The FlatHDTV Blog

Did you ever watch 3-D movies with those weird blue and red glasses? Did the glasses give you a headache, or distort the colors so much that it wasn’t really fun to watch the movie?

Texas Instruments has solved some of the problems of 3-D viewing through the magic of 120Hz frame rates and DLP technology, which they invented in 1987.

Basically, a 3-D DLP set displays 120 frames per second, like many of the new HDTVs, but it sends 60 of those to one eye and 60 to the other eye. You still have to wear special glasses, but they are more stylish and do not affect the color fidelity. The picture depth is enhanced, too, as you would expect from technology introduced in the 21st century rather than the 1950s.

The 3-D sets also function just like normal HDTVs. It’s just a matter of switching to a different picture mode in the menu.

Texas Instruments does not make HDTV sets, but their technology can be found in Samsung and Mitsubishi DLP sets in the near future.

More information: DLP 3D HDTV Technology

The world is slowly but surely going wireless. Right now, consumer HDTVs and their accessories need cables to transfer high definition content, but by 2008 that might change.

Semiconductor company Ammion is developing technology to wirelessly transmit uncompressed HD content up to 100 feet, with the same quality as an HDMI cable. They will not manufacture consumer products, but will sell the technology to manufacturers.

More at: Ammion

Mempile, an optical storage technology company in Israel, has developed a way to store up to 500 GB of data on a regular sized DVD disc. This is about 10 times as much data as a regular Blu-Ray disc, and could store over 100 regular DVD movies, 10 high definition movies, or half a million large Word documents. With future optimization techniques, they believe they will be able to fit 1,000 GB, or 1 Terabyte, on a disc.

This is basically done by slicing the data layers into 100 or more microscopically thin sections, each of which holds as much data as a regular DVD.

Whether or not this technology would have an impact on the DVD industry, though, is not clear. What would a movie studio do with the extra 950GB when they sell you a movie for $29.95? They probably won’t put 19 extra movies on the disc. Perhaps by the time the TeraDiscs are ready for the market, we will figure out a use for all that memory.

Source: Mempile

The new Samsung 81 series HDTVs, with 120Hz frame rates and extreme contrast ratios, have now been out long enough to generate some feedback from the consumers. Some common themes in the reviews are:

• Very, very deep black levels in dark scenes. The set even turns off the LED backlight in the darkest areas, which not only enhances contrast but also saves energy. This is called local dimming.
• The 81 series sets have a significantly better picture than the 65 or 71 series sets.
• Fast motion looks really good. The high frame rate really seems to make a difference.
• They are pretty expensive, but they appear to be worth it.

Here are some current reviews and discussions: PC World AVS Forum CNet

The Samsung 81 series sets are available here: www.FlatHDTV.net/samsung

The battle goes on. On August 20, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation announced that they will only be releasing future DVDs in the HD-DVD format, and will drop support for Blu-Ray. According to Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks, one of the main reasons for the switch is the lower price of HD-DVD players.

Now, Warner Bros. is the only major studio producing DVDs in both formats. Source: CNN Money.com.

The much-anticipated XBR4 sets in Sony’s Bravia Series have been available in the 32 inch size since July, and are now available in the 40 and 52 inch sizes. They feature improvements in picture quality, color display, and have a 120Hz frame rate for a more realistic display of motion. For more details, follow the links to Sony’s website at www.FlatHDTV.net/Sony.

The 32 inch size is a 720p set, and the larger sizes all handle 1080p. Look for a 46 inch size later this year.

HDTV merchants have two important jobs: to bring you the best technology available, and to help you understand exactly what it is. One way to help you understand new technology is to come up with a simple, descriptive name for it. But sometimes the names are a little too simple, sometimes they aren’t descriptive enough, and sometimes they are downright misleading.

Here are five common HDTV terms that can be misleading or unclear:

Native 720p/1080i Display
Most HDTV displays have either 768 or 1080 rows of pixels, and a few have 900. And all HDTVs have an inherently progressive display, so the most common native resolutions are 768p, 900p, and 1080p. So, when a manufacturer or merchant claims that an HDTV is “native 720p/1080i”, it usually means that those are the highest resolutions it can handle, and the input is scaled and de-interlaced to fit a 768p display. Some DLP HDTVs, however, do have a native 720p display.

HDTV Antenna
There’s no such thing as a dedicated HDTV antenna. Over-the-air HDTV broadcasts use the UHF spectrum, just like public access TV. So, any UHF antenna will work.

Full HD
This refers to a 1080p display with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and the ability to display 24, 30 or 60 full frames per second. The term is not wrong, but it implies that 720p or 1080i content is somehow incomplete. Since neary all HD content these days is still 720p or 1080i, that would be kind of depressing for HDTV owners.

HD-Ready
Ready for what? HD-ready means the same thing as HD monitor. It is an HDTV without a built-in tuner, so an external ATSC tuner, or a cable box, will be needed to receive broadcasts. If you only intend to use the HDTV for gaming or DVD watching, it might be better to save a few hundred dollars with an HD-ready TV.

1080p Upconverting DVD Player
Many DVD players claim to upconvert content to 1080p, as opposed to 1080i. This is unnecessary, since all HDTVs have progressive displays, and there’s no visible difference between content upconverted to 1080i and content upconverted to 1080p. The transfer from “i” to “p” is called de-interlacing, and this task is performed by the TV anyway. The only benefit would come if it’s a low quality HDTV (with a poor de-interlacer) and a high quality DVD player with a good de-interlacer.