Home Theater View

Valerian review - and HDR10 vs Dolby Vision

My review of Valerian on 4K Blu-ray is up at Sound & Vision. TL;DR version: the movie is terrible, but the disc is great, and my review covers the differences in various formats.

Overcoming a Low Ceiling

Electronic House poses a terrific real world question: how do you set up a home theater with a projector in a room without the headroom (literally) to hang a projector from the ceiling? Too bad they don't spend much time walking through the different options and just describe the finished room (which placed the projector on a shelf at the back).

Lessons From Panasonic's Plasma Day

On Tuesday, I, along with a handful of tech journalists, was invited to attend a briefing by Panasonic in New York to show off their latest line of plasma televisions. The emphasis was on the technical capabilities of Panasonic's plasma technology relative to the latest LCD with LED backlighting.  Some things I learned:

1. Never have a Japanese engineer who doesn't speak fluent English give a marketing presentation to journalists. Yes, there was a lot of technical detail included, but the fundamental reason Panasonic was doing the briefing was to spin the technical detail, otherwise they would have just provided a white paper. While the presentation itself was pretty good, it was agonizingly slow going in parts, and key points just weren't made well.
2. Plasma's burn-in issues are a thing of the past. Non-issue with current sets. Now, the legal guys haven't gotten the message, so you still see a warning in the manual not to allow static images to linger on the screen, but some of the sets are deliberately marketed as better for gaming (which they are). The manuals need to be updated and this issue needs to be taken off the table.
3. Plasma is actually brighter than LCD over smaller areas. This is irrelevant overall - the sample images on the LCD during most of the presentation jumped out at you in a way that plasma does not. Ergo, consumers prefer LCD at retail. (It's more balanced on calibrated sets in a home environment, but on bright images, LCD is superior, and on dark images, plasma rules.)
4. Plasma has markedly better color than LCD, especially off-angle. Sadly, this is basically impossible to see in retail environments with uncalibrated televisions.
5. Maximum energy usage on a plasma is still high if you display white fields all day long, but Plasma and LCD are pretty close in terms of energy consumption on real-world program material. LCD is still better (and has a much better number on the energy use sticker), but it's not a reason to disqualify plasma any more.
6. Plasma is much, much better for resolving high definition when there is motion in the image. This is a key fact that Panasonic should be marketing hard, especially since the LCD competition charges more for sets that try to compensate by speeding up refresh cycles, and they are still noticeably worse on test patterns and real world content.
7. How a TV is set up at retail is critical: the LCD set they had on hand for comparison showed more stars in a starfield, and none of us cared that the gamma of that set may have been off - there were far more stars visible on that TV than on the plasmas. And we actually know what gamma is - the average consumer never touches picture controls when they get their TV home.

All in all, I came away with a better understanding of why I still prefer plasma over LCD for most uses, and why most consumers are buying LCD anyway - and are unlikely to change any time soon.

Mailbag: Is Calibration Worth the Expense?

A reader asks: I’m thinking of having my Hi Def Sony XBR2 calibrated by Best Buy. Is this worth the $300.00 or not? Appreciate any advice.

Calibration was an absolute necessity back in the tube days, but with the advent of digital panels (plasma or LCD), getting – and keeping – settings accurate (or reasonably close) is much easier to do yourself. However, an installer can often get into service menus and offer finer level of control. Is that worth $300? If you’re a perfectionist watching movies, definitely. If you are a casual viewer watching reality TV shows, definitely not.

If you plan to go the full calibration route, make sure that the folks at Best Buy have ISF certification before you agree to anything; simply getting a tech to your house messing around with service menus can make things worse rather than better.

If you plan to calibrate your set yourself, you should buy one of the calibration DVDs on the market ($30 - $50); not only do they provide instructions on the different settings and how they interact, they are chock full of test patterns designed to make it much easier to see the differences as you make changes.  

If none of that seems worth the hassle, at least page through the different settings your TV comes pre-programmed with. The "Vivid" setting is designed to stand out on a showroom floor in poor lighting, and it will burn your eyes (not literally - I hope) if you watch it that way at home. The "Cinema" or "Movie" mode is usually the most accurate. If that mode seems too dim, leave it there anyway and give yourself a few minutes to adjust your eyes to seeing subtle color differences again.

Post CES Thoughts and Unintended Poetry

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

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

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

 

 

*720x480 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 480x240 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.

New Wireless HDTV Standard(s)

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.

In NYC next week? Come "Downtown"

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.

Product Review: Accell 4x2 HDMI Switcher

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 4x8 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 4x2 Switch isn’t for you.

Accell isn’t the only 4x2 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

Come on in, the 1080p water's fine!

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.

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

Well, 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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

RIP: First CRTs, now RPTVs

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.

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

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.

Front Projection: Decisions, Decisions

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- 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.

Shopping for a New TV

I hit up six different stores recently trying to pick a 50” plasma to replace my 52” JVC LCoS rear projection 720p HDTV which is now three years old. The goal is to regain a foot of space in the room and then move to a larger front projection system (the screen hangs in front of the TV); the TV is used for broadcast material with the lights on, while the projector is used for movie watching with the lights off. I could have asked vendors to send over review units and then buy whichever one performed the best, but I’m time constrained – my contractor wants to start hanging everything already. (I’m using a general contractor for installation, a practice I do NOT recommend to others – good custom installers are almost always worth paying for.)

At the 50” size, plasmas are still less expensive than LCD, and the primary benefit of LCD – blinding brightness – is not important in my light-controlled room (we have directional halogen track lighting, so even with the lights on, no direct light falls on the set). Our seating position is 12 – 13’ back from the set; at that distance, there is no visible difference between 720p and 1080p sets, so a more economical 720p model makes sense. Then it came down to selecting a brand and model. When there is a difference between lower priced brands (Vizio, Sanyo, Zenith) and midpriced brands (Samsung, LG, Panasonic) it often shows up in how the sets process non-HDTV sources (there are other differences, too, but some of the budget sets are actually quite good). The difference between the mid-priced brands and the Pioneer Kuro is primarily in the black level and shadow details. Since we still watch a lot of non-HD programming, I felt it was worth the extra money to buy a set with slightly better processing, and I gave mid-priced brands primary consideration once I saw (when looking at the various sets at retail) that there did appear to be a difference. If the television was our only display, it would have been worth spending even more to get the best available (in my opinion, the Pioneer Kuro), but since the projector will be handling most of the movie duties, I wasn’t willing to spend too much of my budget on the plasma.

That left a showdown between Samsung’s 54 series and Panasonic’s 75U (there are slightly more expensive versions of each that add anti-glare shields, but that isn’t necessary in my room). Both sell for $1500 - $1700 except on Black Friday, when you can get another $100 - $200 off. After considerable evaluation in less than ideal circumstances (see below), I concluded that both are excellent options, and it really comes down to personal preference. The Samsung had much better contrast and more saturated colors. Everything “pops” on the Samsung. The Panasonic did slightly better with really noisy content, and had noticeably better black levels, which lent subtlety throughout the color range. Both can be adjusted to look better than they did in the store, and either would make a fine choice. I preferred the Panasonic.

However, the stores don’t make it easy to come to this conclusions, and I really have no idea how people not specifically looking for differences in black level vs. contrast ratio can make a rational buying decision. Only one of the stores (6th Avenue, a regional A/V chain) had a truly knowledgeable salesperson. None of the stores had tweaked the picture on any of the sets in any way (they were all set to whatever the manufacturer hoped would stand out on the showroom floor – the brightest and most oversaturated settings), which I expected from the big box retailers, but not the specialty stores. At least the aspect ratio was correct in most cases, so that’s an improvement, and nearly every unit was displaying widescreen material. However, while it was widescreen and may have been high definition once, it certainly couldn’t be called high definition by the time it got to the display, because not a single store had a clean signal feeding the sets. None. Not one. Not even at the regional specialty store with the knowledgeable sales guy. In every store, the signal was split and distributed to multiple sets, and by the time it got there, it was missing a lot of the original information.

A Dramatization: What the set should have looked like (left, click to enlarge) vs. what it actually looked like (right, click to enlarge):

I seriously question how retailers can expect consumers to pony up thousands of dollars for televisions whose picture quality looks that bad (in the store). If an HDTV looked like that in my home, I’d return it.

At least it made evaluating each set’s processing a bit easier – every set was tuned in to a low resolution torture test. Different sets dealt with the lack of information differently: some made everything soft – so soft it looked like widescreen VHS – and some riddled the screen with digital artifacts so that everything appeared filtered through a 1980’s music video or was digitized to obscure nudity. There were a few sets with direct satellite feeds (or direct connections to an HD disc player); it seems cynical, but those tended to be more expensive 1080p models, and, possibly, higher margin sales for the stores. Conspiracy theory, or just plain retail incompetence?

Product Review: XTremeMac HD Switcher

Sometimes all you need is a simple product that does one thing, and does it well - at an affordable price. If you have an HDTV with only a single HDMI input and multiple HDMI sources, you need an HDMI switcher. New displays may have multiple inputs, and A/V receivers are beginning to provide HDMI switching as a matter of course, so if you're building a system from scratch, you may be able to consolidate your video switching in your reciever or display rather than buy a separate component. Finally, if you have just a single HDMI component, you won't need this either.

However, if you bought an HDTV in the past few years (or are buying a budget model today) and you don't have enough HDMI inputs, you need one of these. I pointed out Gefen's entry in this space last year; that was an HDMI-to-DVI model that retailed for $300. More recently, XTremeMac sent over their XTremeHD 4 Port HDMI Switcher and it does exactly what it's supposed to do all in HDMI with minimal hassle and at much lower cost ($99). With similar styling to Apple's Mac mini, the Switcher is small and looks nice on the equipment rack. Sources can be switched manually or using the included remote control. You'll want to add its codes to a macro on your universal remote control (Logitech's Harmony system makes this very, very easy) or you'll quickly tire of remembering which input covers what. But this is no fault of the product, which worked without a hitch switching between a TiVo HD and an LG HDTV tuner/DVD player outputting to a JVC LCoS rear projection HDTV.

I could not do a double blind test with/without the Switcher in the signal chain, but I have noticed no degredation of the signal from either source. I do seem to be getting more instances of HDMI handshake failure when I switch back and forth than when I would connect just a single source and leave it connected. (The TV's copy protection circuit gets temporarily confused and puts up a notice saying that the source is not supported; this usually goes away with the next command to the source, but sometimes requires switching the source back and forth again). It seems to be an issue with the TV, not the switch itself. I had a nice chat with an HDMI spokesperson at the CES Preview event in New York last night, and while he admitted it was a common issue, he assures me that newer gear has worked out all the compatibility issues. Of course, newer gear tends to have more HDMI inputs and outputs as well, so anyone who needs a switcher should be aware that their source and display may not like each other as much as they ought to.

The XTremeHD 4 Port Switcher is simply named, performs a complicated task simply, and doesn't cost too much. If you need a basic HDMI switcher, I can easily recommend this one.

Consumers Still Think They Have HD When They Don't

The Leichtman Research Group (an ex-Yankee Group analyst) put out a press release with some interesting stats on consumer HD awareness.

LRG claims that over 75% of HDTV owners believe that they are watching HD programming, but LRG estimates that "about 53% of all HD households are actually watching HD programming from a multi-channel video provider (cable, DBS or a telco), and about 4% are watching HD programming via broadcast-only - leaving about 20% of those with an HDTV erroneously thinking that they are watching HD programming when they are not." That may actually be better than previous studies, which put the number of HD delusionals at 25%.

But it doesn't stop with TV content. According to LRG, "about 40% of HDTV owners, and over 20% of all adults, believe that their household currently has a high definition DVD player." Actual HD-DVD and Blu-ray player sales penetration -- even including every last Sony PS3, whether it is being used for movies or not -- equates to single digit household penetration numbers, not 20%. I've been saying this for years now: many consumers don't think there's a problem that they need an HD format to solve for them. Even once/if the format war is resolved, the HD-DVD and Blu-ray camps will need to do some serious educational outreach / demand creation.

-avi

50% of HDTV Owners Don't Have HDTV

The Wall Street Journal has a great article (subscription required) quoting a recent survey showing that 50% of consumers who bought an HDTV set don't actually have HDTV service. What's more frightening - and yet entirely believable - is that 25% of HDTV owners think that they do have HDTV when they don't. Well worth a read.

-avi

It's Not the Products, It's the Distribution

Vizio put out a press release a few months ago for two of its 42" LCD HDTVs, touting in the headline, that Vizio is, "ONE OF THE FASTEST GROWING FLAT PANEL BRANDS IN THE U.S."

On the surface of things, that's not such a bold claim - after all, who the heck are these guys, anyway? They came from nowhere, so of course they're growing quickly. When you sell nothing one year, and something the next, your growth rate looks fantastic. So, growth by itself is not necessarily a meaningful statistic. Perhaps all the newcomers, slapping a moniker onto an LCD panel sourced from a Chinese factory somewhere, are all growing and doing well at the expense of the established brands.

However, the AP had an article in same timeframe suggesting the opposite: that consumers are buying flat panel TVs, but only from major brands:

Makers of slim TVs are struggling with higher inventories, but the extent of the problem depends on each company's position in the market: Smaller names are facing a glut of flat-panel screens while most of the top players say they're playing catch-up to avoid shortages.

So Vizio is bucking a trend here. The new LCD TVs explain why. They’re reasonably feature-rich, and very well priced. But so is a lot of the competition. What’s important here is that the channel itself is a key part (perhaps the key part) of Vizio’s business model. Traditional big box retail (Best Buy, Circuit City) places a premium on brand: getting shelf space is extremely difficult, but once on the shelf you have to compete with Sony and Samsung. This is what the AP is talking about, and it helps explain why Sony, once it got its act together with some decent products, is now back on top of the game. Sony's brand stands for high quality televisions at a moderate premium; that's precisely what the Bravia line delivers, and consumers are buying them. (In September, the L.A. Times reported that Sony has regained its position as the U.S.' top TV manufacturer after falling behind in the late 1990s due to its slow recognition of flat-panel TVs. Sony's entrance into the LCD market has helped the company increase its share of the total market to 28%.)

So what's going on with Vizio? The key is distribution: Vizio aimed beyond the big box stores, instead targeting a different, even bigger "big box": warehouse clubs. Costco in particular is a happy home for new discount brands because the warehouse chain mixes in high end brands with relative unknowns; launching your plasma at Costco does not automatically equate your brand with discount merchandise.

Of course, in terms of sheer volume, the biggest game-changer of all may be Wal~Mart, not the warehouse clubs or Best Buy. As prices drop on flat panel TVs -- easily the most desired big ticket CE item -- more of them end up in the land where there are Always Low Prices. Vendors who can make peace with Wal~Mart's margin and distribution requirements (and sometimes hyper-competitive house brands) will be able to grow their sales volumes tremendously. They may even be able to build a brand where they have none - but it won't be a premium brand.

-avi

CEDIA Highlights, Part II

In last month's CEDIA Highlights post, I noted two projectors that broke through the clutter (and there was a lot of clutter: my in box has dozens and dozens of press releases). There was a third announcement that caught my eye, and, surprisingly, it, too, was projector-related.

THX is now certifying home projectors.

On the surface, this does not seem surprising - THX certifies just about everything. In fact, don't they already have a certification program for displays? It certainly seems like they did. (Actually, they did - but only as part of their commercial theater certification program.) THX is starting out with ludicrously expensive Runco models, but the program should trickle down to more affordable home projectors, rear projection televisions, and flat panel displays.

Not everyone loves THX. First of all, it's a licensing program. It costs money to get the logo, but doesn't offer anything concrete in exchange; theoretically, if your product meets all of THX's specifications, you could be THX-certifiable without actually being THX-certified and pass the savings along to your customers. A bigger issue is that THX's specifications are based on a specific philosophy. On the audio side, the philosophy includes notions of how a speaker should be constructed (small satellites, big subwoofers, and a specific crossover type and crossover frequency), how soundtracks mixed for commercial theaters should be adapted for the home environment, and how rear speakers should be integrated into a system. Reasonable people at, say, a speaker manufacturer, could disagree on an aspect of the technical approach that THX certification demands, but because the THX logo is respected in the market, they may lose business by building things their way instead of THX's methodology.

THX Certified Display testing includes the following:

• Front of Screen (FOS) Testing
  • Luminance
  • Contrast
  • Color Gamut
  • Gamma
  • Uniformity
  • Max Resolution
• Video Signal Processing Testing
  • Scaling
  • Deinterlacing
  • Motion/Video Conversion

I am 100% confident that there will be controversy over THX's video specifications. I couldn't tell you what specifically will cause hand wringing - or whether it will be a specification of omission: THX's video certification program was been rightly villified several years back for certifying terrible letterbox transfers; the specs simply didn't go far enough in that case.

Still, I believe that, on balance, THX is an incredibly positive force for home theater audio and video reproduction. If you assemble a THX-approved system, even from different vendors, you know that the individual products will perform to a certain set of specifications, and that they were designed to complement each other. I also appreciate the notion of a certification program in the first place. Sure, Vendor X has a good reputation, and Vendor Y has a powerful brand. But THX drives the entire industry, for better or worse, towards a unified A/V philosophy. Aside from buying every component in your system from a single brand -- as if that were even possible (outside of Sony and Samsung) -- THX assures a level of uniformity of purpose and performance in home theater products. I like that.

-avi

CEDIA Highlights, Part I

To all the PR people trying to set up meetings with me at CEDIA this weekend: I'm not there. I just got back from CTIA before heading out again early next week, and CEDIA just didn't make it onto the schedule this year.

Of course, I'm following the show remotely. So far, only a couple of announcements have really broken through the clutter, and they're two projectors that offer clear value propositions:

• Sony's 1080p VPL-VW50 SXRD front projector, which brings essentially the same technology from the $25,000 Qualia line (that then showed up in the $10,000 VPL-VW100 front projector, and then again in a line of Bravia rear projection TVs) down to $5,000. In the U.S., where big screen TVs have long been available (along with the floor space to put them) mid-priced projectors often sell well. Overseas, where a projector is replacing a big screen TV, not supplementing it, budget projectors tend to do better. Regardless, $3,000 - $5,000 is a sweet spot for pricing, and now performance follows. Sony can claim it uses unique technology for superior image quality, which fits nicely with its brand history (and just might be true. I personally prefer the slightly smoother picture from SXRD/D-ILA technologies compared to DLP or LCD).

• At the opposite end of the price spectrum, if you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on a Bentley, you may want to consider a Runco Signature Cinema SC-1 instead (starting price: $250K. More if you want the 2.35:1 version). And a 40 foot screen for your home theater. While you might think there is no market for such ridiculously expensive toys, think again: when I last spoke to TI, they admitted that a fair number of professional DLP products aimed at commercial theaters end up in the homes of the super-wealthy film enthusiast. Or at least the super-wealthy conspicuous consumer who needs the absolute best of everything.

-avi

Wired Offers Flat Panel Buying Advice

Wired offers flat panel buying advice, and quotes yours truly about plasma burn-in and the analog TV reception at my in-laws house: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70349-0.html?tw=wn_index_2.

A lot of that interview didn't make it into the article. For example, the "gotchas" of buying a flat panel include:

• Not budgeting for a wall mount (which can cost up to $500 plus installation)
• Spending more to upgrade to a 1080p display (instead of 720p) in an environment where the extra resolution will not be visible (either because the user sits too far away for the eyes to resolve the added detail, or because most of the programming is 720p sports content which gains nothing by being upsampled to 1080p)
• Stretching the budget to buy more video and assuming that the panel's speakers will be "good enough" to provide a satisfactory audio experience. With all the good on-wall speakers coming out from reputable brands like Definitive Technologies and Polk, there's no longer a stylistic excuse not to get a good set of speakers. On-walls also tend to be more affordable than in-walls for similar audio quality.

-avi

2005 In Review / CES 2006 Review, Pt. 1: Flat Panels

I have just returned from CES 2006 in Las Vegas, where 150,000 geeks showed up to gawk at the bodacious sights to see in Las Vegas (103" plasmas) and ignored everything else (it seemed like half the shows in Vegas were dark). I'll be breaking out the next few posts into a quick look back on 2005 trends and a quick discussion of products introduced at CES 2006. 

In 2005…

LCD, Plasma, and DLP TV sucked the life (or, more accurately, the money) out of every other aspect of home theater.  Prices on the big panels dropped enough that consumers who weren’t looking to upgrade did, and in most cases, all the money went to the display.

At CES 2006…

1080p was the spec to beat – everybody had at least one product with full progressive 1920x1080 resolution. New technologies included real world demos of SED and LED-based DLP systems without color wheels. The other big trend holding down pricing is the influx of no-name brands sourcing panels from the same fabs as the big brands and selling it direct for less. In cases where the display/upconversion electronics in the no name brands are good, this presents a major problem for the majors. And even when the quality is lousy, the glass is often the same (or just a generation or so behind), so the specs look good on paper, and the price looks great.

720p Projectors For the Holidays

Evan Powell provides an overview of the state of DLP and LCD front projectors.  (The key to ProjectorCentral isn't that Evan is unbiased, but that he explains his biases, and he tests pretty much every significant product on the market.)  Bottom line: there's a lot to like for under $3,000 this holiday season.

-avi

Woot.com Sells $1.3 million in TVs over 22 Hours

Woot.com has built on its relationship with InFocus and yesterday the one-item-per-day online outlet store flexed the power of its unique retail model: it sold out an allotment of 450 new (not refurbished) 61" ultrathin (6.85" deep) DLP RPTVs over 22 hours for $3000 each.  InFocus sweetened the deal further with a $500 rebate.  This TV typically cost $5,000 - $8,000, and includes 2 ATSC tuners, an NTSC tuner, a Windows CE-based web browser, and all the trimmings.

With woot's flat $5 shipping, this leads to some remarkable statistics:

Item Quantity: 450
Item Price: $2,999.99
Total Sold: $1,349,995.50
Last Order time: 10:05 PM Central Time (new items are offered at midnight, Central Time, so that means the entire sale took 22 hours)
Order Pace: a $3,000 TV sold every 2 minutes, 55 seconds, or $61,094.47 an hour.
Shipping Cost: $5
Shipping Total: $2,250
TV Weight (w/ stand): 189.5
Total Weight: 85,275 lbs
Rebate by Infocus: $500
Infocus Payout: $225,000

Obviously, Woot will be paying a bit more than $2 grand to ship 85,275 lbs. of merchandise direct to customers' homes. 

In marked contrast to most Woot items, the order pace started slow - very few items moved in the first hour, as customers digested the information about the set and asked spouses for permission.  If you follow the flow of conversation in Woot's forum, you find a clear pattern: initially, woot regulars whined about the high cost of the item (some Woot items sell for as little as $10 or $20).  Then, as word got out about the deal, a flurry of new customers posted their excitement and celebrating their purchasing savvy (or impending divorce due to differing monetary priorities -- in one case, if the poster is to be believed, marriage counseling would be a far better use of his $3,000 than an HDTV). Woot appears to be following the Costco model and broadening its customer base by offering higher end products to be found in what was always designed to be a bit of a treasure hunt.

The key question other retailers must ask is how this will affect pricing going forward.  Will consumers tune out Woots as one-time sales - almost like a lottery win - or will this drive down pricing as customers expect to find "finds" going forward?

-avi

Coping with the Death of Audio

At a macro level, it's pretty clear that audio component sales are dropping, while displays - flat panel and DLP rear projection sets in particular - are consuming the bulk of consumer outlays.  So what is a company that specializes in selling high end audio components to do?  Audio Advisor started out as a catalog retailer of high end audio toys (they're now on the Internet as well), and each catalog used to feature pages after page of amps, preamps, integrated amps, high end CD players, extremely expensive record players for analog lovers, and digital audio doodads that supposedly improved CD audio quality for digital lovers.  At the other end of the catalog retailing price range, Crutchfield used to sell dozens of entry level and mid-priced receivers and DVD players. 

With sales of these products down, these retailers could try to compete for video dollars and sell plasmas and LCD panels, but going up against big box retailers and PC-based online outlets (such as Dell.com) is a recipe for suicide - without incredible volume, margins on displays can actually be negative.

Crutchfield has instead decided to focus on the auto side of its business.  Auto sound has remained strong, and auto displays - for movies or GPS navigation - have absolutely exploded.  While local stores still have an advantage in terms of installation, Crutchfield's online store benefits from selection tools and advice wizards that simplify the process of figuring out what you can actually use in your car.

AudioAdvisor never sold auto sound products, so that route would be a significant departure.  Instead, the company is turning to furniture and cables.  Cables are high margin products that have always been featured in the catalog, but now more than a quarter of the catalog features at least one interconnect, speaker cable, or replacement power cable as part of the layout.  The other new gear category is furniture.  AudioAdvisor has a 16 full pages (out of 76) dedicated entirely to furniture - mostly stands for the video displays its customers are buying elsewhere instead of upgrading that preamp.

-avi

Front Projection: When More is Less

Evan Powell over at Projector Central has an insightful article up on choosing the right resolution for budget front projectors.

Bottom line:

• In the U.S., 848x480 is ideal for DVD, video games, and regular TV. HDTV looks pretty good at this resolution, too. These projectors are cheap, the images are beautiful - go for it.
• Moving up to 1024x576 is essential for Europeans, where the extra resolution is needed for regular TV (the U.S. and Europe use different TV standards).
• Moving up to 1024x576 is counterproductive for U.S. consumers because the extra resolution isn't used for TV and makes little difference on HDTV, so why spend more to risk introducing softness or artifacts on DVD, which now has to be scaled up to fit?
• Moving all the way up to 1280x720 (or higher) makes sense for U.S. consumers who plan to watch a lot of HDTV or one of the new HD disc formats being introduced later this year.

-avi

When Manufacturers Don't Manufacture, What Are They?

I wrote earlier about Outlaw's new 990 audio processor, and was left with a few questions. They've since posted a FAQ that not only answers my questions, but also provides rare public insight into industry practices for cross-company parts sharing. Audio is a lot like the automobile industry - creating a platform is enormously expensive, and companies often share development to keep costs down. Sure, there are a few boutiques that create everything themselves from scratch, but custom efforts are enormously expensive, limiting the potential market size.

Outlaw uses the three different models shown below for product development, and so do all the other specialty brands to one degree or another, regardless of their distribution model. The selection of which development path to use is determined by the specific product, its cost, complexity and its anticipated volume. Going back to our first offering, the Model 750 amplifier, we have never hidden our relationships with some of the industry's leading manufacturers. Remember that out process is not unique, and only a few of the "major" brands actually design and manufacture their own processors from the ground up. We know of no company in the "internet only" market that totally designs and builds all of their processors on their own.

The FAQ continues to describe which of its products were designed, manufactured, licensed out, or licensed in. Outlaw exclusively sells direct online; I don't know if that completely explains their openness. But they are hardly alone, and got me thinking of some other common business models:

• Brand A designs, someone else manufactures for Brand A. Very few - if any - of today's manufacturers actually manufacture everything they sell. In some cases, a company will manufacture one type of product, but not others.  For example, Sony manufacturers most of its TV sets, but practically none of its headphones.
• Brand A designs and then its design is "sublet" to Brand B to defray costs. Brand B rebadges the design with mostly cosmetic changes and sells it as its own. This has long been the way most vendors obtain their universal remote controls, but it happens in high end audio whenever a vendor specializes in one component but needs to offer retailers a complete product line to get distribution.  For example, Lexicon has been rebadging Bryston amplifiers for years.
• Brand A designs the core chassis (in the case of a processor or receiver), core technology (in the case of MP3 players and digital cameras) or driver/crossover (in the case of speakers), and Brand B rebadges it with changes. These changes can be cosmetic, substantive, or both.  For example, most MP3 players - including the iPod - are based on chips from PortalPlayer. Companies can use PortalPlayer's software (technically "firmware," in this case), use just some of it, or write their own from scratch.
• Brand A and Brand B share development costs on the core technologies, then customize the surrounding technologies for differentiation. Examples here include Sony and Samsung's jointly owned LCD fabrication plants; LG and Philips have joint ventures in plasma TV manufacturing. But in each case, the video processing, scaling, types of inputs, and case design are all different, leading to different performance characteristics and pricing.

-avi

Internet Persistence and Current TV Trends

Home Theater View grew out of business weblogs at JupiterResearch and AskAvi columns written over several years at a personal site, http://www.greengart.com.  Thanks to the persistence of the Internet -- web pages never really die as long as they're in Google's index -- one of those old AskAvi columns is now generating a lot of feedback. It seems someone queried Google to find advice choosing a TV, found Column 10, and posted it to a  newsgroup.  They did this without ever looking at the column's date (which is on the page, though perhaps not as prominent as it could be).

Column 10 was provocatively titled, "Why HDTV Doesn't Matter," and it covered whether to buy a 4:3 (square) TV or a 16:9 (widescreen, rectangular) shaped TV.  At the time, there was precious little HDTV content being broadcast and even fewer ways to get that content using cable or satellite.  There were also several 4:3 TVs on the market with a true 16:9 squeeze mode - in other words, you could buy a square TV without giving up the higher resolution of widescreen programming (though you'd have black bars on top and bottom of your image).

The advice was good for its time: it was written in 2001, before the advent of relatively affordable DLP-based sets and Dell HDTV plasmas. (And I noted that the price of HDTVs would come down in time for something to watch on them).  But to correct any misconceptions, this is not the advice I would give today.

First of all, there's a lot more widescreen programming available now, even for those watching standard definition ("regular" TV, as opposed to HDTV). Even video games are being created for widescreen playback. Second, 4:3 sets with 16:9 squeeze mode have largely disappeared from the marketplace, having been replaced by less expensive widescreen HDTV-ready models. No, today the issue isn't whether to go widescreen or not, but which widescreen technology to go with: traditional CRT? New, narrow depth CRT? CRT rear projection? Plasma flat panel? LCD flat panel? LCD rear projection? DLP rear projection? LCOS rear projection? Wait for SED flat panel? 

Short answer: budget and screen size dictate the technology. Past Home Theater View columns have covered LCD vs. plasma, the introduction of SED, DLP's suitability for gaming, DLP vs. LCOS, and the announcement of narrow depth CRT.

-avi

Consolidation in the Display Business

The New York Times today reports (free reg. req'd) two separate deals: Fujitsu is selling its LCD display manufacturing to LCD leader Sharp, and Matushita (known in the US as "Panasonic") is hooking up with Hitachi to jointly manufacture plasma displays.  Bottom line here: prices are dropping too fast to go it alone if you aren't dominating the field.

-avi

Plasma vs. LCD

Now that CES is over, it's time to hit the mailbag.  If my email inbox is a barometer of market readiness, there's a lot of consumer confusion around LCD and plasma.  Here's a primer:

Both LCD and plasma have advantages and disadvantages. The simple answer is that - due to manufacturing constraints - for smaller sized screens you're limited to LCD and for larger screens you'll only find plasma. If you're in the middle, then keep these guidelines in mind:

LCD

• LCD is currently a lot more expensive on a per inch basis. This doesn't mean it's better, just that it's more expensive to manufacture.
• There are LCDs with 1920x1080p resolution on the market. Plasmas currently top out at lower (but still HDTV) resolutions. It won't stay that way for long - Samsung and LG have shown 1080p plasmas - and on real world material, the added resolution doesn't always make much of a difference. But if you want a 1080p flat panel display, LCD is it for now.
• Both LCD and plasma displays are blazingly bright. But LCD is typically even brighter than plasma and thus is better in a bright, sunlit environment than plasma.
• LCD isn't as subject to burn-in as plasma, so it's better for watching CNBC, playing video games, or watching a lot of 4:3 (square) programming on a 16:9 (wide) screen.
• LCDs can be used in high altitudes where many plasmas have problems. If you live in Denver or the Himalayas, don't buy a plasma over the Internet - make sure you see and hear it locally - plasmas whine at high altitude.
• LCDs are less expensive to operate as they use less electricity.

Plasma

• Today's plasmas are better than LCD in contrast and black level performance. However, in this respect, both plasma and LCD pale in comparison (literally) to CRT TVs and the newest DLP rear projection units.
• Today's plasmas are slightly better than LCD in color fidelity.
• Due to their lower native resolution, the cheaper EDTV plasmas often do a better job displaying regular NTSC cable or satellite TV than HDTV plasmas or LCD.
• Plasmas do not need to be "recharged." New plasmas should last at least as long as your traditional CRT TV, though they may lose some brightness well down the road.

-avi

CES 2005: Trends

I spent most of my time at CES focused on mobile devices, but did note a few overriding trends:

• The story of the show was definitely flat panels, which were everywhere.  LG showed off a particularly interesting integrated plasma/HDTV tuner/DVR, and Samsung showed off a plasma so big you couldn't get it down the stairs and into my basement even if you took out a second mortgage to pay for it.  On the opposite end of the pricing spectrum, there were countless Asian importers with booths at the show displaying large LCD and plasmas at much lower prices.
• The other big deal at the show was that the focus of the computer industry is solidly on the living room - Microsoft, Intel, and HP all had huge booths dedicated to moving audio and video around the home.  The problem with Media Centers for me has always been cost and form factor.  HP's new HD Media Center looks especially sweet because once you're talking about HDTV the price jumps dramatically (the only standalone HD-DVR on the market costs $1,000), and the new horizontal cases look like they belong in your A/V rack, not your desk.
• Conversely, there were barely any new portable media players introduced other than the Olympus m:robe (a strong iPod mini competitor which I have in for review, and which looks gorgeous).  I take this as an indication that other than the video players (which have problems getting content unless you have a Media Center PC), Apple has this market completely locked up.  Now that the iPod shuffle appears to be the Next Big Thing, watch for copycat products (not that copycats will succeed - when pricing is down to $99 to start with, how do you compete with cachet?).
• In projectors, CEDIA was the land of $2,500 - $3,000 720p LCD boxes with automatic iris adjustment and great contrast from Panasonic and Sony.  CES was the TI DLP team's chance to strike back: BenQ showed me a great 720p DLP HD2+ projector for around $3,000 (the 7700).  Several products debuted with TI's new DarkChip such as BenQ's 8720; pricing on those is above $10,000, but the HD2+ products were nearly as good. This looks like it will work out so that custom installers will recommend the higher end products while enthusiasts buying/installing on their own will gravitate towards the $3,000 products.  ...but we're not done.  A slew of sub-$2,000 DLP projectors with 480p or 576p resolution were also introduced.  I didn't see any of them at the show, but Evan Powell over at ProjectorCentral has a good recap.

My final trend is a question: could CES be getting too big to be relevant?  It's always been hard to get around the show, and the weather didn't help (when it snows in Vegas it's fair to say hell has frozen over). Next year CES kicks the Adult Video show out of the Sands and takes over that venue, too.  But at the same time, CEDIA has been getting a lot of the big home theater announcements, the wireless device vendors are saving their news for CTIA, and the mobile media player market is all focused on MacWorld.

-avi

SED: Time to memorize a new acronym?

A blog quoting a Japanese source suggests that Toshiba is abandoning LCD and plasma and instead putting its display R&D into yet another display technology: SED.  SED stands for Surface-Conduction Electron-emitter Display, which, if I understand it correctly - and I probably don't - is an array of millions of tiny tube TV sets.  Advantages include many of the same claims made for another technology working its way through the labs, OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode - don't you just love these terms?):

• really really thin
• incredibly bright, sharp images
• more energy efficient than plasma
• a technology that [insert Korean or Japanese competitor here] doesn't already have locked up

I'm convinced that performance is almost irrelevant: whichever technology is cheapest and can be manufactured in volume will win.  Consumers have shown that they have absolutely no understanding of the technologies, and retailers have shown absoultely no capability of explaining the differences between them.  Resolution and picture quality doesn't even seem to matter much - consumers are snapping up EDTV panels at far higher rates than HD-capable displays. As such, consumers are basically buying these things based on depth and price. 

I'm sure that next week at CES we'll see gigantic LCD displays, enormous plasmas, and ever-larger OLED prototypes, and that we'll all be falling over ourselves discussing why LCD is better than plasma or vice versa.  But thus far, the bottom line has been: is it thin enough not to overwhelm a room, and, if so, how much does it cost?

-avi

Are Furniture Vendors In Too Deep?

It's right before CES, and I'm inundated with press releases.  Bell'O sent over a preview of their 2005 lineup, and I noticed something that struck a nerve: like all furniture vendors, they claim that their stands are ideal for hot selling rear projection TVs using digital technologies (DLP, LCD, and LCOS).  They even go so far as to list a few specific models such as Sony's 60" Grand WEGA LCD TV.  Except that the stand doesn't match the TV's depth.  None of them do.  All the stands are at least 19" deep, and most are 21" - 24", while the new TVs range from 6.75" deep for new DLP sets from RCA and InFocus to 14 - 17" deep sets from nearly everyone else. 

This isn't unique to Bell'O - when I went to buy a stand for my shiny new LCOS-based HDTV I couldn't find any stands that were the right depth (I ended up making a short term compromise and just getting something super-cheap at IKEA, but that stand will eventually be replaced).

Consumers are willing to spend more money on shallow non-CRT HDTVs precisely because they don't stick out and dominate the room as much.  Why would they want furniture that negates the shallow depth they paid extra for?

-avi

DLP Ideal Display for Gamers

Joe Wilcox saw Samsung's DLP promotional tie-in with Halo2 for XBox and liked the notion but asks whether it could be more than just marketing.  Samsung does note that their sets offer easy A/V hookup for video game consoles (like nearly every TV on the market today) and digital image processing. But Samsung and TI, the makers of DLP technology, have really dropped the ball here, because it turns out that DLPs may be the ideal display technology for videogames, and I've yet to see any marketing pushing that message.

Here's what they should be saying:

• DLP sets are big -- the smallest DLP is in the 40" range -- providing an immersive experience.  You haven't played Halo2 until you've lived Halo2, and for that you need a display that occupies your peripheral vision.  A 25" set just isn't going to cut it.
• Even compared to CRT (tube) -based HDTV sets, DLP provides extremely sharp, well defined images.  For movies, some videophiles prefer slightly softer, more filmlike images you get from CRT or LCOS (aka JVC D-ILA and Sony SXRD).  But for video games, it's perfect.
• Unlike plasmas and CRTs, DLP sets do not suffer from static image burn in.  Playing a video game with a static image on screen (life meter, corporate logo, outlines of a car or spaceship "window") is the surest way to ruin that multi-thousand dollar plasma. 
• The other way to burn in a CRT set is to turn the brightness way up.  However, many games seem to demand insanely high brightness levels (try playing Star Wars: Rogue Squadron on a properly calibrated TV - the TIE fighters blend right into the Death Star background). DLP sets are blazingly bright with no fear of overdriving the set.
• Unlike LCD sets - which aren't currently as big as DLP sets - DLP has no problems displaying fast motion.  However, DLP "rainbows" are worse/more visible on video games than standard video programming.  Rainbows are where you see color fringes around fast moving objects due to the way DLP creates persistence of vision. Innovations in color wheel technology have helped alleviate the issue considerably, but TI can and should do more.   

People definitely make big $ hardware buying decisions based on gaming opportunities.  I remember dropping $3,500 on an early PC system back in college just to play the first version of Wing Commander (and that was almost 15 years ago).  VooDoo and AlienWare (and Dell's XPS division) sell gaming PCs in that price range today.  It doesn't seem too far fetched to pitch a $3,500 HDTV as a gaming display - or at least as a secondary reason behind watching DVDs or HDTV.  DLP may be the perfect display technology for video gamers, but somebody needs to get the word out. TI?  Samsung?  Anyone?

-avi

TI Taking Over Where Intel Left Off?

I was wandering through IKEA yesterday and noticed that Philips appears to have an exclusive on all the A/V display props; an interesting product placement ploy.  Even more interesting were the sheer number of plasmas sitting on top of $79 build-it-yourself furniture.  Plasmas and LCDs may win on decor friendliness, but not on budget, where microdisplays offer a reasonable compromise between the size of the unit and the size of your wallet.

Usually, microdisplays means DLP or LCD, but I've always been a fan of LCOS, which can offer the resolution of a digital technology and the fatigue-free experience of a three chip technology, without adding overly-sharp, hard edges to the picture. Having worked at Intel in a past life, I was wondering just what got them to pull out of the LCOS game after making such a big splash (promising, among other things, to bring street prices of large screen TVs down below $1,000).  Insight Media, a CE research firm I never heard of until I just Googled it, backs up Intel's official, "there isn't enough money in it," claim with some interesting backstory.  But the New York Times reports that it's all about chip yield - Intel expected 90% rates and was getting well under 10% - the same problems everybody else trying to build LCOS chips has had.  Well, not everyone:  JVC has teamed up with a smaller company to make the silicon backplane, dubbed this LCOS variant "D-ILA" and are the only ones to have a mass market product, and a good one - I have been impressed with their 52" HD-52Z575.  Philips also has an LCOS RPTV on the market, but it's a one-chip+rotating prism affair, and doesn't offer the same level of performance. Sony's take on LCOS, "SXRD," is extremely impressive, but for the moment they're only using it in their high price, low volume Qualia line, which would mask any yield problems they could conceivably have. 

Which leaves Texas Instruments, the sole supplier of DLP chips, in a great position, at least until plasmas or LCDs get cheaper to manucture or OLED or some other new technology is commercialized. BusinessWeek (subscription required) this week has a profile of TI's marketing efforts, as TI is planning a DLP branding campaign where they will reach out directly to consumers for the first time in a long, long while.  Like any "branding the technology inside" ploy, comparisons are immediately made to Intel's "Intel Inside" program.  But here's where BW gets kudos: they correctly point out that the success of Intel's program was based not on Intel's own ad budget, but on the comarketing dollars they spread around (and the tight program control they imposed on those dollars).  TI is not doing this - nobody's handing Samsung millions of dollars to push DLP as a technology.  So while I look forward to TI's Super Bowl commercial and note that DLP does have a lot to recommend itself to consumers, I'm also fairly certain that the branding campaign will not have an Intel Inside-sized impact on the market.

-avi

New LCD contender: Samsung reinvents CRT?

The rumors of the CRT's demise may have been overstated. Gizmodo dug up this Nikkei Electronics article reporting how Samsung has developed a 32" TV using proprietary CRT technologies that allow a total cabinet depth of just 15". Now, it's still going to be heavier than a comparably sized (and much thinner) LCD, but if they can keep prices down to current CRT pricing levels (under $1,000 for HDTVs), this could be a killer product. The article describes how difficult an engineering challenge it was to acheive; production is expected to ramp up throughout 2005.

Keys here:
Samsung is once again demonstrating impressive investments in R&D
If LCD prices come down enough, it will kill off even "thinner" CRTs. Samsung may be betting that's a ways off, and in the meantime they can sell thinner CRTs to the majority of the market which cannot afford to pay thousands for thinness.
...or not. Samsung may simply be hedging their bets (they're big players in LCD panel production), and displaying their willingness to participate in all markets. This is basically taking a page from Microsoft's playbook - invest in everything, so no matter what ends up on top, you win.

-avi