May, 2010 | HD TV PROFESSOR

Month: May 2010

Happy Memorial Day!

May 31, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

I've got my feet up, sitting under the shade of a big tree, sipping on something cold. I'll be back at the HDTV Almanac tomorrow, but for today, I'm taking some time off. I hope that you get to do the same. Alfred

SID 2010: HDTV Take-Aways

May 28, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

It's getaway day here in Seattle for me, but as always, it has been a packed week at the Society for Information Display (SID) annual conference. There were no earth-shaking developments for the HDTV market revealed here, but I want to recap the overall themes based on what I saw and heard here. First, 3DTV is real and it's here to stay. I didn't see anything that changed my view...

SID 2010: Don’t Look for Panasonic 3DTV Online

May 27, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

At the IMS Market Focus Conference at SID 2010, yesterday was devoted to all aspects of the 3DTV market. During the session on the 3DTV Market Outlook, one of the speakers was Jim Sanduski, Senior Vice President for Sales with Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company. He made a number of interesting comments during his presentation, such as the fact that Panasonic does not feel that the current real-time 2D-to-3D conversion technology...

SID 2010: Why You Won’t Have an OLED HDTV Soon

May 26, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

OLEDs make my heart sing. They are everything that a display should be: thin, light, great color, emissive, energy efficient, no viewing angle problems. Other people seem to agree; according to some sources, 45 million OLED displays will be sold this year for mobile applications such as cell phones and personal media players. And if you have been monitoring my InBox, you'd know that lots of people who read the...

SID 2010: 3D Avatar on Blu-ray

May 25, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

All this week I'll be reporting from the Society for Information Display (SID) annual meeting which is being held this year in sunny (not) Seattle, Washington. This annual gathering of the worldwide display industry is the best place to take a peek over the horizon at what's headed our way in terms of displays. The symposium doesn't start until today, but the week kicked off yesterday with the Business Conference...

Google TV: The Beginning or the End?

May 24, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

The Diffusion Group came out with a report that predicts that consumers will watch more video content from the Web than from traditional television sources (free broadcast and subscription services) by just 10 years from now. Then on Thursday, Google announced "Google TV". I'm starting to think that The Diffusion Group might be a bit pessimistic about video over the Internet. First, Google is a proven game-changer when it wants...

Free HD Video Codec

May 21, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

Okay, this one is going to get a little propeller-headed; feel free to skip this technical entry and just come back on Monday. In order to send video over the Internet, you need to package the digital data in packets. The more you can condense the data, the smaller the data stream required, and the better your performance will be. Just like with MP3 digital music, squeeze the data too...

HDTV Manufacturer Fraud?

May 20, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

One thing I've learned in almost 30 years in the technology products business is that it's inevitable that as competition gets more intense, the manufacturers play faster and looser with the whole idea of "specifications". I saw it in the processor speeds of IBM PC AT compatibles, and in the dots-per-inch claims for personal computer printers, and in the resolution claims of picture tube (CRT) computer monitors. And it's been...

Sell More, Earn Less!

May 19, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

Thinking about entering the LCD HDTV business? Here are some numbers that might make you rethink that plan. According to Quixel Research, unit sales were up in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009, which sounds like good news. However, first quarter revenues declined from $5.2 billion in 2009 to just $4.1 billion in 2010. That's a drop of almost 27%. Ouch! And that's even...

DirecTV Offers Whole Home HD DVR

May 18, 2010 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

TiVo created a revolution in television viewing when its digital video recorder (DVR) first showed up. In a world resigned to scrolling back and forth through an endless stack of VHS tapes, TiVo made it simple to record a show and watch it later. More than anything, the user interface made it quick and easy to set up recordings and play them back when you wanted. Now all sorts of...