit 'Big Picture Mode', and... oh. It crashed. Let me just try this agai- nope."

So it's not working for me. I hope you all have better luck with this than I do.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Well. Points for having the first commercial I've ever seen that used the phrase "...that doesn't suck".

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Well this just murdered OnLive.

And OUYA too.

Haha the OUYA. That was going to kill itself anyways. That will be what breaks Kickstarter's rules for backers.