May, 2011 | HD TV PROFESSOR

Month: May 2011

Mitsubishi Chooses the Big Picture

May 31, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

It's tough to make money in the HDTV business these days. It's even tougher if you're trying to push the boulder of rear-projection HDTV up the mountain. Rear-projection DLP has been the focal point for Mitsubishi's product line, and the company has finally decided not to try to compete with the $500 flat panel market. Instead, they will only make consumer televisions that are 65" or larger, and will also...

Can New TV Be Profitable?

May 30, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

We all know how television content is made. Producers develop concepts, create pilots, and try to land network contracts. The networks distribute the shows, and in some cases, the show episodes will show up on the network website or maybe even a streaming site like Hulu or Netflix. And if the producers come up with a hit show, everyone makes some money. But how can you possibly make money by...

The End of Unlimited?

May 27, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

[I have not run out of material about SID Display Week 2011, but it's time to get back to some of the other news in the HDTV Almanac world of large screens and home entertainment.] One of my favorite hobbyhorses is the concept that content as a service will eventually become separated from the data pipes that deliver it. I expect that "data" will become a utility, just like water...

SID 2011: 100 Micron Glass

May 26, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

You can't see it, so you probably take it for granted. But think for a moment about all the glass that you use in everyday life. From windows to windshields, light bulbs to flat panel screens, these variations of melted sand are a fundamental part of many technologies. One of the key applications is for LCD panels, which require glass that is especially smooth and uniform in thickness. Corning is...

SID 2011: Spread the Word about 3DTV

May 25, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

The day before the official start of SID Display Week 2011, I attended the Business Conference hosted by DisplaySearch. I could probably write the rest of this year's Almanac entries based just on the information that was presented that day, but I want to highlight one here. Mike Abary is the Senior Vice President of the Home Division of Sony Electronics, and his presentation covered the 3DTV market from his...

SID 2011: Ask the Experts

May 24, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

Every year, the press corps gets up in time to attend the annual press briefing breakfast at SID Display Week. We have to be there in time for its 7 AM start, but we're there so you don't have to be. Someone presents an overview of the conference and some of the hot topics, and then a handful of experts sit on a panel and share their insights about the...

SID 2011: What Wasn’t Said about OLED

May 23, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

I can't think of a display technology that has generated more interest than OLEDs since the advent of LCDs. Any shred of news gets bounced around the Web like a ball of flubber in an instant. So while there was some OLED news at SID 2011, some of the most interesting details were the ones that weren't said. Among the points that were made were new lifetime specs for OLED...

SID 2011: 3DTV’s Door Number 3

May 20, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

All around the SID 2011 exhibit hall, a battle raged. In many booths, you could find proponents of the Shutter Glasses (SG) approach to stereoscopic 3DTV. This presents full screen images for left and right eyes, in rapid succession. The glasses synchronize with the screen so that the image is blocked or transmitted to each eye as needed. And that's why we call them "active glasses." On the other side,...

SID 2011: Green Displays

May 19, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

Yesterday, I attended a special conference-within-a-conference about Green Displays, hosted by IMS Research. It turns out that this topic runs deep and wide, but there was one particular aspect that I thought would be worth sharing. Consider the following comparison between two Sony 46" LCD HDTVs. The Qualia 005 was the first LCD HDTV to use LEDs for the backlight. It consumed 612 Watts of electricity, was 5" thick, and...

SID 2011: LCD Weight Loss

May 18, 2011 | Author: Muneeb Mannan

I want to tell you about what I saw yesterday that could have major implications for LCD HDTVs. A new technology from 3M can save weight and drive out all sorts of cost from large LCD panels. A typical panel for an LED edgelit LCD has a reflective layer in back along with a bunch of free-standing optical films: a light guide, diffusers, collimators, and so on. 3M has come...