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HDTVs / CES 2007 Press Conferences
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Dick
De Jong
January 7, 2007
HDTV Solutions
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| Sunday
Today was Press Day - the exhibit
floor opens tomorrow - and true to its name, the day was filled with back
to back press conferences from some of the biggest names in HDTVs. Let
me take you through some of them chronologically, highlighting some of
the trends I was seeing along the way.
Before we get rolling, I must
remind you that CES is a preview for the coming year. A lot of the products
companies are trumpeting are not ready for the Big Box showroom floor.
Most of them have Q's as suffixes, meaning they will be out in Q2, (the
second quarter of the year) or Q3 and even occasionally Q1. |
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| I'll start
with Philips who was celebrating producing their one millionth Ambilight
Flat TV with a special diamond encrusted model. The Ambilight effect is
created by an LED light source surrounding the edge of the back of the
TV and emitting a soft light onto the wall. Philips is introducing their
first 52" 1080p Ambilight model to go along with their 32 and 47".
As I was hopping from press
conference to press conference, I couldn't help but notice how companies
were trying to mark their LCD or Plasma territories. Philips is firmly
in the LCD camp and countered one of the arguments about LCDs not handling
motion scenes as well as plasmas. So Philips will be releasing an LCD
with a 120 Hz refresh rate, (double the normal 60 Hz) and a 4 ms response
time, (half the standard 8 ms). But then as I trotted around, Sharp and
Samsung were also touting similar future models. And even Panasonic, which
is firmly carrying the plasma flag, is coming out with their 120 Hz, 4
ms LCD HDTV. |
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| Sharp wowed the
crowd with their unveiling of their king of the hill 108" LCD, which they
say will be available in the summer. If you can't wait, you can pick up
their 65" baby for about 11 grand. Pushing the technology envelope, their
new D92 models will feature the 120 Hz, 4 ms specs as well as, I-need-to-see-it-to-believe-it
15,000 to 1 contrast ratio. These 1080p sets will come in 42, 46, and 52"
sizes. In the technological ionosphere, Sharp is talking about a 65" TV with
a million to one contrast and a separate prototype with a 4000 x 2000 pixel
resolution. (And you were just getting comfortable with 1080p.) |
Samsung who claims number one TV market share worldwide continues to believe
in the viability of DLPs because they deliver larger |
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| size screens per
dollar over LCDs or plasmas. Making them even more desirable, Samsung has
slimmed them down to where their new 87 series of DLPs are only 10" deep.
They are also introducing their second generation Blu-ray player, the BD-P1200,
which includes a new IP processor (HQV) and an ethernet connection.
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Panasonic 58" Plasma
HDTV
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Panasonic,
which spent almost a third of their presentation counting the advantages
of plasma (deeper blacks, better motion playback) and countering the misconceptions
(recharging the plasma, short life), touted (with the help of a videotaped
message from Eva Longoria) their soon to be released 50 and 58" 1080p
plasmas to go along with their already available 65". Interestingly, their
42" model will be the last to go 1080p with the explanation that for many
people, they will not see the difference between 1080p and 720p at that
small of screen size. (We will cover that topic soon in a non-CES article.)
Of course, you can buy their 103" 1080p plasma now.
As I begin to explore the show
floor tomorrow, I will update you on what some of the other major players
have in store for HDTVs in ‘07.
I will also attempt to make
some sense out of another concept that has the convention buzzing in one
form or another. I can describe it as digital asset networking. A lot
of you are running into the scenario already. You are downloading music
and you also have a library of CDs and DVDs. Your digital camera is spitting
out photos at an accelerated rate. Then there's YouTube and cable and
home made videos. And you would love to view them all on your 42" HDTV,
and stream your PVR programs to your laptop and listen to your IPod on
your speaker system in the living room. Everyone seems to be designing
systems to network all your digital toys together. The problem is that
the solutions range all over the map from high bandwith wi-fi to sending
HD signals over your in-house power lines. I think I could wear out my
best walking shoes trying to track down this mystery.
Stay tuned.
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