The term set-top box will become something of a misnomer in the near future, as most displays will become too thin to allow a box to placed on top of them. As the price of plasma & LCD displays has plummeted and their image quality has improved, they are popping up in homes everywhere.
Although they are the darlings of the media and the generic for flat panel display in the minds of many, plasmas are about to be in a serious fight with other technologies for the flat panel crown.
LCD displays, seen on the desktop for years as computer monitors, and commonplace in smaller flat panel TVs, are finally increasing in size to the point they are
...not be able to handle the bandwidth of this new form of television. The other group that became concerned about HDTV in the U.S. was Congress. Congress felt threatened by the many Japanese innovations that they saw arriving in the ...
Plasmas generally have an edge in the ability to produce deeper blacks and more saturated colors than LCDs. Plasmas are also better at producing full motion video than LCDs because of the response time of the LCD panels, although this difference is disappearing.
LCD TVs are a bit more expensive than plasmas at 42″ and larger sizes, but they should last a while longer. Plasma displays
...a system called Twisted Nematic (TM). It is a naturally twisted crystalline structure that reacts to electric currents in predictable manners. These electric currents cause the crystal to untwist to different degrees based on the voltage given. These TM crystals ...
Currently Sony has a 42″, NEC a 40″, Sharp a 45″, and Samsung a 40″ LCD TV or display. Samsung also has the big one, a 46″ that started shipping in early September
...a detailed look into the problem and came up with some guidelines for new plasma owners: In the first hundred hours: Make sure the display is in a viewing mode (aspect ratio) that completelyfills the screen (there are often three ...
Other technologies are on the horizon as well. One that has shown great promise is OLED, for Organic Light Emitting Diode. Developed by Kodak and Pioneer, this technology has been used for a few years in
...that the current is applied. Tiny magnetic molecules twist and bend, depending on how much electrical current is sent through them. The twisting and bending is a matter of degree, and the change in shape allows for more or less ...
OLED s advantages are many. It actually emits it s own light, so it requires no backlight and has better contrast than a traditional LCD. OLED displays have a wide viewing angle like a plasma display. Power usage is very low, less than 1/2 that of a traditional LCD display. At around 2mm deep, OLEDs are much thinner than either a plasma or LCD.
They have a refresh rate about 1,000 times faster than a traditional LCD, so they will be far superior for video applications. They have fewer parts than
...the screen is evenly illuminated across the screen and it has no curvature. These types of televisions provide a much clearer image which will make your investment of this new type of tv a sound one. Bigger is not always ...
Other promising display technologies on the horizon include SED (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display) and carbon Nanotube. SED was developed by Canon, who began research into the technology in 1986. SED is basically the same principle as CRT, however there are important differences. The most important from a consumer standpoint is thickness. An SED display is only an inch or two thick, depending upon screen size.
The basic construction is two glass plates separated by a
...from the deepest discount retailers to the most high end specialty stores and electronics retailers. In addition, televisions of all kinds are sold on the internet as well, so shopping online is always a good idea. When it comes to ...
The visual advantages of SEDs are as for CRT displays, great color, deep black levels and quick motion response. These advantages, combined with the slim form factor, low cost and small power requirement should make for a real winner.
A unit shown by Toshiba at a Japanese trade show in April of 2005 even had it s contrast ratio up to an incredible 100,000 to 1 by significantly
...the scanning method. Scanning method is simply how the video is produced on the screen. There are two methods in use, interlaced and progressive. When video is displayed on the screen it 'draws' each of the lines of resolution. This ...
There is another fly in the SED ointment too. On April 21st, 2005 US firm Nano-Proprietary has filed a suit against Canon in the U.S. District Court of the Western
...rich color, because the advanced electronics controlling the red, green and blue sub-pixels is able to produce more than 16 million colors. This comes along with a wide viewing angle going up to 160 degrees in a sleek package a ...
The pace of change in the home theater and entertainment display market has just kept accelerating. There are some promising technologies around the corner that will allow, as usual, higher performance, lower cost and more compact form factors. As prices for advanced technologies plunge and technology improves, it will make it even easier for the average person to have a fantastic media system almost anywhere in their home.
Steve Faber has almost 15 years in the custom installation industry. He is a CEDIA certified designer and Installer 2 with certifications from both
...once I've found a model that I like the look of, get all the details, including model number and do a search via Google for something like "Sony -model number here- review". I would then be in a position to ...