HDTV Almanac

The manufacturer shipment data reported for the second quarter of 2008 by DisplaySearch shows plasma units “surged” by 35%, largely on the strength of Vizio’s introduction of a 32″ plasma TV. This reprieve for plasma will be short-lived, however, as LCD models are available with better features at lower prices.

The conventional wisdom has been that LCD wins for anything under 50″ these days, and plasma faces a struggle to remain competitive. But earlier this year, there appeared to be a shortage of 32″ LCD panels developing. And Vizio saw an opportunity to steal some market share by creating a 32″ plasma set. (This size plasma, by the way, is selling like hotcakes in the Chinese domestic market.) So they cme out with the Vizio VP322 that has a list price of $650.

But the fact is that flat panel sales slowed a bit, and the LCD panel makers caught up with demand, and the 32″ LCD TVs appear to be doing just fine now, thank you. Even Vizio offers three LCD models priced the same or lower than their plasma model. So which is the better deal?

The LCDs win on resolution alone. The 32″ plasma has the requisite 720 lines for high-definition images, but it falls down on the horizontal resolution. Like many smaller plasma panels, it only has 1,024 horizontal pixels. This means that it cannot display the full detail of a 720p image; I call it “almost HD”. The LCD panels, on the other hand, have no difficulty in making small pixels. They have Wide XGA resolution, which is 1,366 by 768 pixel native resolution, which is more than enough to display the 1,280 by 720 required for 720p images.

Now, I’ll grant you that both of these pixel arrangements will have to scale a 720p image in order to fit it on the screen, but the plasma will have to throw away information where the LCD will be interpolating to fill in the gaps of an expanded image. Assuming equal quality scaling circuitry, I’ll take the solution that expands existing information over one that throws it away. For 1080p images, both the LCD and plasma will have to throw away information from the image, but the LCD will have throw away less.

I expect to see prices for 32″ LCD HDTVs continue to fall, especially if sales are slow in September, and I doubt that plasma will be able to keep up competitively. The small plasma models enjoyed a nice bump in the first half of this year, but I don’t expect them to remain as a significant part of the flat panel landscape going forward.

Maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else get the idea that the FCC is making up this digital TV transition thing as they go along? After what seemed like years of wrangling before they finally set a firm date for the changeover, they have been making some major adjustments ever since.

For example, there was the decision to make Wilmington, NC a guinea pig for the transition, making all their stations switch over the week after Labor Day. Oh, except for the full-powered public television station that is part of the statewide emergency broadcast system (as we enter the heart of hurricane season.) Was this test case a part of the original plan? The fact that it was decided on last spring leads one to think not.

And then there are the changes in the rules for broadcasters on the Mexican border, and the problem of what to do with the funds for millions of converter box rebate cards that weren’t used before their 90-day expiration date. And on and on. You have to wonder just how much planning went into this whole program.

And now the FCC has decided that not enough U.S. television owners are aware of the impending digital transition. That’s not too surprising, as study after study continue to show significant percentages of the most-affected groups don’t completely understand the situation. So what is the FCC’s response? The commissioners are heading out to “all those markets in which more than 100,000 households or at least 15% of the households rely solely on over-the-air signals for television.” This outreach program will hold “a public event, such as a town hall meeting, workshop, or roundtable with an FCC Commissioner” in each market, with the hope that local radio, TV, and print press will cover the events.

The FCC press release lists 81 markets that will be visited, though the list raises more questions than it answers. Philadelphia is on it, but Pittsburg is not. Pittsburg surely has more than 100,000 households. Yet two markets in Alaska — Anchorage and Fairbanks – are on the list. Only Honolulu made the cut for Hawaii. Seven markets in California are on the list, though San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose are lumped into one. Maybe there’s a rationale fof choosing the sites for these visits, but it’s not immediately obvious. And there’s no mention of how much all this will cost, or where the money is coming from for this last-ditch attempt to educate the country.

I don’t think that the sky is falling yet, though I do think that there will be a lot of surprised and unhappy people, starting with Wilmington in a few short weeks. And I think that the segments of the population most likely to be affected by the transition are not likely to notice a visit by an FCC commissioner. I do think that there are a lot of aspects of this transition that show signs of lack of vision in its conception and implementation, where creative measures might have been more cost-effective and have more impact. And this road trip plan is just underscores my assessment.

Toshiba has announced their new XD-E500 DVD player, with a $149 list price. The product marks the debut of new “eXtended Detail Enhancement (XDE)” technology. The company claims that this player can give “near-HD” quality to standard DVDs. It not only upscales (like many other standard DVD players), but it adds processing for edge enhancement, color correction, and improved contrast for more detail in dark images. (Apparently you can only choose the color or contrast functions, but can’t have both at the same time.)

I don’t mean to pick on this specific product — in fact, I’ve never even seen one – but folks, a miss is as good as a mile here. There is absolutely no way that you can get HD content out of a standard DVD. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; only in Hollywood can you enlarge an image endlessly and see more detail. Those police and spy technicians who can take a blurry license plate and “enhance” the image to see it in sharp focus are miracle workers because you can’t reliably invent data that is not there in the image from the start.

High definition requires at least four times the data in standard DVDs. I’ll admit that clever electronics can guess at how to fill in the blanks between details, such as identifying a straight line running through an image, but it can’t invent details that aren’t there. It can’t draw individual blades of grass if all it has is a blurred green field.

The fact is that for many people, standard DVD resolution is good enough, even when viewed on an HDTV. This is probably because the digital content of a DVD is so much sharper than the analog broadcast TV that people are used to. It’s also probably because people tend to have HDTVs that are too small and they sit too far from them, so they can’t see the extra detail available in an HD image anyway. Keep in mind that studies have shown that half of the people with HDTVs but without any HDTV signal source still think that they’re watching HD content (and are very happy with it).

Here’s the bottom line: if you want to watch standard DVDs on an HDTV, that’s fine. I do it all the time, and I think it looks great. Just don’t think that it’s HD; a Blu-ray player with a Blu-ray disc should look much better. And remember than your HDTV should be able to take the standard definition image from a DVD and upscale it on its own. If you have a set with cheap or inferior electronics, then you may benefit by getting an upscaling DVD player, but my advice is to try it with a standard player first.

Panasonic is “the Official HDTV of the Olympic Games”, according to their press release in which they announce that their entire line of 1080p Viera plasma HDTV models for 2008 now have a lifetime rating of 100,000 hours. If you figure on the typical 6.5 hours of viewing a day, 365 days a year, that works out to about 42 years. In other words, buy one today and you can expect to watch the Summer Olympics of 2048 on the set.

This announcement prompts me to make two observations. First, many people don’t understand the rated lifespan for a TV set. All TVs put out less light over time, even the traditional picture tube sets. The industry standard for rating a TV is to specify the average length of time until the light output is one half that of the set when it was brand new. Now, half the light does not mean that it appears half as bright. Human perception of light is logarithmic, which essentially means that something has to put out 10 times more light to appear twice as bright. So a set that only puts out half as much light will appear dimmer, but not to a drastic degree.

Rear projection models that use a replaceable projector lamp are typically rated for only 4,000 hours or so. There are rear projection models with solid state light sources, however, that are rated at lifespans similar to the typical LCD and plasma HDTVs, which are in the range of 50,000 to 60,000 hours.

And this brings me to my second point; how much lifespan do you need in a TV? What’s the oldest TV in your home that you still use on a regular basis? My guess is that few people have TV sets that are much older than 20 years. In the 80s, the average TV replacement cycle was about 15 years, with few sets lasting beyond 20 years of use. That average accellerated to about 10 years in recent years, before the transition to digital broadcasts help speed it up even more.

The bottom line is that the typical flat screen TV already is rated for at least 20 years of service, if not more. It is unlikely that most consumers are going to keep their TVs for this long a time; they didn’t back in the days of the traditional picture tube set, and I don’t see any reason for that to change.

So in the end, I view Panasonic’s announcement as a statement of confidence in their technology, intended to give customers a sense that the products are durable and dependable. But I discount any practical value of the extra 20 years of lifespan that these new specifications represent.

As reported here last spring, the impending transition to digital-only terrestrial television broadcasts (by full power stations) is creating a problem for stations in the United States along the border with Mexico. They have to compete with high-powered TV transmissions from Mexican stations that are serving the same markets on both sides of the border . And the Mexican stations are not obligated to switch to digital broadcasts in February 2009, the way that the U.S. stations will be required to do. This means that viewers can stick with their analog sets, and still receive the Mexican channels.

But maybe the U.S. stations won’t have to switch. The U.S. Senate has passed S.2507, the Digital TV Border Fix Act of 2008. This bill allows full-power analog television stations within 50 miles of the Mexico border to continue broadcasts through February 17, 2014. The bill requires that these broadcasts not interfere with the auction and use of the recovered radio spectrum. The companion bill, H.R.5435 was introduced in February, but remains in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

As always, it’s the exceptions that cause problems, and the challenges facing border TV stations are one unintended consequence of the digital TV transition. I expect that we’ll uncover a few more sticking points before the transition is complete.

Premier Mounts is… well… one of the premier companies making flat panel mounts. According to some reports, about three out of four flat panels in corporate settings get mounted, but only about one in four in homes. If you think you might want to be one of that 25%, Premier has just posted a short video — under four minutes — that gives you a good overview of selecting and installing a wall mount.

The video has lots of good advice, but I’d make a few more points. First, finding wall studs is not always easy, and you need to be sure to drill in the center of the stud because electrical wires are often attached to the side of the studs. An alternative to hitting the studs is to miss them on purpose, and use heavy duty dry wall hangers instead. Make sure that you follow their installation instructions carefully, and make sure you use plenty more than required by the weight of your mount and flat panel.

Also, I recommend that you consider connecting the cables before you lift the panel up and place it on the mount bracket. Often, the connectors are in the back or underneath and can be hard to reach. It’s much easy to connect them securely when you can get at the connectors easily. And on the subject of wires, you may not want an unsightly jumble of wires coming down the wall from the panel. In general, I recommend leaving it to the professionals to fish wires through walls. For most do-it-yourselfers, I suggest getting some plastic wire channels at your local home products store. These have an adhesive strip on back so you can just cut it to length and stick it on the wall to hide the wires. Most of them can be painted, so you can then paint them to match the wall so that they all but disappear.

Trying to decide on the right size HDTV for your room? Get the answer in Professor Poor’s Guide to Buying HDTV, now available in paperback from Amazon or other fine booksellers.

An appeals court ruled last week that Canon had not broken its license with Applied Nanotech Holdings for the company’s SED — surface-conduction electron-emitter display – technology. SED is a novel flat panel display technology that puts tiny electron emitters behind each sub-pixel. The result is an extremely thin panel that produces an emissive image similar to that of a picture tube (CRT) television.

Canon had partnered with Toshiba a few years ago to create some initial prototypes that wowed visitors to CES and other trade shows. The panels showed impressive color with outstanding black levels. Applied Nanotech threw a wrench in the works by claiming that only Canon had licensed their technology, and that including Toshiba in the venture was a violation.

This court ruling appears to clear the way for Canon to start up again with its SED program, now that it has bought out Toshiba’s interest. Applied Nanotech has not announced whether or not it plans to appeal the court’s ruling, but it may be moot at this point. Canon had already decided that they were not going to be able to produce the panels at a price that is competitive with LCD technology at this point, and was instead going to market the displays to video production companies for use as high-quality monitors. This further delay in initial production only increases the price gap with LCDs, as that technology has continued to wring out costs through increased volume and efficiency.

It remains a long shot that SED will ever be able to catch up to challenge LCDs in the mass market. It will be interesting to see whether or not Canon decides to even try at this point.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, LCD is the worst display technology except all the others that have been tried. The panels take many complex and precise steps to manufacturer using discrete sheets of glass substrates (instead of a more efficient roll of some material), and the finished product blocks about 95% of the light from the backlight even when it is showing a full white screen. And yet, the technology remains the most cost-effective and functional for everything from giant HDTVs to tiny cell phones.

The fact that LCD dominates the display world does not mean that it will reign forever. Picture tubes (CRTs) ruled the television market for about 75 years, but they eventually were replaced. I expect that it will be no different for LCDs, though I believe that the accelerated pace of technology advances will likely limit LCD’s dominance to somewhat less than 75 years.

Case in point: Field Emission Technologies (FET) is a spin off from Sony that is pursuing the commercial production of Field Emission Displays, or FEDs. This technology was the darling of the display industry with giants such as Motorola sinking enormous sums into research. The technology works by putting thousands of microscopic electron emitters behind each sub-pixel. The result is an image that looks like a CRT, but is as thin — or thinner — than an LCD. Unfortunately, the early research efforts stumbled on making the transition from the laboratory to the production line.

The situation has changed. FET has made arrangements to purchase one of Pioneer’s plasma production plants (which is idle now that Pioneer has stopped making its own plasma panels). And they are planning to produce 26-inch FED panels by the end of 2009. The target is 10,000 units per month which is not a huge quantity, but it’s enough to demonstrate whether or not mass production is feasible.

The one hitch in the plans is that FET is targeting the initial product as a “master monitor” for video production. In other words, this will be a professional quality product with a high price tag. We can only hope that they can sell enough into this market to get them through the initial production phase, and that their roadmap includes ways to cut the production costs (and increase the panel size) so that they can get down to a selling price that can challenge LCD.

The LCD sky is not falling; it will take years before any technology will be able to reach the economies of scale that make LCDs so affordable now. But it’s good to see that manufacturers are still trying to bring alternatives to market.

Spurred in part by flat panel TV sales, Wal-Mart reported a 6.7% increase in sales for July compared with a year ago. Given the uncertainty of the economy, higher food and gas prices, and rising unemployment, it’s interesting to see that flat panel sales continue to be strong at Wal-Mart.

I have to wonder what the product mix is in these sales figures. Is it primarily smaller-size bargain brand models, or are the larger top-brand products also selling? How much of this was fueled by the stimulus checks, and will we see similar strong sales for August? Summer is traditionally a slow time for TV sales, so it takes fewer units to make a bigger percentage impact, so these gains could easily be wiped out in the coming months.

And I’m also curious how the other retailers “up stream” of Wal-Mart are doing. Comparable store sales were also up for Costco, BJ’s, and Sam’s Club, but down at Target. Are these increases eating into the sales at consumer electronic big box stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City? And what about the AV specialty stores?

The LCD manufacturers have spent the summer trying to figure out about how many panels to produce, with many cutting back their output to avoid adding to their existing inventory. They are clearly nervous about the level of orders they will get from the LCD TV manufacturers, who in turn are worried about whether consumers will show up during the holiday buying season. If the retail sales go soft, expect to find some great bargains as early as October this year.

Q: Some weeks ago, I heard you mention thedifference in power consumption between LCD and plasma televisions on The Personal Computer Show. I have found that Crutchfield provides a comparison option which includes their own testing of TVs. When you have some time, could you compare the four 46″ models I have listed below, using Crutchfield.com. From what I can determine there does not seem to be a great deal of difference of power consumption in actual real world use. Thank you.
David Whitfield, Ohio

A: Thanks for the question, David. As with most technical issues, the generalities are sometimes contradicted by specific instances. This is a complex topic, but let me take a stab at it.

First and foremost, I commend Crutchfield for putting in the time and effort to measure power consumption for their televisions. A review of the four models you cite does show a plasma unit scoring slightly lower than an LCD unit using the Crutchfield measurements. Unfortunately, I cannot find any details on the Crutchfield Web site about how they got these results, so there has to be some question about how to interpret them.

The problem is that LCD and plasma screens consume power differently. Plasmas draw the most power when displaying a white screen at full brightness, because plasma power consumption is a direct result of how much light is needed to create the image on the screen. A picture of a snowy mountain top in daylight is going to draw much more power than a shot of a bad guy lurking in the shadows of a Gotham City alley. This is why it would be helpful to know how Crutchfield tested, because the images you put on the screen will affect the results.

LCDs, on the other hand, change their consumption little as the image changes. For most, they have fluorescent tubes as backlights, which remain on at full brightness whenever the set is on. The LCD layer blocks or transmits the light as needed to create the image, but the backlight stays on. The backlight is more efficient than the plasma panel, however, which is why the LCDs use less power than the plasma maximum.

And there’s one more factor that Crutchfield does not report, and that’s the brightness of the display. In general, LCDs are capable of producing a brighter image than a plasma. I expect that if the brightness on these LCDs was dialed back down to match the output of the plasmas, the power consumption advantage of the LCDs would show more clearly.

Note that some new LCD TVs are using LED backlights instead of fluorescent. Not only do these tend to give better color performance and consume a bit less power, they also make it possible to dim the backlight in darker regions of the image on the screen. This can cut power consumption in half.

Finally, it’s worth considering how significant the savings are. If you leave a single 100 watt light bulb burning while you watch TV instead of turning it off, you will wipe out the difference between the most power hungry model and the least on your list. Using Crutchfield’s estimate of 6 hours a day and $.10 per kilowatt hour, that difference is just $2 a month. So it may not be worth spending hundreds of dollars more just to get a set with lower power consumption.

Do you have questions about HDTVs? Write me at alfred@hdtvprofessor.com and I’ll do my best to help.