Envy 17 3D mini review

Here is how I understand it.
Envy 17 3D meets the spec for BluRay 3D playback because:
It has the right display (120hz).
It has BluRay drive.
It has 3D glasses that works with the display.
While it doesn't have a natively supported GPU, it uses software to off load needed processing to CPU (expect CPU cycle to be pretty high when watching 3D movies). You do need the software player to support that.
It doesn't have HDMI 1.4 to send BluRay 3D data from laptop to external 3D capable TV.
I think TriDef software just converts most 2D games into 3D. I don't think it will even support converting 2D DVD into 3D on the fly.

Feel free to chime in if I'm mistaken.

 

so this is interesting.... Do you think a driver update for the GPU 5850 would then allow it to decode BluRay 3D, or it has to be in the GPU chips on board to work?

If the CPU can play these BluRay 3D movies, did HP even state how much RAM is recommended for the CPU to fluently translate the BluRay 3D image...as we can only imagine...its very demanding...so will 4 gb be enough, 6, or do you need full 8gb on the motherboard to make it fun?

 

As far as I can tell, you don't need to use TriDef to play Bluray DVD. I just mounted the test bluray 3D ISO that someone made available and it played in the MediaSmart player without TriDef playing a part.

So, for Bluray 3D the HP 17 3D will support playback AS-IS. However, it won't be able to send the output to an external display since it doesn't have HDMI 1.4.

John

 

One more thing, the TriDef will convert most video from 2D to 3D. It even converts my HD recordings from the media center. i.e. the Victoria Secret's fashion show I recorded 2 nights ago in 3D!

It will NOT convert a 2D bluray to 3D.

John

 

I remember reading on one of these forums (I think it was the Envy 17 owner's lounge) that you CAN output 3D through hdmi 1.3 but only if you have a high-speed hdmi cable. I'm going to chat with an HP technician to confirm/deny this.

EDIT: Well, Sorry to dissapoint, but the HP rep said it would not be able to output 3D through HDMI. I asked specifically if it would do it with a high-speed HDMI cable, and he/she still said no. The rep could be wrong, but its not very likely.

 

PS3 (which has HDMI 1.3 like Envy) supports Bluray 3D but with limitations. When you pop in a bluray 3D movie, PS3 will stream the video portion to give you the 3D vision, but WILL DOWNGRADE audio from hi-def dolby or what not to normal Dolby Digital or DTS and that is due to not enough bandwidth to send out all the data.

So, it seems like some kinda software implementation can, in theory, be achieved to do what PS3 does to output bluray 3D with HDMI 1.3

And I wouldn't be suprised the rep responded with 'No', twice. God knows what would happen if they said yes cause they tried it in their lab and all the users were expecting it to work... I can't begain to calculate how much more 'discounts' they would have to give out because someone in their tech department said yes to sending out bluray 3D with HDMI 1.3. If I were HP higher management... I would fire that tech who said yes. So, in the end, in the interest of job security, they will definately say no cause the industry standard says so.

 

What about the displayport connector? Anybody try that? I think it will be able to send 3D via its ports but not at 1080p.

The limitation is in the hardware as far as I know. There is no hardware decoding for blu-ray 3d in the video card but the processor is supposed to pick up the slack to allow you to play 3d blurays with this laptop.

 

Btw guys, since I've been using this laptop (8 hours a day min that it's on), the temperatures have now dropped beyond my expectations.

After running wow for a good 40min on maxed, the idle temps right now after a good 5min cooldown is 50C for the i7 and 57C for the 5850.

When I first got this laptop it was sitting idle at over 63C for the i7 and 5850.

Load temps are also down from 84C to 78C for the i7 and 89C to 81C for the 5850.

When people reapply their thermal paste it requires sometime for it to cure, and then temps begin to fully stable out.

I'm thinking this is what happened. Again keep in mind I run this laptop for a min 8 hours and sometimes 15 hours since the day I got it, so maybe mine cured.

 

Anybody been playing 3d games with this thus far? I am still trying to figure out how to get rid of the awful ghosting in fallout3. When I run the tridef sample images I see some ghosting there too so I know it's not just the game but the hardware or the tridef driver that needs to somehow adjust timing. Anybody know how to do this?

 

Best way to reduce ghosting is by reducing the 3d depth effect. helped me with batman. still a nice 3d effect.

 

WickedYeti...I hear ya... I will be getting my 3D on 12/7.... I will try the 3D games too...until then I think a good idea is to straightout just call Tridef support and ask them...hopefully they will have a straight answer either positive like here are new drivers, or they could say they are working on it....or the negative which is I don't know..lol, hope its not the last one...

 

would like to know how to use youtube 3d with tridef somehow.

 

Ok just got the envy in today and wow I love it, but......(the dreaded but) I noticed that there was a ding on the metal to the right of the left hing and the rest of the middle( under the hp symbol) was kinda bowed or bent up.....so I called hp up.
The rep. that I talked to offered me $50 and a replacement(et build date is dec 30...holy sh*t, I allready waited three weeks, so I decided to haggle a little I asked him if he could just do an upgrade, he said ya just keep it around $50, I said, Well I really just wanted to uprade to processor to the 740 and he took a second and said ok, so im like wow, but dont want to wait another month so I was like, can I call later and let me think about it a while, well I just called back and asked can you upgrade my shipping also they said yes, so im like lets send it back...
Long story short I got a Envy 17 3d with

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-740QM Quad Core processor (1.73GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 2.93GHz edit
6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
for $1473.74(after 8.25 sales tax)

 

But a little quick review for the moment
Its sexy. The screen is 10X better than the 1600x900 on my old dv7t, and I love the keys.
I did a little blaying of some mwblack ops, is got warm flat on the desk(6 cell) pretty much topped out @1080 on a 24" screen managed to get a core up too 86c....but on a u2 cooler tried as hard as i could to geet it over 79c(with the fans off). Before i send It back Ill check the temps agian but under a stress test with fans on too

 

well seems your misfortune ended up working out for ya! I understand your pain...i ordered mine a week ago and it has a december 27 build date =(

 

Mine came with a dent in the hinge below the HP logo too ...also I forgot to mention that it came with dead pixel/s and the outer box had a big hole/dent. Temperature wise, it is between warm and hot in the upper left of the keyboard area (when playing video/games it is more hot than just warm... i'm concerned about how can this affect the laptop in the long term, specially considering this is a huge investment).

I already sent back my LOVE back (for another one ), and my sales "assistant" told me that the new one will have included a BD-burner + $50 refund , but with an estimated ship date 12/27 + a 2-day shipping so the estimated delivery date will be around 12/30 (which really sucks).

Now, the good news:
-SEXY and PROFESSIONAL laptop design (except for the dent in the hinge and dead blue pixel/s which I noticed immediately and made me so sad)
-SUPER MEGA ULTRA SEXY 1080p 3D @ 120hz display
-AWESOME/CONFORTABLE illuminated full size keyboard.
-Super fast i7 740 + ATI 5850
-Super fast wireless (...and that is w/ an old 802.11g router in my house)
-Fair weight for a 17" laptop

I Didn't tested:
-Ports: USB, HDMI, VGA, etc.
-BD player.
-Battery

I did noticed:
-Heavy fan activity when playing videos/games.
-1 time, the upper right zone of the display came darker than the rest of the display (probably a consequence from the dent damage) it fixed itself after a reboot, so could also be a driver issue, not sure).

I would say that the dent in the hinge was a production issue because the inner box didn't came with damages, but the outer box did came with a big hole/dent which could be during the shipping process.

Basically now I will have literally 2 month waiting for my sexy Envy 17... also if the SandyBridge version comes around January/February i will probably ask for a refund and I will buy the new one... mainly because of the heat issue and battery life alone.

Finally I want to say that this is a really good laptop, probably I just got a lemon (hopefully is not a massive production issue).

 

Has anyone actually run stuff at 120Hz at 1080p in 3D? Sure the panel is capable of it but it seems that the video card is not going to pipe out more than 60Hz at 1080p and you'd have to lower resolution to get it in 3d 120Hz. I knew there were limitations in the HDMI 1.3 spec but I kinda figured that the proprietary connector for the laptop panel would have solved that. I guess it could have been an issue of the video card itself not being beefy enough?

I have messed with the depth setting but that just kills the 3d. All you are doing there is moving the two images closer to each other so you see less stuff out of place. The actual amount of ghosting does not change (i.e. the two ghost guns being held out are still there and just as dark, they just are moving closer and overlapping more with the central gun.)

By the time the ghosting is completely gone, you are left with zero depth and a 2D image. The real fix would be somehow playing with the shutter timings. I'd trade a little bit more darkness time between images in exchange for less bleed-through.

I also tried Civilization 5 and there the ghosting was much less noticeable because of the slow game pace and the color scheme but if you look closely it is still there.

In contrast, the 3d demo videos played from the mediasmart 3d demo window seem flawless and don't have any ghosting. This makes me think that there is something that should be tweakable in the tridef driver that could maybe fix this. I tried playing the demos with the third party "stereoscopic player" you can download online and though I finally got it to work using the "amd 3d driver" output, it stutters horribly with the video as though the system can't handle it. I can't figure out how to make mediasmart play any given 3d file other than just the demos so I've been trying various other things to try to get a general purpose 3d player that doesn't suck. I'm used to the ease and convenience of VLC media player and I'm looking for its equivalent in 3d. The "stereoscopic player" is basically a trumped up version of media player classic that has a lot of 3d options. Unfortunately the performance is crap with this laptop and I am still investigating whether there is a setting I can play with to improve framerates.

I am starting to feel a twinge of wanting to return this laptop. It is a great laptop for the 2D but the fact that it doesn't allow 1080p at 120Hz in gaming seems like a serious flaw considering they advertise it as the first 1080p 3D laptop. Also, if I can't figure out how to set up a general purpose 3D player that works smoothly on any given 3d video file (so long as I have the right codec for it), that ruins another aspect of this.

 

I'm at a lost for your question - are you talking about the HDMI out? Why wouldn't the 5850 be capable, it powers the panel it sure can power a similar panel..........maybe not a 30" one @ 120hertz but......

The laptop panel in conjunction with the 5850 does do 120hertz @ 1080P in regular, and also does 3D @ 120hertz @ 1080P - it wouldn't work without running it at that refresh rate.

Every single game I've tried in non-3d mode when going to the resolution drop down, lists 1920x1080 @ 60 hertz, 1920x1080 @ 96 hertz, and 1920x1080 @ 120 hertz. I only play in 120, and it makes a HUGE difference.

In 3D mode the brightness and refresh rate are locked. It runs at 120hertz and a pre-set brightness. It also runs at full 1080P, and to be honest I'm seeing much better results than I do with Nvidia 3D vision - which cuts down FPS by nearly 50%. This cuts down FPS at only around 25-30%.

 

can anyone offer help on getting the iz3d to work on the envy? which driver type do I download for, and what settings should i use? shutter glasses or 120hz 3d dlp? also, i can get dirt 2 to work playing with steam, but my other steam games like mass effect 2 and civ 5 i can't get tridef running while playing.

 

Go to steam. Right click on a game. Click create desktop icon.

Right click on that icon, go to properties. You should then see a URL, like steam://rungameid/440 for TF2. Copy it.

Go to Tridef Ignition, click on add game. Click on the blue link that says Add Url. Paste it.

All of my steam games work using this method, except for Borderlands, which has problems because of most likely the DLC DRM.

 

thanks armoured. did the trick. i think actually splurge and buy the 1z3d driver software too. been pretty impressed with it.

 

hey guys Im back home and finally got my hands on this new laptop!Its AMAZING! Everything is so fine, I havent find anywhere broken yet, where should i check for damages?

Also which of the software is useless thats preinstalled? Im not doing clean install so just gonna uninstall the useless programs. So far I deleted the Roxio, Huludesktop, Adobe air/.com. Are the stardock and power2go programs needed at all?Thanks

Btw how do I check for dead pixels? Do I really have to check 1 by 1?

 

noodle9527, glad you made it back home to your Envy!

Check out my other thread... http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/537931-envy-17-3d-defects-other-concerns.html

It mentions a production issue at the bottom of the panel, hope yours is ok.
As for dead pixels, it should be VERY VERY obvious, lol you can't miss it. It will bother the heck out of you to no end! Trust me, if you can't see it now, you don't have it. To be super sure you don't have a dead pixel....start and run a program with a dark back ground...and maybe gray? Just experiment with different lights and darks...I hope that goes well.

Hope to see some vids from you on my youtube thread

KJ

 

Well, I saw it immediately when it was doing it first boot, but then in Windows 7 I changed the background color to black.... and there it was: an ugly bright blue dot... bothering me like crazy

I would recommend you to check the hinge area and every other edge for dents and warps.....

Hopefully you don't have the same issues I had... CONGRATULATIONS FOR YOUR SEXY ENVY 17 3D !!!!!

 

yep, so far its going very very good, I didnt find any defection other than a tiny tiny paint scratch near the power cord. So far im happy, installing nba 2k11 now and will see how the gaming goes.

I tried 2012 in blue ray and its AWSOME lol used that word too many time, my old dv6t laptop seems to be in power saver mode when pulgged in now compared to this beast haha

 

First post here. Ive been a long time lurker and finally got mine on Monday- the base model, no upgrades.
Even though I have some warping near the back like others, I am totally in love with the laptop. The word at work is spreading about how cool this laptop is and dudes keep dropping by checking it out.
I already loaded "Bad Company" "Street Fighter IV" and "Black Ops" and this computer can no doubt play these games but not at the highest settings. Which of course is perfectly fine for me.
I took alot of videos and will be uploading them on youtube soon.

My first and only other laptop was a Dell Inspiron 9300 with a single Core CPU and was over 5 yrs old so this Envy is a huge step up.

My experience so far:

The heat was pretty bad the first day I got it but it has definitely decreased to a managable and realistic temperature while playing games.

While the Screen is beautiful and super bright, and think it needs some calibration to tweak the contrast and tint. Red colors seem a little on the green side.

Installing "3rvx" and disabling "HP Touch smart" is a must in order to control the volume during games without minimizing the game.

Like I said earlier there is warping near the backside of the metal chasis near the hinges but nothing noticable until you run your hand and feel the warps.

The computer locked up on me a couple of times while trying to play 3d versions of the games but since I used the HP Support Assistant to download the latest drivers it has worked perfectly.

My old Dell power adapters work with this laptop even though they are 90 watts.


I have an Iomega E-go 500 USB 3.0 Hard drive and using the USB 3.0 port is very impressive- I transferred an 8gb file in under 2 minutes. I hope more of my friends buy USB 3.0 Hard drives because I am sort of like the media/movie guy that everyone comes to get movies from.

The 3D stuff is pretty cool but I didnt really care for the 3D aspect of the laptop anyways- I just wanted the 120hz 1080p screen and it was actually cheaper to buy the 3d version using the $400 coupon ($1,199) that it was the regular version. When you play games in 3D you definitely gotta lower the settings because frame rates start dropping.

The bottom line is this is an awesome laptop, I cant imagine another laptop on the Market for this price ($1199), power, beauty and features.

I will try to put up some pics of the warping and get on those videos.

 

beertha, nice review, and welcome to the forums. If you could please post the link to your vids on my thread that is specifically for YouTube vids on the Envy 17 3D! Here is the link...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-envy-hdx/536870-regarding-envy-17-3d-youtube-videos.html

I can't wait to see the vids. Enjoy the laptop.

KJ

 

I was referring to 3D content. I am aware that it can handle 2D stuff in 120Hz.

Also, I can't see anything in the card specs that actually does limit the refresh rate explicitly. The issue I was referring to was that HDMI 1.3a (what this laptop has) cannot support the bandwidth required to do 1080p 3D at 120 Hz (60Hz per eye) and instead is limited to something like 24hz or 30hz per eye. 720P is ok at 120Hz. Whenever I use the Tridef driver to play a game I see it locked at 1080p at 60Hz which suggests to me that the proprietary connection between the laptop display panel and the video card also has that same limitation. In the game I notice a lag effect that makes it clear that it isn't 60Hz per eye and is more like half that.

There have been other places on the internet that say similar things about having to choose 1080p at 24Hz per eye or 720p at 60Hz per eye for 3d gaming. At this point I'm looking to generate discussion about that since I'm not 100% convinced of how it works in this laptop (i.e. which part of the chain is producing the limitation).

In short, if you're getting 3d gaming on this laptop at 1080p at 120Hz, I'd love to know the secret sauce to getting that configured

 

3D gaming won't really run at 120 fps at 120hz. It is making 2 slightly different viewing angles screens (one for each eye) for every real game frame, so the very best you can get at 120Hz in 3D would be 60 FPS. I am getting 30+ FPS running at 96Hz (cuts down on ghosting a little) in World of Warcraft. It does run fine at 120Hz, but I still am capped at 30+ FPS, due to hardware restrictions. I am going to try it at the lowest settings and see what it will max out to, but I dont really care for playing at the lowest settings.

 

Thanks, are the settings for making it 96Hz inside of world of warcraft itself?

 

Are you sure unclicked FPS limit in the advance options?



Here is a tridef 3d screenshot. Maxed I was getting at ultra like above was 55 fps. Took it down to see if i could get it above 60.

 

Jose, sent you PM about this issue. Please let me know how you got them to offer you an BD burner upgrade as I have same issue, but my sales rep spoke with supervisor and they don't understand how they could offer the burner to me when its not even an option. They said to ask you how it was done and I can call them back tomorrow and see if they "buy" whatever you said/or the sales rep promises said, thanks.

KJ

 

Any1 figured out how to change volume when playing a full screen movie or playing a game, every time I change the volume the game goes out and it is kind of annoying.

 

Download (free) and install 3rvx (google it). Then disable hp mediasmart smartmenu in the startup services (Msconfig).

 

How is it possible to watch ANYTHING in 3D with Hp's media player(without using TM5)???
All i get is the lovely message"Unable to perform this operation:3D Blu ray player required!!!!!!"

 

jerry thanks. I linked your concern to my concern and defects page. i hope to get some more replies from other Envy 17 3D users who have tried playing blueray 3Ds...let's see what their responses are... I hope HP is ready to take note....

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...-3d-defects-other-concerns-5.html#post6962452

KJ

 

Thanks again for your reply KJ
This situation we find ourselves in reminds me of a show i had fun watching..."the not quite ready for prime time playas"

 

I haven't tried a 3d blu ray yet but I couldn't figure out how to make that player play any other 3d content so I have been using "stereoscopic player" and that has been working pretty well though it requires a lot of custom configuration per-file because I guess it can't autodetect what kind of 3d format the file is in so you have to tell it. Fortunately it does seem to remember the settings for that particular file.

 

So my original estimated shipping date was december 27 and it says it has now been shipped! It shipped almost two weeks ahead of schedule!
I wonder if i should be happy or worried. I would gladly wait two weeks if they make sure to not damage the product or warp it.

 

Has anyone tried the new amd catalyst 10.12 drivers? Released 12/13.

 

I don't think I had it unchecked, just maxxed. I will give that a shot. If you have any tips on getting more FPS out of the NV17 3D - please share!
Thanks!

 

Anyone try outputting 3d with high speed hdmi cale yet? If not im about to give it a shot.

 

That would be great if you could let us know. So far we are all going on what people think! This was mentioned in a thread here...people saying it can't I think someone even called HP tech and they said no. Some guy in CompUSA said he sees 3D Bluray from his Playstation 3 connected to his HDTV 3D with HDMI, and he says the Sony Playstation is not 1.4 HDMI and it works at 120 HZ...weird, someone said it will work but he would have to downscale to 720P....

So yeah, I know this new tech has everyone just shrugging their shoulders so far, lol, hopefully your test will help give us some answers.

KJ

 

Hey everyone,
so my envy 17 3d came in today at around 11. Ive had time to mess around with it so heres my first thoughts.

Looks/quality
This laptop looks and feels like top quality. I found no dents or anything like that. The screen is amazing and im enjoying the raised keys.

Visuals/sound
Fantastic sound for a laptop. i could notice a difference from my old pavillion laptop by just watching a youtube video. The visuals are also impressive. Gorgeous screen.

Heat:
When i first started this baby up and had it running for a while, it got warm but never hot near the palm rest. It does get hot near the fan but that is to be expected.
I ran starcraft 2 with ultra settings for around 15 minutes with some stuff going on in the background and it never got hot on the palmrest. The fan sure was loud though but thats probably why the temperatures were never hot.

3d:
The only thing I have been able to try is the 3d demos and they are very impressive. My family was pretty awed. Once i get the tridef downloaded and try it on other games I will come update this.

Overall....extremely impressed. Well worth the money if you want a desktop replacement lap top.