January, 2006 | HD TV PROFESSOR

Month: January 2006

How to Make a Fortune in HDTV

January 17, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

One of my favorite jokes goes something like this: Q: How can you make a small fortune in the HDTV business? A: Well, first you start with a large fortune, and .... Given the steep competition between technologies, and between manufacturers within the same technology segment, many business strategies seem to be a race to see who can lose the most money the fastest. Competition for retail customers is also...

What is MPEG4?

January 16, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

[And Why Should You Care?] In order to fit a typical 90-minute movie on a single DVD (plus all those director's commentaries, out-takes, deleted scenese, alternate endings, and other bonus material), the sound and images had to be compressed. MPEG2 is the name of the standard used to compress the video and audio on movie DVDs. Movie DVDs are in Standard Definition, and if you increase the resolution to either...

CES 2006: HDTV Conference

January 13, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

Wow -- where did this week go? I've been digging through all the information I picked up at CES in Las Vegas (plus catching up on all the work that accumulates when you're away from your desk for a week). And I still haven't given a summary of the HDTV Business Conference that was held on Wednesday, January 4, sponsored by Insight Media and Elliot Schlam Associates. It was an...

CES 2006: Wireless HDTV Is Possible

January 12, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

One of the big themes at CES 2006 was IPTV. Digital TV transmissions already take digitized image data and send it out as packets, so it's a small step to apply the Internet Protocol -- IP -- to the process so that you can use standard Internet and network transmission systems to move programming from somewhere to your screen, whether it's from a server that the "broadcaster" runs, or from...

CES 2006: Watching a Supernova

January 11, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

Sometimes a little rejection is a good thing. And sometimes a lot is even better! While traipsing around the various mammoth exhibit halls at the Las Vegas Convention Center, I passed the DNP exhibit. DNP is Dai Nippon Printing, and is one of the leading makers of display screens for front projectors. I got a chance to see their Supernova screen in person. The screen is different from most in...

CES 2006: No Clear Winner on Blue Laser DVDs

January 10, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

Traditional DVDs using a red laser and MPEG2 compression do not have the storage capacity for a full-length movie in HD format. Using a blue laser with shorter wavelength light allows designers to use smaller pits and thus store more data on a disc the same size as a standard DVD or CD. Two camps -- HD DVD and BluRay -- are competing to become the blue laser standard. Both...

CES 2006: Rear-Projection HDTV with No Lamp!

January 9, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

I just got back from a week at the Consumer Electronics Show, which is a mammoth annual conference on a scale that is only matched by its location: Las Vegas. I saw and learned tons at the show, and will be sharing some of the highlights over the next week or so. It's clear that the competition between LCD, plasma, and rear-projection HDTV is heating up, and the 40" to...

LG Aims for #1 Spot

January 6, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

CEO and Vice Chairman of LG Electronics, S.S. Kim, recently stated that he intends to make his company first in the worldwide television market. According to a press release by SpatiaLight, LG will use SpatiaLight's LCoS imagers to create a 71" rear-projection HDTV. This is interesting news, but SpatiaLight's release contained a startling statement: "LG expects that LCoS televisions will cause a sensation in the marketplace because of their price...

Replay TV Goes Soft

January 5, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

Now that TiVo has become a verb in the English language -- "I'll TiVo that show because I have meeting that night." -- the other company that helped launch digital video recording (DVR) is rarely mentioned. As a result, Replay TV has restructured its operations, and is focusing on DVR software instead of hardware. The company will be bundling its software with Happauge's WinTV-PVR cards for personal computers. If the...

Network Your HDTVs

January 4, 2006 | Author: Ibex Marketing

Instead of connecting the televisions in your home to a cable or satellite service, or to a rooftop antenna, you may soon just connect them to a computer network. ED Digital is a new company that is introducing its Digitrex line of HDTVs that work with Microsoft's Windows Media Connect technology so that you can distribute digital entertainment throughout your home. As I see it, one of the major obstacles...