Displays – Page 2 – Devices View

Post CES Thoughts and Unintended Poetry

January 12, 2009 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

As usual, I attended CES 2009 and spent a lot more time talking with mobile devices vendors (my day job) than home theater. This was a good strategy for anyone this year because the Palm pre stole the show, but there were still plenty of thin LCD TVs, 3D TV, mobile TV, and a few speakers and receivers sprinkled throughout the sprawling show floor. I didn't make it to the Hilton, where most of the high end audio was housed, at all. Still, it's hard to avoid home theater when you have to attend press conferences from Sony, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, etc. and walk the show floor.

After talking to the Dolby Mobile folks, I was pressed into sitting through a terrific demo of Dolby IIz, which adds a (derived, not native) height channel. I've been using Yamaha receivers for years that perform the same trick, so I could certainly appreciate the notion – Dolby seems to be going more for sound placement (i.e., making it sound like the helicopter is hovering above you), while Yamaha is intended for room augmentation (i.e., making it sound like your room is bigger). The 9 minute demo certainly sounded great, but if I listened to my own home theater at those volume levels I'd be deaf before the end of the movie.

I also saw the latest generation of DLP in both super-large format (Optoma's HD8200 projector) and small (TI-powered pico projectors for use with cellphones were everywhere). I stopped by the Optoma booth to see the pico projector, and stayed for a short demo of the HD8200 on a 2:35 screen in a completely dark room. They were playing a clip from I Am Legend, a movie I have only seen in projector demos, so I know the clip well. Contrast ratio and black levels were insanely good, but there was weird artifacting that appeared just before fast motion content that drove me crazy. It could be an issue with the setup, the source, or a bug in a preproduction demo unit, but if I had bought that system, I'd be returning it.

Finally, at the Sony press conference the swag was an eco-friendly bamboo fiber bag, which feels like silk and is apparently intended to be used (and reused) for grocery shopping. Or something. When I unpacked it after the show, I noticed that the care tag is unintentionally poetic and hilarious, a sort of bad translation haiku:

CAUTION
Do not close to fire
Only for shipping bag
Hand wash
Washing will shirink slightly
Only non-chlorine blench
Wet dark cloth will fadeing
The color will fading under sunlight or fluorescence for long time

Profound.

-avi

Displays / DVD / HDTV / Industry / Television

Home Theater Basics: 720p vs. 1080p, Analog/Digital Switchover

October 19, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - 1 Comment

Here's one from the mailbag:

Avi, We want to buy a 37" LCD TV. Is there a significant
difference between 720P and 1080P?

Yes, there is a significant difference between 720p and 1080p –
though it depends on what you’re watching on it, and even then you may not be
able to see the difference. The bottom line is that you can almost always
get away with buying a 720p set and saving the money, but nobody seems to
believe this answer, so here’s a slightly more involved one:

First, two quick definitions:

1. the
“p” in 1080P or 720P = progressive, where the signal has information in every
horizontal line, just like a computer monitor.

2. the
“i” in 1080i = interlaced, where the signal alternates horizontal lines
similar to the way an analog TV works – the information alternates fast enough
that you usually can’t tell the difference.

Now you need to answer two questions:

What are you watching? (You want to be able to display all the
information that your signal contains, but how much information is actually in
that signal?)

·
If you’re watching a DVD, it’s 480p. So even a 720p TV is
overkill – either the TV or the DVD player will do some magic to “fill in” the
extra pixels it has to make up the picture.* A 1080p set has to fill in even
more pixels with guesswork.

·
If you’re watching HDTV, it’s either 720p or 1080i. Some channels
use one resolution (for example, NBC uses 1080i) and some use the other (for
example, Fox uses 720p) – this happens behind the scenes when you change
channels; you don’t have to do anything. 720p and 1080i both have about the
same amount of picture information (720p tends to look better for fast motion
like sports, while 1080i tends to look better for scenes without much motion,
like dramas), both count as real HDTV, and both look spectacular when displayed
properly on an HDTV.

o
When you watch a 720p channel on a 720p TV, you’re seeing
everything that’s there.

o
When you watch a 1080i channel on a 720p TV, first it fills in
the interlacing by guessing what the missing line ought to be, and then drops a
bit of the resolution.

o
When you watch a 720p channel on a 1080p TV, it does some magic
to “fill in” the extra pixels.

o
When you watch a 1080i channel on a 1080p TV, it fills in the
interlacing by guessing what the missing line ought to be.

·
If you’re watching a Blu-ray disc, congratulations, you’re
watching the only consumer format capable of displaying full 1080p.

o
A 720p set throws out some of that resolution; it usually still
looks better than a DVD.

o
A 1080p set displays all the information on there without any
changes.

Now, let’s assume you are going to watch Blu-ray discs 100% of
the time. Question two: can you actually see the difference between 720p and
1080p?

This will depend on several factors:

·
How good is your eyesight? Seriously.

·
How big is the TV, and how far away are you sitting? In smaller screen
sizes it usually doesn’t matter if you’re cramming one or two million pixels
into the set; unless you’re sitting two feet away you won’t be able to see the
difference. Higher resolution allows you to sit closer to the set and does
nothing for you if you’re farther back. For example, if you’re sitting ten to
twelve feet back from a 50” TV you literally cannot see the difference between
720p and 1080p. Some people want to get the higher resolution anyway. I am not
one of those people. My couch is about 12 feet away from my displays, and my
50” plasma is a 720p model. My projector, on the other hand, projects onto an
8’ screen that comes down in front of the plasma; the projector is a 1080p
model because when the images are projected that large, the difference between
720p and 1080p is quite obvious.

Conclusion: unless you plan to sit awfully close to that 37” set
and watch a lot of Blu-ray discs, there’s no reason to spend more on a 1080p
version. If you insist on spending money for something you can’t see, I won’t
stop you. But you’ll be much happier if you put the extra money into a good
surround sound system.

Does the upcoming change in broadcasting frequency have any
impact on the reception?

It depends. If you’re getting your TV shows from cable or
satellite, the analog/digital switchover will make no difference whatsoever.
None. You do not need to do anything at all.

If you’re getting your TV shows from an antenna, then you’ll
need either a new HDTV with a digital tuner built in, or a new tuner/converter
box. Your reception will either get much better or much worse, and it will vary
by channel, how far away you are from the station, and (in some cases) your
physical location (i.e., if you’re at the bottom of a hill or sandwiched
between big buildings). Digital channels do not degrade gradually. A rough rule
of thumb is that if you get a reasonably clear channel today, you’ll probably
get an even better looking version of it on digital. On the other hand, if you
have a snowy channel that’s just sort of watchable today, once it goes digital
you probably won’t get it at all.

Hope this helps,

-avi

*720×480 progressive, or about 350,000 pixels of actual
information per frame. This is a gross oversimplification, but it provides a good
basis for comparison. 1280 x 720 = around 900,000 pixels. Incidentally, this is
why watching analog TV channels or VHS video on an HDTV usually looks much,
much worse than it did on your old analog TV; the new TV is trying to take very
little information (VHS is roughly 240i, or 480×240 every other frame, or the
equivalent of about 60,000 pixels) and displaying it on something expecting
more than ten times that information to create the picture. Without much to go
on, the TV fudges, which, instead of looking soft and fuzzy like an analog set,
looks blocky and horrible.

Displays / HDTV / Industry

New Wireless HDTV Standard(s)

July 24, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

A bunch of big companies are getting together to standardize wireless home HDTV transmission. Again. The AP reports the details here. Most of the commentary I’ve seen has been fairly positive, though everyone points out that several of the big players backing WHDI are separately supporting WirelessHD as well. Could we have a standards war here?

Jeremy Toeman is taking a contrarian stance, saying it doesn’t matter. He makes some good points:

WHDI products aren’t expected to hit the market for at least a year or two
Testing this stuff will take forever
Even if it just adds $100 to the cost of products, the rise of brands like Vizio proves that many consumers are primarily driven by price

In the short term, he’s right. Nobody is going to put off buying a new TV today because in 2 – 5 years a wireless version will be available. Those who need a wireless solution today — in the home theater industry, installers will always run into problem rooms — will be willing to pay for expensive proprietary add-on gadgets that solve the particular problem. Longer term, though, it does make sense for there to be wireless options that work across vendors. At one time, wireless PC standards (ex: WiFi) were supposed to take over in the A/V world, but the bandwidth to pass HDTV unaltered on those doesn’t exist outside the lab. I wonder whether any of these consortiums will get something to market that actually works in a reasonable timeframe – I’ve seen demos of this stuff at trade shows for years now. Because even once TVs and set top boxes have such a standard built in, you’ll need to buy a new TV AND a new set top box to see the benefit. So for the forseeable future, nothing changes, which explains why Sony and Samsung are backing multiple standards, and why Jeremy can’t bring himself to care.

Displays / Industry

In NYC next week? Come “Downtown”

June 4, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

If you’re in the Wall Street area next Thursday, I’ll be moderating a panel at Digital Downtown on Flat Panel TV Trends:

Plasma and LCD TVs are the center of any digital home. The category’s
success is driven by the produts’ fashion appeal and picture quality as
well as the DTV transition. Listen to our panel of industry experts
discuss the current trends affecting the flat panel TV market and where
it’s heading.

The session is free to financial analysts, press, and "invited guests." You can register here.

Accessories / Audio / Displays / HDTV

Product Review: Accell 4×2 HDMI Switcher

March 11, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - 3 Comments.

HDMI was supposed to bring the home theater world from the confusing age of multiple cables for audio and video (and sometimes multiple audio cables and multiple video cables) down to just a single cable from each component to your display. If your display doesn’t have enough HDMI inputs for all your sources, you need an HDMI switcher or a receiver which has an HDMI switcher built in. Then you need an HDMI cable from the each source to the switcher or receiver, but just one from there to the display. Fortunately, even some budget receivers now have HDMI switching built in (starting around $400), and there are good inexpensive HDMI switchers on the market like the XTremeMac HD Switcher I reviewed last year.

But what if you have two displays?

At least in terms of receivers, you’re in a completely different price category – no $400 receivers for you. The least expensive receivers I could find with dual HDMI outputs are from Onkyo and Denon. Onkyo’s TX-NR905 has extremely high end video processing, advanced room correction that smooths the sound at multiple seats, a ridiculous amount of amplifier power with THX Ultra2 certification, the dual HDMI outputs we’re looking for, and a price tag that ranges from $1500 – $2000 (assuming that you can find one in stock. It seems that they’ve been selling quite well). Unfortunately, only one HDMI output works at a time, and to change between the two HDMI outputs, you either must physically press a button on the front panel to cycle through the settings, or adjust a setting in the menu. Neither option is conducive to automation by a universal remote control which is a fairly common way to use a product in this price category. Denon sells the AVR-4308CI, which is also chock full of features, as you might expect for a product that sells in the $1800 – $2400 range. On the Denon, the dual HDMI outputs are driven in parallel; there is no way to select them individually. This is fine for some situations, but it means that whatever the source device is outputting had better be perfect for both displays if they’re both turned on at the same time (only one display gets to handshake with the source device through the receiver and tell the device what display resolution, frame rate, etc. it wants).

There are several HDMI switchers on the market with dual HDMI outputs, and they’re a lot less expensive than buying a new $2000 receiver. Accell has sent cables here in the past, and when I saw them at CES this year they were showing off an entire line of reasonably priced HDMI switchers, topping out at a 4×8 switcher – four sources hooked up to eight displays for those times when you want your rec room to look like a NASA shuttle launch. The Accell UltraAV HDMI 4-2 Audio/Video Switch is far more reasonable (4 sources to 2 displays), and lists for a very reasonable $299 when most similar switches start at $500; I asked them to send one over for review.

It wasn’t perfect, but overall I liked it: it does one thing (switches HDMI signals) for a reasonable cost, and it does it pretty well, though with some caveats. It’s quite small and I had no trouble installing it. I didn’t have a high definition test pattern disc to use, but video quality on real-world material appeared unchanged by the switcher – Ratatouille on Blu-ray from a PS3 looked just as ridiculously good direct from the PS3 or routed through the Accell. The PS3 and my Panasonic projector often have minor handshaking dropouts when loading a disc and making its way to the menus; the instance of dropouts did seem to increase after adding the switch in the chain, but if so, the difference was minor and – honest – I may have imagined the increase. The switch automatically changes the input to whichever source device is on. Since my TiVo HD is always on, I couldn’t test that fully, but it did default to that input. Accell claims that the switch mirrors the source on both outputs (like Denon’s scheme above), but I didn’t find that always worked in the real world – I could usually only lock onto the source on one display at a time. It’s possible that there was a problem in the switch, but I’m willing to bet that it’s a glitch in the way my TV and projector handle HDMI signals or the difference in resolution between the displays (a Panasonic 720p plasma and a Panasonic 1080p LCD projector). For my intended purpose – watching either the TV or the projector, but not both at the same time – the Accell switch worked perfectly.

A small infrared remote control is included that has discrete buttons – and discrete IR codes for those who want to copy them into a universal remote control – for each individual input, power on, power off, and a toggle switch for selecting between outputs A and B. In a really nice touch, an infrared receiver cable is also included so that the switcher can be secluded behind a cabinet. The switch contains a signal booster for longer HDMI cable runs up to 82ft; I was not able to test this, as my longest run is 25ft. The switch is designed for HDMI version 1.2. HDMI version 1.3 is the latest and greatest iteration of the standard, and adds things like Deep Color which have not been implemented yet in any source material. For most people, there is little practical difference between HDMI 1.3 and 1.2, but if complete futureproofing is an absolute requirement, this iteration of the 4×2 Switch isn’t for you.

Accell isn’t the only 4×2 HDMI switcher on the market; Gefen makes one for $549 that has some additional functionality, such as splitting out the audio signal to a coax output, that could be extremely useful in certain setups. And budget cable outfit monoprice.com has a budget model with HDMI 1.3a compatibility for just $89 – I’ll be testing that one next. For $89, if it just turns on I’ll be impressed.

-avi

Displays

Come on in, the 1080p water’s fine!

February 27, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - 2 Comments.

Panasonic_ptae2000u Evan Powell over at ProjectorCentral has a short article on the massive drop in 1080p projector prices and he notes that this, plus the end of the format war, makes now an ideal time to buy.

He’s not kidding. In some cases prices on models introduced just four months ago have fallen by hundreds of dollars as newer models have hit the market. The price on the Panasonic PT-AE2000U I bought at the end of the year seems to be holding steady; I’m not sure whether that means there is higher demand for this model — certainly a possibility — or that Panasonic just isn’t reacting to changing market conditions quickly enough. I’m used to seeing this sort of competitive pricing dynamic in cellphones (<–pardon the shameless plug), but not in home theater.

Displays / DVD / HDTV / Industry / PC Convergence

CES 2008: High Def Disc Format War Over, Thin TVs, and Steve Jobs

January 11, 2008 - by Avi Greengart - 1 Comment

Well, Ces_logo_2 I’m back from Las Vegas, but my body is still on the wrong time zone. There were three main stories at this year’s CES:

The death of HD-DVD. With Warner’s announcement that it will no longer sell HD-DVD movies, the high definition disc format war is effectively over with Blu-ray as the victor. Toshiba (one of HD-DVD’s primary backers) offered a weak reaction, saying that it is stunned and upset, but that HD-DVD has been declared dead before. That’s true, but formats are only as valuable as the content that they are tied to. With Warner gone, only Paramount and New Line are left in the HD-DVD camp, and even they will probably switch to Blu-ray before the end of the year, once the rumored exclusivity period of their arrangement with HD-DVD is up.
Super-thin flat panel displays. Several vendor showed incredibly thin flat panel televisions – as thin as 9mm (a prototype) to 1.7” (likely to become a production model shortly). You might wonder whether there is a market for slightly thinner displays – after all, how much thinner is 1.7” than a 4” plasma or LCD today? The answer is, a lot thinner. The difference is that a 4” display is still a box you’re putting on the wall, while anything under 2” approaches being part of the wall itself. The prototypes on display looked incredibly good, and will be extremely exciting to interior designers. I expect that super thin displays will make up a significant premium segment of the market in just 1 – 2 years time. The phenomenon of super-large flat panel displays, on the other hand, has limited appeal beyond the super-wealthy, even as prices inevitably drop from the “if you have to ask” range, simply because an 11 foot long flat panel literally cannot fit around a typical home’s layout to the installation site.
Waiting for MacWorld. Last year, CES was completely upstaged by the iPhone at MacWorld the same week. This year, MacWorld is back to the week after CES, but the shadow of Cupertino was palpably draped over Las Vegas this year as well. I have no inside information on what Apple will announce next week, but Apple’s head of PR promised me that Apple’s announcements at MacWorld will be better than anything I’d see at CES. I believe him, and I suspect the rest of the industry does, too.

Other CES trends:

Several systems for moving HD content wirelessly were shown, either as part of the television purchase or as a separate accessory. While wired connections will continue to be the bulk of the market for some time, the availability of wireless options is extremely welcome as a solution to specific installation challenges.
Home storage was another big theme, with solutions that ranged from simple connected hard drives up to enterprise-class servers with friendly user interfaces.
The industry continues to introduce boxes that let you watch PC content on TV. Yawn.
GPS was everywhere at the show, particularly from vendors who either are new to the U.S. market or new to the market generally. Prices are already dropping due to the competition (and ready availability of the components needed to become a PND competitor), and it will be extremely difficult for all these vendors to make money, even if they can avoid being cannibalized by GPS on cellphones. These issues and more were discussed during my CES Education session on GPS Monday afternoon. The panel was well attended and the discussion could have easily continued for an additional hour or two beyond the time allotted.

Due to a hyper travel schedule I will not be in SFO for MacWorld next week, however I will be covering announcements made at the show from afar. Should be interesting!

-avi

Displays / HDTV / Industry

RIP: First CRTs, now RPTVs

December 27, 2007 - by Avi Greengart - 7 Comments.

The AP is reporting that Sony is now exiting its "money losing" RPTV business to focus exclusively on flat panel displays; Sony’s technologies of choice are LCD and OLED. (As an aside, I thought Sony’s TV business had finally pulled into the black after years of losses – the Playstation business was supporting everything else until the PS3, and then the situation reversed. I guess the flat panels were profitable but the big sets weren’t.)

This is the second major television technology/form factor to get the boot – outside of mass merchandisers its pretty hard to find a CRT any more, and none of the high performance brands (which is a bit of a shame, because picture quality on high end CRTs is really exceptional). While there are bound to be holdouts for another year or two it’s also clear that Sony is acting rationally. Flat panel prices don’t need to match RPTVs, just get within the ballpark for consumers to move to the thinner, brighter displays. We already saw a similar transition in computer monitors which transitioned to LCD from CRT well before price parity in popular sizes was reached.

I’m actually seeing a bit of this first hand as I try to sell my JVC LCoS RPTV in favor of a Panasonic plasma I bought to save space in my own home theater (and make room for a significantly larger screen that will hang in front of it for use with a new projector). When I talked to a friend who is in the market for a new big screen TV he was interested in buying the JVC only until he realized that it’s a projection unit rather than a flat panel even though he has no real need for a flat panel – it would go into the same cabinet regardless.

Displays / HDTV

CES 2008: Vizio to launch 50″ 1080p plasma for $1499

December 20, 2007 - by Avi Greengart - 2 Comments.

Usually the invitations you get from PR firms are either a) inflated and non-specific or b) specific, but require a non-disclosure agreement.

For an example of Type A: "come see how we will revolutionize the digital music industry." I actually got an invitation with this exact wording this year. Since it didn’t have any details or come from a company with even an outside shot at revolutionizing anything, it mostly served to amuse me for a second before I hit "delete."

I can’t provide an example of Type B, for obvious reasons, but many vendors will give you a preview of what they’re going to announce under embargo. Most will at least make you sign something promising you won’t reveal the contents until the press release launches. Fair enough.

And then there’s, um, Type C? Vizio hasn’t put out a press release or asked for non-disclosure agreements, but in its media invitation titled, "Mark The Date" it invites press to an off-site event at CES and notes:

VIZIO WILL BE INTRODUCING AN ASTONISHING 26 NEW FLAT PANEL TVS DURING CES INCLUDING:

>> A $1499 50-inch Full 1080p Plasma TV with a remarkable 30,000:1 contrast ratio, an extended life up to 100,000 hours and four HDMI inputs

It isn’t unprecedented to pre-announce products. It’s a good way of getting some press and buzz going ahead of the actual conference, where there’s so much noise that standing out is almost impossible. (Hey, I’m writing about it, so it must be working!) They also were careful about what they didn’t say: no model numbers, release dates, or technical details. Still, the price/size/resolution/contrast ratio are all a huge leap over Vizio’s 2007 products, products that are still in stores a week before Christmas. I know the PR folks want to drum up interest in the press conference, but this is risky.

Displays / HDTV

Front Projection: Decisions, Decisions

December 16, 2007 - by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

Panasonic_ptae2000u Like most people setting up a home theater, my front projection choices are limited by room placement and budget. When review units come in, I typically set them up on a short table for as long as I have the device, but for my personal unit I want to ceiling mount it out of the way. My ceiling is extremely low (7′), so projectors with extreme offset angles (the image ends up projected several feet below the lens) – like some of Optoma’s recent DLP’s – simply won’t work. The new crop of budget LCD 1080p projectors look like good values, so I narrowed the field to Sanyo’s PLV- Sanyo_plvz2000 Z2000 ($2200 after rebate), Panasonic’s PT-AE2000U ($2700), and Epson’s Home Cinema 1080 UB (an upgrade to the current Home Cinema 1080, price unknown). Since the Epson appears to be delayed, no price has been announced, and I needed to place an order sooner rather than later to appease the contractor doing the installation, that was out of contention. Both the Sanyo and Panasonic have good color modes that sacrifice brightness for accuracy, but the Sanyo is noted to be relatively dim even under the best circumstances, so I bought the Panasonic despite the higher price, since I intend to use it primarily in the lowest brightness mode. I’ll post a mini-review when it arrives.

The other big decision was on upgrading the screen. First, I needed to figure out how big I could go. 100" diagonal (87" wide) looked like an ideal size for the seating distance (12′), but not for the room, which has low ceilings and a cutout on one side for an electrical closet. Centering the screen in the middle of the room means getting mighty close to the closet, and with the low ceiling, a 100" screen wouldn’t leave much room for speakers underneath. Therefore, saving a few inches in all directions with a 92" diagonal (80" wide) made the most sense. (Going with a larger acoustically transparent screen and in-wall speakers wouldn’t work well in this situation; there’s going to be a TV behind the screen, so the center channel will need to be mounted fairly low regardless. I plan to tilt the speakers up slightly towards the listening position using angled stands.)

Choosing a screen is madness – there are thousands of permutations. Choosing a screen material is just the first place to drive yourself nuts; once I chose the brighter of the two projectors I decided to stick to a basic white matte material. There are several good budget options for fixed screens, but I want a recessed screen, with a motor, with tab tensioning. The last requirement adds considerable expense and means that the screen is pulled taut in all directions eliminating ripples. My wife never noticed ripples on my old pull-down SharpVision screen, but during pans I could see them and it drove me crazy.

That set of requirements did narrow things down sharply to screens from Elite (which imports screens manufactured in China) and several U.S. manufacturers (which make the screens in the good old U.S. of A.) such as Da-Lite and Stewart. The difference in cost is staggering – the Elite Cinetension2 costs under $1,000, while models with similar features from Da-Lite and Stewart cost two to five times as much, depending on options. Feedback on the forums suggests that you get what you pay for – Elite’s quality control is notorious among the super-picky home theater afficianados who post on home theater forums. I’ve ordered from a reputable dealer who denied any QC problems with the Elite at all, but should readily take it back if there are issues. I’ll just have to take my chances – the savings are simply too overwhelming to pass up.