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THE FRONT LINE |
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| CES
2004: A PHALANX OF FLAT SCREENS |
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by Peter H. Putman, CTS 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. Plasma and LCD monitors and TVs simply took over the buzz at the show, aided immeasurably by demonstrations of 70”, 71”, 75”, 76”, and 80” plasma monitors, and an array of LCD monitor and TV products in sizes to 57”. Perhaps not coincidentally, CES 2004 also witnessed and explosion of HDTV as both a “brand” and unique service that is rapidly gaining cache with consumers. You can get your HDTV fix many ways now – off-air, through cable, or over satellite. (Or by all three “pipes”, if you wish and have enough $$$.) There are even several HD-DVD formats lurking in the shadows, waiting for their long-promised debuts later this year and in 2005.
As if the field of manufacturers isn’t crowded enough, two brand names from the past were resurrected at CES to hawk LCD, plasma, and microdisplay RPTVs. Peripherals such as hard drive recorders (TiVo and otherwise) are also stepping into the HTV arena, and plenty of folks were showing HDTV signals ported around the home via wireless 802.11g (5 GHz) links. The Federal Communications Commission is partly to blame for this explosion of product. The first of several DTV-compliant mandates pops up on July 1 of this year, when manufacturers are required to deliver TVs featuring screen sizes of 36 inches or larger with integrated (built-in) terrestrial digital (ATSC) tuners. Many of the new big-screen sets shown at CES went the FCC one better by including digital cable tuners for unencrypted QAM signals. After sifting through a barrage of press releases and press kits, I did find some unique products and news at the show. Here are some of the highlights.
One of the funniest things I have seen in a long time is the one-upsmanship going on between Samsung and LG with their plasma and LCD products. You may recall last year that LG unveiled a 52-inch LCD monitor with 1920x1080 resolution, only to be topped by Samsung’s 54-inch product. Well, things really got out of hand this year. LG had already announced a 55-inch LCD TV (same 1080p resolution) and brought it to the show as a topper to Samsung’s 54-inch product. Surprise! Samsung showed up with a 57-inch design anyway. Both of these monitors/TVs had great contrast, good color saturation, and amazing image detail. Some motion smear was still seen, but this problem seems to be under vigorous attack by the engineering staffs in Korea.
Sharps’ announcement of their LC-45G1 45-inch LCD TV product was almost lost in the shuffle, but it too had good-looking pictures, great color saturation, and a nice form factor. Unfortunately, this particular LCD TV (also with 1920x1080 resolution) had noticeable motion smearing artifacts when it wasn’t showing HD images of colorful flowers and slow-moving lizards. The plasma fun and games started with Samsung announcing a 70-inch plasma late in 2003. Of course, LG just had to come up with a 71-inch model. So, Samsung replied, “I’ll see you and raise you” with a 75-inch design, only to see it topped by LG’s 76-inch product. Figuring that particular hand was won, LG let it go at that – only to see Samsung install an 80-inch plasma product the day before CES opened. Most of these PDPs looked quite good, with only the 80” product needing some help with contrast. All of them are 1920x1080 devices, and I wouldn’t expect them to be appearing at a showroom near you any time soon. But it is interesting to see how far PDP manufacturers can push the envelope.
It has been many years since I saw a Motorola TV, and Westinghouse for me long meant washers, dryers, and refrigerators. Both names made a comeback at CES on a wide range of displays, with Motorola having by far the broader spectrum of TVs. Their line (distributed by Moxell) offers everything from 15” to 47” LCD TVs, a DLP rear-projector, and a handful of plasma monitors. Westinghouse Digital, on the other hand, will stick exclusively with a line of LCD TVs from under 20 inches to 47 inches. Their products, shown in the Hilton, weren’t spectacular, but functional. Included was a hard drive recorder for SDTV, with an HD version promised in the near future.
Philips showed new 37-inch and 42-inch LCD TVs (both 1280x768 resolution) that will be shipping later this year. In what had to be one of the goofiest press conferences at CES, Philips announced their Ambilight TV. It’s an LCD TV equipped with a pair of variable-color fluorescent backlights that can change color to suit your mood. Nice try; no cigar. Humax had a clever 32-inch LCD TV with a built-in PVR (NTSC only). It comes with enough memory to store and shift about an hour of TV programming, and an ATSC version is due later in the year. Daewoo had an impressive booth where they showed off the DSL-40WD3, a 40-inch LCD TV prototype that didn’t appear to have any internal digital TV tuners. How big can they go? LG demo’ed an integrated 55-inch LCD HDTV with 1920x1080 resolution (no price or model# yet) and LG’s fifth-generation ATSC VSB/QAM tuner for terrestrial digital HDTV and unscrambled digital cable reception, plus an NTSC tuner. Throw in a DVR and you’ve got a do-it-all 1080p TV consumer would die for, assuming they could afford it!
With the FCC digital tuner mandate (July 1, 2004) looming on the horizon for 36-inch and larger TVs, there were plenty of integrated digital LCD and plasma products to be seen, and many of them were also cable-ready with CableCard connections. Panasonic showcased their new line of Viera integrated plasma TVs. The TH-50PX25U/P (50-inch, $8500), TH-42PX25U/P (42-inch, $6000) and TH-37PX25U/P (37-inch, $4000) all feature an ATSC integrated tuner, Picture-in-Picture, SD Memory Card slots and HDMI input. There’s also a CableCARD slot for one-way digital cable reception.
LG and Samsung both showed 42-, 50-, and 60-inch integrated plasma TVs with ATSC and QAM tuners, plus some really cool front-panel designs. Samsung even had a wireless (802.11g) plasma demo with the 50-inch HPP5091 ($12,999). Hitachi showed their new 55-inch 55HDM71, a 1366x768 monitor product that will soon have life as an integrated plasma TV. Fujitsu had the same 55-inch glass in their suite as the P55HXA30WS (monitor only), although the price Fujitsu was quoting was almost $5,000 more than the Hitachi product. V Inc. opened a few eyes and made one of my 2003 year-end predictions come true by announcing the Vizio P50HD, the first 50-inch plasma monitor to sell for less than $5,000 ($4,999.99 to be exact!). Shortly after CES, CompUSA made another prediction come to pass by recently offering a 42-inch SDTV plasma for $1,999. NEC finally decided to sell plasma direct to the consumer market and unveiled their 42XM2 42-inch, 50XM3 50-inch, and 61XM2 61-inch plasma monitors. Over at the MGM Grand, JVC rolled out a pair of integrated digital terrestrial/cable-ready plasma TVs, the 42-inch PD42X795 and 50-inch PD-50X995 that’ll sell for $6K and $9K, respectively.
The big news at CES this year was home networking. (Not that Microsoft hasn’t been grinding that axe for a while already!) The concept is to have one A/V appliance in your home that would serve up HD content, DVDs, time shift TV programs, be a satellite/cable tuner, surf the web, play CDs and MP3s, and do just about everything except wash the dishes. And how exactly would video, audio, and Internet content be moved around? Judging by the number of wireless demos, I’d say many people are betting heavily on 802.11g and even faster protocols, running in the 5 GHz band. Problem is; with shared bandwidth networks, it won’t take too many movies and JPEG photo sessions to drag everyone’s bit rate down. And let’s not even start to talk about the potential nightmare of RF interference problems such networks could cause.
Products that combine DVRs into TV sets were seen in the LG and Humax demos, and the LG version (built-in to a 62” RPTV) even had a Firewire output so you could save any HD shows to D-VHS. Speaking of which, JVC had a wireless 5 GHz demo sending D-VHS content throughout the house, while Sharp was porting SDTV over the airwaves to a 15’ walk-around LCD TV. InFocus and Thomson/RCA got a lot of attention by unveiling the thinnest DLP TVs yet – an astounding 6.5” for both 50” and 61” versions (a 70” prototype was also shown). In the resolution race, Samsung had the first working prototype of a microdisplay DLP rear-projection TV using 1920x1080 DMDs. InFocus, Sim2, Marantz, and others also showed “CRT killers” – 3-chip 1280x720 front DLP projectors.
Epson became the first company to combine an ink-jet printer and a TV set. Their Livingstation 47-inch and 57-inch HDTVs (they use polysilicon LCDs, by the way) have built-in memory card readers for the most popular still camera formats, and you can print anything you like (even stills captured from a TV program) directly from the remote. Finally, Intel (yep, that Intel) decided they wanted in on some of the foot traffic that has been visiting Texas Instruments’ DLP division in Plano. Accordingly, Intel announced they were getting into the Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) fabrication business, and showed prototype RPTVs with 1080p chips. Given the relatively stagnant PC market, this might not be a bad move – if Intel can tame the “wild beast” that LCoS has become. Given their deep pockets, if Intel can’t do it – who can? Copyright ©2004 Peter H. Putman. All rights reserved.
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