HDTV Almanac

One of the “hot” new features for LCD HDTV is a 120 Hz refresh rate. Okay, it’s not all that new; I wrote about it in my CES coverage last January. But the products that include this feature are starting to show up on the shelves in even greater numbers, so I figure it’s time to review the technology.

Most LCD panels refresh the image 60 times a second. This is fast enough to eliminate any image flicker for most viewers. The problem is that the liquid crystal molecules take time to react to the electrical charges in each cell, and you can get motion blurring between frames. By writing the image to the screen twice as often — 120 times per second – it causes the liquid crystals to respond faster, and motion blur is decreased.

Many LCD TV manufacturers are also pulsing the backlight in sync with the image refresh rate. For those of you who are into the club scene (or who remember the disco days), you are familiar with the “freeze frame” effect of a strobe light. Flashing the light freezes the image, further reducing motion blur.

As a result, some LCD HDTVs with 120 Hz refresh rate create fast moving images that look nearly as sharp as a CRT, which still is the gold standard for smooth motion on the screen. Most viewers would have a difficult time telling the difference between the two.

There’s also one added benefit to 120 Hz. Some devices — such as some Blu-ray DVD players — now put out 1080p signals at 24 frames per second (fps) instead of the typical 30 fps. This slower speed matches the rate of film used in movies. Until now, the 24 frames have had to be shuffled in order to fit the 30 fps used by standard video signals. The solution is an awkward stutter-step called “3:2 pulldown” which involves taking three images of the first frame, and then interleaving them with two images of the next frame, and then three of the next. This can result in an artifact that results in jerky motion that has been dubbed “judder“. The advantage of a 120 Hz refresh rate is that it handles the 30 fps of standard video easily — just show each frame four times — as well as film’s 24 fps; show each frame five times. The fact that it is an even multiple of both rates makes for less video processing and a better image quality.

Here’s a conundrum for you: how can the continued miniaturization of electronics play a role in the HDTV market where consumers are looking to buy ever larger displays? Well, Electronic House just named the Mitsubishi LT-46144 LCD HDTV as a 2007 Product of the Year. What’s so special about this 46″ 1080p LCD model? It has a frame around the screen that is less than one inch wide, which makes it possible for this model to fit in the same physical space as many competing 42″ models. According to Mitsubishi, you get almost 130 square inches of extra viewable screen space.

The LT-46144 has all the other latest features you’d expect: three HDMI 1.3 inputs, 120 Hz refresh rate, and widere color gamut. The company will be showing the set at CEDIA in Denver in September (and I’ll be there to tell you how it looks).

Of course, if you want a thin bezel around your HDTV screen, you can’t beat rear projection. Most plasmas and LCD HDTVs are at least as wide as their screen’s diagonal dimension (even without side-mounted speakers); the LT-46144 blows this rule of thumb away at just 42.3 inches wide. But the narrow bezel on the Samsung HL-T5087S 50″ DLP rear projection model helps it come in at just 45.1 inches wide. That’s less than three more inches in width for four more inches of diagonal image (which translates to a lot more increased screen size than the difference between 42″ and 46″ models.)

This fall, we can expect to see rear projection bezels dwindle to almost nothing, especially with the new Laser TV models that are anticipated in time for the holiday buying season.

End HDTV confusion, and get the book that will help you decide which technology is best for your tastes and budget: Professor Poor’s Guide to Buying HDTV, now available in paperback from Amazon or other fine booksellers.

Blockbuster is making changes to its “all you can eat” movie plans that compete directly with NetFlix. One of the key advantages to the Blockbuster program is that instead of mailing back the DVDs when you’re finished watching them, you can drop them off at the local Blockbuster store instead. And when you drop it off, you get to borrow a DVD from the store as well; this is in addition to the replacement you’ll receive by mail. Effectively, you receive two movies for the one.

As of yesterday, the rates for these plans increased; you can choose between having one, two, or three DVDs at a time. The company is also offering two new variations. One maintains the old monthly pricing, but limits the number of “extra” DVDs you can get from your local store. If you have the three-DVD subscription, you’re limited to five free movies a month from the store. The two-DVD plan is limited to three in-store exchanges, and one-DVD to just two. You can also save a buck a month by eliminating the in-store exchanges entirely.

Blockbuster deserves kudos for grandfathering existing accounts; rates won’t increase for exisiting subscriptions, at least for now.

This is all fall-out from the fierce competition with NetFlix. Blockbuster posted a $38 million loss for the second quarter of 2007. NetFlix has more subscribers, but apparently has been losing them to Blockbuster. Netflix cut their subscription prices by $1 per month this week, which match the new Blockbuster rate for subscriptions without the in-store exchange feature. Consumers clearly are the ones to benefit from this competition.

Go to ABC’s Web site and you’ll see a link in the middle of the page that offers “full screen now available” for the online shows. These shows include full-length episodes with only “limited” commercial interruption: three 30 second breaks in an hour-long show, and two per half hour episode. You’ve got to be in the United States to view the full length episodes, and you must have a broadband connection to see the HD versions.

ABC has a large sample of shows available online. I watched parts of a recent episode of “Traveler” and it looks very good in full screen mode. (I have fiber optic broadband service, so bandwidth is not an issue.) I noticed some compression artifacts on some scenes with fast movement; it’s not as good as broadcast but it’s very good.

Here’s your homework assignment: If you have broadband, and if you like (or are curious about) any of the ABC prime time shows, please take a break and watch an episode on your computer using the HD viewer. Then let me know what you think. Do you like this form of video on demand? Would you watch on your television if it were as easy as selecting a channel is now on your cable or satellite or over the air system? I’m confident that this is the future of “television” and I’d be interested to hear what you think. Write to me at alfred@hdtvprofessor.com.

The Consumer Electronics Association just released a report stating that 72% of U.S. adults have broadband access to the Internet. Subscriptions for home broadband services have increased 21% in the past year, now reaching 57.8 million households. Three out of four homes with Internet access have broadband service. And for those who do not have Internet access at home, many use broadband connections in libraries, at work, at school, and at WiFi hot spots.

This is the camel’s nose under the tent, and poses an insidious threat to traditional broadcast television over-the-air, on cable, and via satellite. According to Alexa.com, YouTube is now the #4 most popular site. The top three are all search engines: Yahoo, MSN, and Google. So now the most popular content site on the Web is based on video. This means that a lot of people are watching video content on their computers. I expect that more and more will want to watch this content on their televisions. This will accelerate the interest in sharing content across home networks, including access to the Internet and to personal content stored locally: photos, videos, and music.

And the more time that people are watching clips and movies and other content from the Web, the less time that they’ll be watching content from the traditional broadcast sources. And it is all made possible by the high speed data connections that are now available 57.8 million households.

The cable industry has fought it for years, but earlier this month they finally lost the battle and the FCC’s new rules for cable connections went into effect earlier this month. It’s a complex topic, but here’s the simple explanation. Cable companies have to separate their security features from the channel selection function. Until now, both have been combined in a single settop box that you typically have to lease from the cable company.

This new rule means that consumers can now purchase their own settop boxes that they can take with them when they move. This promises to be as big a change for cable service as when it first became legal to attach your own telephone to the phone company’s wires. (Until then, all the phones were owned by the phone company.)

This change should also mean that you will be able to obtain a CableCard from your cable company more readily than in the past. This is an expansion card that slips into a slot in the back of many HDTVs, that provides the descrambling features required by the cable company. The problem with most CableCards is that they do not provide access to all digital cable features. The current models only communicate one way; they receive the programming. This means that you cannot use interactive features such as pay-per-view or DVR functions which require two-way communications. Cable companies are moving slowly to adopt a new standard interactive system (OCAP) that may help resolve this limitation.

In any case, you can expect to start seeing settop cable boxes for sale at your local big box store. The new rules only apply to new cable installations, so it will take a while for the change to have a major impact on whole cable market. But it’s a good start, and if you use cable, you may want to add CableCard compatibility to your checklist of desired features for your next HDTV.

The sweepstakes is not slated to launch until August 13, but Westinghouse Digital has teamed up with the Oxygen cable network to create a “Girls Gone Wired” promotion. Winners in 20 local affiliate markets will get a “total techover” that will include up to $5,000 worth of Westinghouse products. There will also be 20 runner up prizes that will award an SK-32H590D, a 32” LCD TV that feature a built-in, front-slot load DVD player. When the sweepstakes goes live, you’ll be able to enter at www.oxygen.com/girlsgonewiredsweeps.

This is an interesting promotion, as we enter the collegiate and professional football seasons. This is prime time for the male members of the household to start lobbying for a large HDTV. The Oxygen and Westinghouse promotion is intended to help women feel more comfortable about technology: not just HDTVs, but GPS, mobile phone features, and digital imaging. More women clearly want to play a part in technology purchase decisions, and this promotion is designed to help encourage them.

The rules of the sweepstakes have not yet been posted, but it appears that consumers with Y chromosomes will also be allowed to participate.

Would you be surprised to find that worldwide, 300 million consumers watch ad-supported or subscription-based broadband video content on the Internet? A report published earlier this month by ABI Research predicts that this number will soar to nearly 1 billion by 2012. The company expects that broadcast television content will continue to be supported by paid advertisements. Movie content will be paid for by the consumer, either in subscription or rental fees. And user-generated content such as YouTube will rely on ad revenue.

I wonder how long the traditional “interruption for this important commercial announcement” model will survive. The content producers keep trying to find ways to force viewers to watch the ads, but TiVo and other technology advances will make it difficult to unring the bell. Consumers don’t like ads, and will surf away from the current show to watch something else rather than watch a commercial. Given the nearly infinite content on the Internet, the chances of that viewer ever returning are tiny.

As a result, I still expect to see paid advertising become transformed. Broadcast television is already exploring some interesting new approaches. In sporting events, they continue to run the game in a split-screen window while the ad runs next to it. (The wide format of HDTV makes it easier to do this.) Or they rotate ads in the background or on the scoreboard during play. I also expect to see even more branding of shows and segments as alternatives to separate ads. This blending of the commercial message with the content makes it less intrusive and more difficult to avoid.

As for viewer-paid revenues, that clearly can work so long as the charge is small and the system is easy to use. iTunes and other music download services have sold tens of millions of musical tracks at less than $1. Blockbuster and NetFlix have movie renters expecting “all you can eat” plans for less than the cost of buying one DVD movie a month. Internet TV will be able to get viewers to pay to watch some content, but not pay much. So the economies of scale will have to work overtime to bring costs down to the point where the companies running the services can stay in business.

A recent survey by iSupply reveals that nearly two out of three consumers want their televisions connected to the Internet. I find this to be a curious result, because most people don’t have TVs connected to the Web so why do they think they would want that?

iSupply’s answer makes a lot of sense. Consumers are using a variety of electronics devices, and want to connect them to each other and to the Internet. It appears that entertainment – not traditional computer data processing — is driving home networking, and if you have a network in place, there’s no reason not to connect to the Web while you’re at it. A range of networking solutions are in play, including coax cabling, home power lines, and wireless. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and no clear winner has emerged yet.

What we’ll all do with that networking remains to be seen. Maybe it will be used to share content stored within the home: photos, music collections, home videos. Maybe it will be to share access to other sources: cable, satellite, broadcast video. Or maybe it will be to access the types of Internet content that currently is viewed on a computer screen, such as social networking sites and YouTube. The most likely result is a combination of all of these, plus some new applications that we haven’t even thought of yet. The fact is that you can expect to see more Ethernet ports on the backs of HDTVs and other consumer electronics devices.

EE Times has reported that Magnum Semiconductor has a design for a chip that will let viewers pause live TV on their televisions without the need for a separate digital video recorder. (And here’s a tip of my cap to my friends at “Display Daily” for pointing out the EE Times story.) The basic idea is that the television controller circuitry will include enough solid state memory to store up to an hour of programming. This would allow you to press the Pause button on your television so that you can answer the phone, get a snack, or whatever, and then resume watching your show. (It’s not clear whether you would be able to fast-forward through the commercials or not.)

For those who get their television programming off the air from local broadcasts, this has the potential to be the greatest advance since split screen television. Flash memory is now inexpensive enough that such a feature could be added to an HDTV without boosting the cost too much. And manufacturers are struggling to find effective ways to differentiate their products, since other performance features are so similar at this point.

The pause feature is limited, however, and those who have experienced TiVo or other digital video recording may find it disappointing. Many digital cable or satellite packages already include a full-featured video recording function, which may limit the size of the market that is interested in this feature. Still, consumers favor products with more features over those with fewer — look at how many buy HDTVs with tuners when they never connect them to an antenna and so don’t need them – so it may be that the Pause key will make it on buying checklists in the near future.