Are we passing on the latest technology, and saving that money for the uncertain future? Of course not! Well, many of us are not. It seems that people are still buying HDTV sets as fast as they were last year, but are stepping down in size to save a few hundred bucks. The Samsung HDTV line includes several models at or below the $1000 price point. Most of these are 32 inches or smaller, but some have a 40 inch screen. And the Vizio HDTV lineup has several LCD sets, in the same size range, selling for $500 to $800.

So, if you want to replace that old Trinitron with a similar-sized HDTV, you’ll need to do a little (very little) geometry to make sure your viewing experience will actually be better.

TV sets are measured diagonally, from corner to corner. So, because of its flatter shape, a 25 inch widescreen HDTV will be wider than a 25 inch regular TV, but will be lower in height. To match the height of a 25 inch regular TV (which is 15 inches, incidentally), a widescreen would need a diagonal measurement of 30.6 inches:

Maintaining the same picture height is important, because there’s still a lot of content out there that is designed for the old 4:3 format. This is what happens to regular content on a widescreen:

So, your new HDTV will need to be about 20 percent bigger, in the diagonal measurement, to display standard content as big as you are used to seeing it. If not, a good portion of the shows you watch will actually be smaller on the widescreen.

Of course, the easy option is just to “go big” with the new set. The extreme sharpness of HDTV, especially 1080p HDTV, makes it hard to go wrong by going too big.

But, there’s one aspect of HDTV technology that makes us feel like it’s still the 20th Century: all those damn wires to trip on. Your cell phone doesn’t need wires. Why should your TV?

Luckily, there’s a movement in the electronics industry dedicated to establishing a new standard for wireless transmission of high definition audio and video content. It’s called the Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) Special Interest Group, and has been established between Sony, Samsung, Sharp, Motorola, Ammion, and Hitachi. They are hoping to implement the new standard in a video-modem that can transmit 1080p HD content, wirelessly on the 5GHz band, throughout several rooms in a house.

For more information, check out WHDI’s news page or their FAQ page.

A high performance HDTV is a fickle beast, and those exciting new features sometimes come at the expense of something else, like reliability or display problems. The LN46A650 seems to be one of the first HDTVs to blend all the latest features into a good, solid, reliable package.
Check it out here: Samsung LN46A650

And more from Samsung, by way of FlatHDTV.net: Samsung’s HDTV Lineup

Sales of LCD sets have been increasing fast over the last few years, mainly because LCD technology has enabled builders to make sets in the 40 and 50 inch size range that can compete well with Plasmas, in terms of picture quality and cost. In the past, LCD dominated the smaller sizes and Plasma dominated the larger, so this trend seemed like a death knell for Plasma.

However, North American sales of HDTVs have surged since last quarter, with Plasma sales growing about 17% faster than LCD. One possible cause for this is the emergence of smaller sizes, like the Vizio 32 inch Plasma and the Panasonic 37 inch UK Series Plasma.

source: PC Magazine

The answer is no- unless you’re willing to wait several years. Buy your favorite HDTV that’s on the market now, and when that one wears out, you will probably be seriously considering an OLED. Here’s why:

• OLED screens are made with a synthetic organic substance, which is similar to the chemical that lights up fireflies and deep-sea fish. This substance shines bright and cool, doesn’t need a backlight like LCD sets, and so consumes very little energy.
• The construction process allows OLED screens to be extremely thin- an 80-inch HDTV might be as thin as a quarter inch.
• The OLED screen will be more durable, will handle greater temperature ranges, will change images quicker, and will even be flexible.
• They will eventually be produced in much larger sizes then current HDTV sets, and should be cheaper when production gets up to a certain level.

There are still a few bugs to work out, though. Here’s an example: the OLED screen is made of several layers of the organic substance, each of which is responsible for displaying a different color. The red and green layers have proven to last up to 40,000 hours in some laboratories, but researchers are having trouble getting the blue layers to last more than 4,000 hours in prototype screens.

The bugs aren’t preventing the big HDTV companies from spreading the word, though. Here are some recent updates and press releases on OLED:

http://techblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/05/sony-previews-03mm-or-is-that.html

http://www.current.com.au/2008/05/29/article/RXKLVDONVA.html

http://gizmodo.com/393734/giz-explains-oled-the-future-of-tv

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/05/sony-to-acceler.html

The word on the street is that this one has a little bit better picture than the XBR4 and 5, and a lower introductory price, but it is lacking a few of the advanced features. The first ones to be available online are the 32 inch, at about $1100, and the 37 inch at about $1500.

Check them out here:

Sony 32 inch XBR6

Sony 37 inch XBR6

The main archive for NASA’s HD video is here: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/HDGalleryCollection_archive_1.html

The restored footage might not be on the site quite yet, but that’s where it will be available soon. And for a little more information, check this news item or NASA’s Home Page.

To see this footage in its full glory, you’ll have to connect your HDTV to your computer. For some tips, check here: Connecting your HDTV to your PC 

Those are all reasonable fears. But, the last one is not as reasonable as it was back in the 90s. The rise of major online retailers like Amazon.com has raised online customer service standards to a level where the overall experience, though different, is in many ways better than the experience at your neighborhood electronics store. Let’s look at some of the concerns behind buying online:

• My HDTV may be damaged in shipping. It’s certainly possible. But the policy of Amazon and most other online retailers takes this into account, and gives you several ways to deal with it. With their standard shipping, the delivery person will typically help you take the set out of the box, wait for you to plug it in and see if there is any shipping damage. If there is, it’s a no-brainer- the set goes back and you get a replacement immediately.
• The set may be damaged in a way that is not immediately obvious. Even if you don’t notice anything wrong with the set right away, you can still send it back for a replacement within 30 days, and Amazon will pay for the shipping. And when you think about it, this problem is equally likely when buying from a physical store: the set had to be shipped to the store in the first place, and the store is certainly not going to test every unit for every kind of defect. That means you’re the “test pilot” whether you buy from Circuit City or Amazon.
• I will have to wait all day for the delivery truck. Yeah, this one’s annoying. But fighting traffic and hanging around in a big-box electronics store for several hours can be infinitely frustrating as well.
• It’s easier to talk a salesperson into a lower price. If you’re a genius at haggling low prices out of retail sales managers, you might enjoy the buying process more at a physical store. Unfortunately, while most salespeople can be talked into matching the price you found down the street, they will rarely match the best price you can find online. Beating the other neighborhood stores is one thing, but beating every store on the internet is quite another. And to top it off, Amazon will actually give you a rebate on your purchase if the price of your HDTV goes down within 30 days after your purchase.
• It’s hard to trust a faceless online merchant. Given the speed with which the world is changing, that’s understandable. The best way to get around this one is to start spending more time online, do your research, interact with real people in chat rooms, read industry newsletters, and so on. Once you become aware of the potential pitfalls and the ways to safeguard against them, buying online will feel as natural as putting money in the bank.

For more information on buying HDTV sets online, please visit FlatHDTV.net, a website dedicated to helping you make a wise and informed purchase.

One of the most important new terms, though, is HDMI. It refers to a new type of cable and stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface. The concept behind HDMI is really simple: instead of having different kinds of cables to connect between your TV, computer, DVD player and what have you, just use one type of cable that’s capable of doing it all. It comes down to the bigger-fire-hose theory: with ever increasing TV screen resolutions, high definition movie players, and growing popularity of downloading huge files over the internet, demand has increased for high capacity cables, and so the cost has come down low enough that it makes little sense to buy anything smaller.

HDMI cables replace the following: coaxial cable (the stiff, round wire with one pin coming out of the end connector), DVI cables (the ones with a trapezoidal end jack, with about 15 pins, that is often used for a computer monitor), composite and component cables (the familiar old red and green, or white and yellow cable pairs that TVs have used for decades), and many many more. They are not part of every device yet, though, so adapters will still have to be used for several years to come when connecting an HDMI port to a non-HDMI port. To see pictures of these connectors check this article: connecting your computer to your HDTV.

And even though HDMI is the most powerful cable in consumer electronics, there is still something better- future versions of HDMI. The standard right now is called HDMI 1.0, and it is capable of handling the most advanced HDTV technology (1080p, 120Hz, Blu-Ray) that you can buy right now. Just around the corner is a new standard called HDMI 1.3 that should handle the next generation of HDTVs, whether they can play 2560×1600 resolution, super enhanced audio, 3-D movies, or even smell-o-vision. Getting a 1.0 cable is fine for now, though, because they are cheap and can handle just about anything.