SAY, ISN’T THAT ELVIS?
The Grating Light Valve emerges from hiding in Salt Lake City

INFOCOMM 2005:
Nothing Out of the Ordinary

SID 2005:
LCD’S Full Metal Jacket

Terrestrial DTV:
It’s Not Quite Dead Yet!

Flat-Panel Monitors
and Urban Legends

ONE GALLON = 2 QUARTS?
If you bought a gallon of milk and found it half-empty, it’s a safe bet you’d raise heck with the store manager. Similarly, if you bought tickets to a basketball game that ended at halftime, you’d want a refund pretty darn quick. So why settle for half the picture resolution on your HD monitor or projector?

THE 2005 SUPER BOWL HDTV PARTY It had plenty of hype. It showcased two storied teams, including a two-time NFL champion. It had hordes of die-hard Eagles fans, dressed in green. It was delivered in a 100% high-definition broadcast from Fox with surround sound and featured a halftime show by the one and only Sir Paul McCartney.

CES 2005 If there was a theme at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, it had to be this: “We manufactured it, because we could!” Pocket projectors, super-sized plasma, flat screen TVs with built-in digital video recorders and LCD monitor with LED backlights were all part of the scene.

JUST HOW IMPORTANT
IS 1920x1080 IMAGING
IN A DISPLAY?
If you follow the electronic display market as I do, you know that one of the hot topics now is ‘1080p’. More specifically, it means having a front projector, rear-projection monitor, or flat-panel display with true 1920x1080 pixel progressive-scan imaging.

TIME TO CRY “UNCLE”?
NEC did it. Sony says they’ll do it. Fujitsu is thinking about it, too. What’s “it?” Why, giving up on the plasma display business – either manufacturing, marketing and selling, or both.

Has LCOS become a four letter word?

There’s no question that Cedia Expo 04 has gone ‘mainstream’, what with over 24,000 attendees this year.

2003 was a watershed year for display technology and video as "next year" finally arrived.

Plasma, LCD, and DLP technology dominated Cedia Expo 2003. Read Steam rollered and find out more!

This year’s running of CES was, above all, a celebration of thinness. Everywhere you looked, you saw walls, racks, tiles, frames, and cavalcades of flat-panel TVs

A record 65 guests attended the fifth annual Super Bowl '04 HDTV Party.

What does the future look like for the projector business? Read Let's Get Real and find out.

The market for flat panel displays may be maturing, but the underlying technology isn’t remaining stagnant.

It seems like Texas Instruments' DLP technology has scored a knockout in the large venue arena. No, wait - another challenger has entered the ring...

What lies ahead for electronic display technology? Read What Schemes May Come for my predictions.

HDTV/DTV Tutorial Are you new to digital television? Want to know more about standards, TVs, receivers, and antennas? Read The Picture Clears Up.

Setting Up HDTV/DTV Reception The best way to 'see' DTV waveforms is with a spectrum analyzer, and they've come down quite a bit in price. Add one to your tool kit!

Winegard’s SS-2000 follows up last years’ introduction of the basic Square Shooter VHF/UHF antenna. What’s the difference between them? The SS-2000 has a built-in preamplifier.

On April 8, Mitsubishi rolled out their 2005 lineup of HDTVs in Orlando, and there were quite a few surprises on hand – some obvious, some not so obvious.

KREISEN KR-370T 37-INCH LCD HDTV Kreisen’s KR-370T is of special interest because of its low price (MSRP $2,699) and its use of LCD glass manufactured by LG Philips LCD. Can an LCD TV with a screen this size at this price point deliver the goods?

Panasonic PT-AE500U/L500U Front LCD Projector

A Full House
For this review, I chose a cross-section of five plasma and LCD monitors ranging from 42” to 61”. Models tested include Sony’s PFM-42X1, NEC’s PX61MX3, LG’s L4200A, Pioneer’s PDP504CMX, and Barco’s Solaris LC40. All of them are true multimedia monitors, with the capability to show both analog and digital PC and video signals.

Winegard’s SS-1000 Square Shooter Antenna: A Better Mousetrap?

Sanyo's PLV-Z1 home theater projector uses LCD panels with an oddball pixel resolution. How well does it work?

Panasonic's PT-D7600U is a ground-breaking 'lightweight' 3-chip DLP projector for the installation market. Here's a review.

Product Review:  Zenith's HDV420 is a low-price ($399) entry-level terrestrial DTV tuner with a simple interface and good performance.

Samsung SIR-T151 and
SIR-T165 ATSC Set-Top Receivers Samsung has two new terrestrial-only digital TV receivers at reasonable prices. The T151 is an entry-level model, while the T165 adds NTSC and CATV compatibility plus FireWire connections for D-VHS recording.

A Baker's Dozen, 14 new LCD, DLP, and LCoS projectors are put to the test in.
BenQ SL705X,
Christie Vivid LX41
Epson PL730c
Hitachi CP-X990W
InFocus LP650
JVC DLA-G150
Mitsubishi XL30 ColorView
NEC LT260
Optoma EZPro 735
Panasonic PT-L780NTU
Sanyo PLV-70
Sharp XG-C50X
Sony VPL-PX40
Toshiba TLP-T701

11 new LCD and plasma TV/monitors are reviewed in my biggest flat-screen test ever.
Fujitsu PDS-5003
Hitachi CMP-4121HDU
NEC PlasmaSync 42MP4
NEC PlasmaSync 50MP2
Panasonic TH-37PWD4U
Pioneer PDP-433MX
Samsung SM241MP
Sharp LC-30HV2U
Sony PFM32C1
Sony PFM50C1
Zenith P42W22

Review: Princeton Graphics 30" HDTV monitor

Review: Sony VPH-G90U 9" CRT installation projector

Panasonic’s 2005 TV line show wasn’t nearly as significant for what was announced as it was for a casual remark made to me after the formal presentations: Panasonic is apparently exiting the microdisplay rear-projection TV business.

The Ambler Theater, a non-profit community theater in Ambler, Pennsylvania, held its Second Annual Oscars Party on Sunday evening, February 27. What made this event different from the previous year was the HD feed of the Academy Awards® from local ABC station WPVI-DT.

Just Because Someone Says It's “HDTV!” Doesn’t Mean It Really Is HDTV...

Cables - Coaxial vs. Fiber vs. Twisted Pair How much longer will we continue to pull analog multi-wire cable for new AV installations? Read The Gordian Knot and find out.

LED Large Screen Displays
The humble LED is making a comeback and holding its own against front projectors.

Video Scalar Tutorial
What the heck is a video scalar, anyway? Read Between the Lines and find out.

Interfacing Video to LCD, DLP, D-ILA, and Plasma Displays Fixed-pixel displays may be the greatest thing since toaster ovens, but they bring unique interfacing problems to the table. Read The Holy Grail, or Pandora's Box? to find out why.

No two people see color the same way. Apparently, neither do color analyzers! Check out The Same, but Different to find out more.

Electronic cinema is still waiting in the starting gate for multiplex cinemas. But there's another group Beating a New Path to the Screen.

Digital technology is changing the way we'll network pieces of A/V gear in the near future. Find out more by checking out Mixed Signals?

High-definition TV is all about screen resolution - if your studio or production monitor doesn't have it, you won't see it. Read See All That You Can See to find out more.

What's the brightest way to display large electronic images outdoors? Would you believe the humble light-emitting diode (LED)?

Ever hear of a balun? Do you know how they can be used to run video and audio over Cat 3 and Cat 5 wire? You will, after you read A Question Of Balance.

A big hurdle for electronic cinema to overcome is color reproduction. Do you know the differences between additive and subtractive color systems? CIE and CCIR601 color gamuts? What an "illegal" color is? Check out Color Coordinated to find out more.

Lasers have been around for a while, but only recently has someone tried to use 'em in a projector. Found out how and where in Lasers: The Next Wave?

Everyone knows that linearity is important in audio circuits, but it's just as important when processing and displaying video. Read Linearity in Displays to find out why.