HDTV Reviews

Regardless of what HD equipment you buy, you’ll need ways of linking it all together. And with the increased interest in home networking and HDTV via broadband Internet, you could be looking at an even bigger mass of spaghetti-wiring around your shiny new gear.

That is, unless you reduce the clutter by utilising your existing power supply.

Devolo’s HomePlug AV standard is a new home networking solution offering blistering data transfer speeds of 200Mbps - that’s 200 times the speed of a basic broadband connection: perfect for streaming high-definition content around the home - and all using existing electrical wiring.

And it’s literally plug and play technology, using special equipment that simply plugs into a spare power socket.

There’s no additional cabling to install (as per Ethernet) and no loss of signal (as wireless).

It looks like a great solution for HD video-streaming, VoIP (Internet telephony), and computer networking.

I don’t have a release date or price for this kit at present, but it’s coming soon. It’s a logical extension to the dLink audio streaming kit already available from Devolo.
Source: http://www.hdtvuk.tv

Shanghai-based foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. has said it has started volume production of high-definition digital liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) panel chips for Aurora Systems.

Aurora Systems Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) has designed both 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution and 1280 by 720 pixel resolution LCOS modules suitable for rear-projection television. Several consumer electronics manufacturers have designed these modules into large-screen rear-projection televisions.

“Aurora’s collaboration with SMIC started in early 2005, and we are delighted to see our mutual hard work come into fruition in such a short time, further re-affirming Aurora’s commitment in engaging SMIC as our long-term strategic foundry partner,” said

Poking Li, acting CEO of Aurora Systems, said in a statement issued by SMIC that Aurora would work with SMIC as a long-term partner.

“We aim to be the foundry of choice for LCOS backplane wafers to global IDM and fabless customers,” said James Sung, vice president of marketing and sales at SMIC.

Sony’s KDE-W50A12U Let’s face it, plasma costs a lot of money, and for the general buying public the price differential between similar sized LCD HDTVs is hardly enough to justify the increasingly marginal benefits the more expensive set offers. Still, we know we can count on Sony to drop a good 50-inch HDTV like their KDE-W50A12U, which TrustedReviews took a look at and for whatever reason declared Sony’s last plasma (which we thought was a misreported rumor refuted years ago). Still, the TV has as a native 1,366 x 768 pixel count with HDMI, component, and three SCART inputs, and a digital tuner to boot. But while TR seemed to think it was a great display, a 50-inch Sony TV that could run you as much as £4,500 (about $8,400 US) is becoming increasingly difficult to justify in the world of affordable home theater rigs that in their entirety wouldn’t cost as much as this display alone.
http://www.engadget.com

Sky will launch its high-definition TV service on 22 May, with Star Wars movie Return of the Sith and US drama 24 among the initial line-up.

The broadcaster will install its first HDTV boxes that day after taking 40,000 advance orders from customers since bookings opened on 13 April.

HDTV promises clearer pictures and sound, but viewers need compatible TVs and set-top boxes to receive it.

Cable firm Telewest is also offering HDTV services to its customers.

It is currently offering programmes on demand to customers who use its TVDrive service.

The BBC will offer live coverage of World Cup football on HDTV via Sky and Telewest as part of a year-long trial.

It has also teamed up with ITV, Channel 4 and Five to test HDTV broadcasts that can be picked up through normal aerials.

But this trial is restricted to a selected number of Freeview users in the London area.

Widespread HDTV broadcasts via Freeview may not be possible until after the UK has fully switched to digital TV in 2012.

Other highlights in Sky’s first week of HDTV include Star Trek Enterprise, live coverage of England’s second cricket Test with Sri Lanka and rugby union’s Guinness Premiership final.

HDTV Digital Cable
Before I start on cable, please remember that each provider is completely different. What is offered in Minneapolis, MN may not be what is offered in your neck of the woods. Check with your local provider to see what they can provide. That being said, we’re on a Time Warner circuit that uses the Scientific Atlanta (Cisco) 8300HD DVRs running the SARA operating system. From a features standpoint the cable system is truly awesome. I have on-demand media allowing me to purchase a SD or HD movie (many SD selections, almost no HD selections) and watch it with full transport control (meaning play, pause, fast forward, etc.) I can expand the storage of the box by adding a SATA drive to the back of the unit, and the system has dual tuners built in allowing me to plug ONE coax cable into the box and record two channels at the same time while viewing a third pre-recorded show. Feature wise cable kicks butt. Actual usage wise, it’s a bit lacking. The DVR software is very basic, it’s not very pretty and not very feature rich. There’s no 30-second advance, there’s no ‘record this program on any channel at any time’ feature… It’s a bare bones DVR. No frills, no fun. Want to have the DVR look at your viewing habits and suggest shows? No chance. Want to exclude channels from the electronic program guide (EPG)? No way. You see all of the channels, even if you don’t subscribe to them. The software needs a major overhaul as it’s missing many, many features; however, the system works and it works well. I can watch an HDTV show while recording another, or watch a recorded HDTV show while recording two other HDTV shows. The EPG is very, very fast allowing me to scan through all 1000 channels in very little time. While there are no frills and the interface is the opposite of sexy, it works.

DirecTV HDTV package
Then there’s DirecTV’s HDTV offerings. Just as many HDTV channels as our cable system (over 20), Tivo DVR, and local channels available. Great. I have been a cable subscriber for many years since my apartment faces north and I simply can’t get satellite here. Now that I get to help install satellite service (in a friends house) I’m really excited to see what satellite can do. I love playing with new things and trying out different stuff. Besides, it simply CAN’T be worse than cable. I mean come on! Look at that DVR menu!!! Scroll back up and look at it. Yeah.

The satellite installer comes out with the DirecTV HD10-250 system in hand and preps for install. Turns out that unlike cable satellite has a limit as to how many boxes can be placed on a triple LNB system. I have 4 available tuners to work with. If I want the boxes to be dual tuner like my cable system, I can only have 2 boxes on that dish. We currently have 6 satellite boxes installed on the DirectTV SD system so moving to the HD means we would have to eliminate 2 boxes and run single tuner for all systems, or install a whole new dish, leave the old SD system in place, and run the new system as dual tuner, which is what we opted to do. Unfortunately in our area there was no way to add a second dish to the part of the house that is in the right position, so we were forced to add a freaking ugly dish to the front yard on an even uglier 5′ pole. This is probably the ugliest thing I have ever seen. So we didn’t start on a strong note, but I figured it was a minor problem and it should be clear sailing from here. Wrong. The entertainment center we have the HDTV in only has one coax cable run to it, and the installer does not want to run a second cable for us. This means that the new HDTV system can only watch one channel at a time while viewing a recorded one. I can not record two shows and I can’t record a show while watching another live show. ONE tuner until I run another cable and running another cable will cost us $$. I asked if I could simply split the coax cable at the box, but apparently the line carries power which gets killed if I use a splitter. Great. Read more

Medion has announced it is launching a 32-inch High Definition (HD) ready LCD television, for under £600.

The Medion MD 20099 offers WXGA 1366 x 768 picture resolution and uses CTI, 3D comb filter and noise reduction technology to enhance the quality of the High Definition picture.

Typical brightness is 550 cd/m2 with a contrast ratio of 1000:1, providing a sharp, clear image. Stereo Nicam sound is delivered by 2 x 10 Watt RMS outputs, supported by a five band equalizer for rich, precise sound quality.

The set also features dual tuner PIP (picture in picture) with Multipicture, enabling viewing of a second channel in a thumbnail window, and PAT (picture and text), which shows a picture and Teletext simultaneously on a split screen.

Connections included are an HDMI socket with HDCP encoding, 75 Ohm antenna in, PC VGA in (15 pin D-Sub), S-Video In, Audio L/R In (Cinch, with optional YPbPr Video In), two SCART ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Medion’s MD 20099 HD ready LCD-TV is on sale from the end of May 2006.

Dads and grads have one thing in common—they appreciate a reward for a job well done. One gift that is unlikely to be returned or exchanged is a new high-definition TV. The price of HDTVs has never been better, and shopping for a new TV doesn’t have to turn into a stress-inducing journey into the bowels of a megastore. Knowledge empowers, and selecting the right HDTV for that special someone requires an understanding of their needs and sticking to your budget.

Before you swipe the card on a new TV, consider the lucky recipient’s home theater environment—or lack thereof. Space is the primary concern. You don’t want to bestow a 70-inch rear-projection TV (RPTV) on someone who barely has room for the decrepit second-hand 27-inch CRT (cathode ray tube) they have now. Likewise, if the room size and viewing distances are ample, go as big as the budget allows.

Once you know how much space you have to work with, selecting an appropriate HDTV becomes largely a function of price. For HDTVs with screen sizes up to 36 inches, CRTs remain the best bang for the buck. The image quality of every new display technology is compared to CRTs and, until very recently, the classic tube remained unmatched.

The obvious downsides of CRT-based HDTVs are mass and weight. Everyone who owns a large tube TV dreads the day they have to move it—unless they are making room for something thin and flat. This is where liquid crystal displays (LCDs) become the ideal HDTV option. While they are available in sizes similar to smaller PC monitors on up to 65-inch behemoths, LCD TVs smaller than 40 inches represent the best value. LCD TVs offer a bright picture and anti-reflective screens that make them ideal for rooms where ambient light is difficult to control.

For screen sizes above 40 inches, plasma display panels (PDPs) are a better flat-panel value. A common size for smaller plasma TVs is 42 inches, and the intense competition among plasma display manufacturers has resulted in lower prices, better picture quality, and increased longevity. High-definition video makes any HDTV look its best, but 42-inch HD plasmas are among my favorite displays for watching DVD movies. The price of some 50-inch PDPs are literally half of what they cost a year or two ago, but the largest models still command premium prices.

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Enter the FOX & Friends Sweepstakes - Win a Free Trip to New York, Appearance on the Show and a 42″ Plasma HDTV!

Win a chance to be on FOX News Channel! Yes, That’s exactly right! This could be YOUR chance to shine, to get YOUR message out on national TV! This year FOX & Friends is running a true sweepstakes, which means they are required BY LAW to award the prize to whoever wins. No exceptions. No background checks. No strings. The righties have already flooded the site with entries to the point where it shut down yesterday. But the F&F hosts assured us this morning that everything has been fixed and they’re now set up for higher traffic volume. We thought - given that FOX is the “fair and balanced” network - that it would only be right and proper to announce the contest to those of you who do not agree with their politics.

The deadline is 7:00 Pm ET on May 21st so you better get yourself over to the site, submit your entry and then PASS IT ON to all of your progressive friends and relatives. There is one thing you should know. By entering, you give FOX News permission to send you e-mail messages about itself and its sponsors. However, you can opt out of any such e-mails by unsubscribing.

Important note! FOX News has given itself an “out” regarding the internet, i.e., it can shut down the online registration (see below) under certain circumstances. So, please respect this. Don’t abuse their rules or they’ll be able to cut us off.

http://promotions.foxnews.com/

Cable operators are expected to significantly boost the rollout of high-definition set-top boxes in the near future, and Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield wrote in a report last week that while the acceleration of new services is always encouraging, there is a down side as well. Greenfield wrote that virtually every cable chief technology officer at the National Show in Atlanta earlier this month expressed a desire to step up the HDTV rollout.

But Greenfield wrote that he fears that operators will de-emphasize the move to all-digital networks while they concentrate on rolling out more HDTV. That could pose problems in the future because of bandwidth constraints moving to all digital would free up more spectrum to add more HDTV channels.

“At the NCTA convention, we sense cable operators were not interested in even considering all-digital [forced conversion] until digital penetration exceeds 70%,” Greenfield wrote, noting that only one operator, Cablevision Systems Corp., is anywhere near that level of digital penetration.

“We continue to believe consumers who buy new HDTVs will migrate toward whichever mutlichannel provider offers them the deepest HD programming,” Greenfield wrote. “While the bundle will be an advantage for cable versus satellite it will not prevent churn if programming is noticeably better elsewhere [over the past decade MSOs failed to accurately 'read' early consumer demand for digital programming and DVRs relative to the satellite industry].”

The home theatre environment has certainly come a long way over the past 60 years. Back then, the typical home theatre experience involved the entire family huddled around a black and white analogue set in the living room, watching the same TV programme as every other person in the country. It certainly is an archaic concept to most of us nowadays when, thanks to recent technological advancements, we can enthusiastically devour cinema theatre-quality experiences in the comfort of our own private spaces.

Enter the HD experience

The advent of high definition (HD) technology has resulted in HD TVs becoming a feature of our domestic spaces. Fifteen per cent of homes in the United States have an HDTV, with numbers growing steadily. As the insatiable appetite for the HD experience grows, the consumer market is expanding from niche to mainstream. But misconceptions surrounding the technology and capabilities of the product still abound.

The misconceptions

As a manufacturer of HD DVD players, we understand about consumers’ desires to reap all the benefits their HDTV’s promise. Some of the most frequently asked questions are ‘What resolution should I choose from my DVD player that is best suited to my LCD TV?’, ‘Will 1080i work well on my TV?’, and ‘How can I get the best high definition resolution from my TV?’

We have also noticed some misconceptions that have come into play. One common mistake is to wrongly interpret HDTV specifications that read something like ‘This TV supports 720p and 1080i high definition video input’ as meaning that the HDTV will support 720p and 1080i resolutions. The truth is, very few HDTV screens have a ‘native’ resolution that can match 1080i.

The thing to note is that each LCD, plasma and DLP TV has its own native resolution. To answer the above questions therefore, we must first find out what the ‘native resolution’ of the TV is. Older-generation plasma TV screens, for example, only have a resolution of 852 x 480, while the new generation plasma TV screens have a higher resolution of 1024 x 1024.

Step 1
The video source will output a resolution signal that is different to the HDTV’s native resolution.

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