1080p and QuadHD / 4K can take a step back, the Japanese government has announced plans to bring Super Hi-Vision (a.k.a. Ultra High Definition) to life as a broadcast standard by 2015. With its 33 megapixel (7,680 x 4,320) resolution and 22.2 channel surround sound, challenges so far have included building a camera that can record it, and equipment to transfer the 24Gbps uncompressed stream. Fortunately, some forward thinker in Japan’s Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry — that we are strongly considering as a write in candidate for the presidential elections — is beginning a joint project with private companies to make this happen, beginning with a research investment of about $2.7 million this year alone. If you’re still confused as to how much more res this is than anything you currently own, check out the handy chart after the break.
Panasonic has been demonstrating its new 150″ Plasma screen to the public at CES this year. The resolution is 4096×2160, and pictures are shown below. As you might have guessed, this is the world’s largest plasma display.
We just got back from the super sneaky secret LG.Philips room at CES where the totally Surface-esque 52-inch multitouch display was being shown off. The 1920 x 1080 screen rocks an interesting infrared image sensor to get data about hand placement and movement, and is capable of doing all kinds of gesture and area recognition from two separate touch points. Check the gallery to get a better view, and watch the video if you’re excited about the prospect of a flipping, zooming Google Earth on a screen with multitouch.
Frank DeMartin, general manager of Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, was nice enough to talk a little laser TV with us just before the unveiling of the new laser TV — we’re not exaggerating about the “little” part. While it all sounds fantastic, we were disappointed that he wasn’t willing to even begin to satisfy our unlimited thirst for technical details. But he was confident that a laser TV could provide the ultimate in picture quality because “laser has the ability to hit color points that no other technology can.” We understand his desire not to spill trade secrets, but any technical information beyond, “it’s the best” would’ve been better than nothing. So while we don’t know how the TV works, we do know that the principal makes sense; lasers offer the purest form of light, while at the same time use less power than other light sources. The problem of course is that the competition in the HDTV market is a fast moving target, and with the delays Mitsubishi has been dealing with, we wonder how competitively priced this new technology will be — though Frank assured us that Mitsubishi’s dominance in the red laser market will help . Frank says, “it’ll be competitive with flat panel prices,” and that’s great and all, but price isn’t the only factor needed to compete against flat panels, people like thin TVs and the laser TV isn’t thin — it’s about as thin as a DLP. But regardless of being the same price, Mitsu thinks the superior picture quality will trump thin because “people want it flat, but they want it large too.” Either way, we’ll have to wait until some unknown time this year to see if the laser TV can live up to the hype, but with what we know right now, we’re not sold just yet.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/09/will-laser-tvs-be-the-next-big-thing/
Don’t get all frothed up quite yet because it’s still only a prototype, but this sweet doublewide curved DLP display with LED illumination from Alienware will reportedly be available in the second half of ‘08. The curvature of the 2880 x 900 rez screen mimics peripheral vision, and in action the performance seemed pretty flawless to our Crysis-dazzled eyes (official specs report less than .02-millisecond response time). We did notice three faint vertical dividing lines that appeared to indicate four sub-panels making up this screen, but we may be willing to suspend disbelief in exchange for the potential of indulgent wrap-around immersion. There’s not even an inkling of an MSRP on this thing yet, but you know we’re gonna be keeping our eyes on this sucker for ya.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/07/alienware-curved-display-rocks-crysis-at-2880-x-900/
We must have impressed Alienware’s reps with our super-elite Crysis skills this evening, because it only took a little prodding for them to give up some more details on that awesome curved DLP display:
* It’s definitely coming out in the second half of the year, but the model we’ve been seeing is just a late engineering prototype — everything from the internals to the casing is probably going to change.
* There are four LED-backlit DLP projectors inside, which explains the lines in the image above, but the final version will show a seamless image.
* It’s going to be an Alienware product, but it was developed by an ODM called Ostendotech.
* There’s definitely some heavy-duty image-processing going on to make the images appear correctly — the Ostendotech guy called it “the secret sauce” — but most games will support it with very little effort, apparently.
* The ideal viewing position is directly in the middle at about two feet away. That’s when the image seamlessly appears to wrap all the way around you, and it’s just as sweet as you’d expect.
* Pricing information is still infuriatingly non-specific: the best we got was “more than a 17-inch flat panel and less than a Kia.” Thanks, guys.
We know the thing isn’t even barely out, but we feel like we’ve already spent a lifetime waiting to check out the Dell 3008WFP. It’s huge, it’s bright, its color is beautiful, and perhaps most importantly, it has DisplayPort. Kinda unsightly base be damned, we want one. No, make that two.
Source: www.engadget.com
Hmmm, now that’s lovely. Imagine Crysis on that eh ? DailyTech reported that Toshiba’s new 22.2-inch TFT color LCD sports 3840 x 2400 resolution. Unfortunately, the other specifications for the display aren’t nearly as interesting as the resolution. The brightness is only 235 cd/m2; most high-end displays feature brightness in excess of 300 nits. The contrast ratio is 300:1 and the display can produce 16.7 million colors. Viewing angles are simply abysmal at 120 degrees horizontal and 100 degrees vertical.
Toshiba advertises that it will sell the display for 2,079,000 yen, or approximately $18,000 USD. Toshiba also lists a required video card at a price of 312,000 yen or about $2,700 USD, though most high-end video cards today should have no problem supporting ultra-dense resolution — but don’t expect a casual game of Crysis at that resolution. The ship date for the display is Q2 2008.
It’s on HDMI fans, the first LCD panel sporting a VESA-approved DisplayPort 1.1 jack was just announced by Samsung — a world’s first. The 30-inch LCD pumps a 2,560 x 1,600 pixels with a 10-bit color depth at a smokin’ data rate of 10.8Gbps over a single port. In other words, kiss your DVI (and VGA ultimately) spec goodbye as their days are numbered. In addition to the port, we’re talking about a Sammy S-PVA panel with 180-degree viewing angle, 1,000:1 contrast, 6-ms response, and 300cd/m2 brightness. Surprisingly, it’s not scheduled for production delivery until Q2 of 2008. Later than we expected especially if it’s truly the first to ship. Nevertheless, January’s CES is set to be a regular DisplayPort free-for-all with plenty of laptop support provided by Dell, HP, and Lenovo among others.
Source: www.engadget.com
VAIO users wanting to keep things coordinated now have a new option to consider, with Sony recently introducing its 24-inch VGP-D24WD1 widescreen monitor, apparently designed specifically to go along with their Type R desktops. From the looks of it this one hits all the right spec marks, boasting a 1920 x 1200 resolution, 92% NTSC color purity, a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 400cd/m2 brightness, and a 6 ms response time, along with a pair of HDCP-compliant DVI ports and one VGA port. Look for this one to be available in Japan “soon” for ¥129,000 (or roughly $1,060).
1080p and QuadHD / 4K can take a step back, the Japanese government has announced plans to bring Super Hi-Vision (a.k.a. Ultra High Definition) to life as a broadcast standard by 2015. With its 33 megapixel (7,680 x 4,320) resolution and 22.2 channel surround sound, challenges so far have included building a camera that can record it, and equipment to transfer the 24Gbps uncompressed stream. Fortunately, some forward thinker in Japan’s Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry — that we are strongly considering as a write in candidate for the presidential elections — is beginning a joint project with private companies to make this happen, beginning with a research investment of about $2.7 million this year alone. If you’re still confused as to how much more res this is than anything you currently own, check out the handy chart after the break.
