Filed under: Gaming, HDTV

That’s what IGN has discovered in testing several PlayStation 3 games. Despite 1080p being “the true definition of HD“, most of the titles available are rendered internally at 1280 x 720 and scaled up accordingly… or at least that’s what should happen. On many older CRT HDTVs that only support 1080i input and not 720p, instead of scaling to the appropriate HD resolution, the PS3 goes back down to the positively Wii-like EDTV standard of 480p. The problem is confirmed to exist in Resistance: Fall of Man, Tiger Woods 07, Need for Speed Carbon and NHL 2K7 so far, but no word from Sony if this can or will be fixed in a downloadable update. The Xbox 360 scales to 1080i without a problem — although 1080p results may vary — if you’re not reading this from your place in line already be sure to check your HDTV’s manual for supported input resolutions before grabbing a lawn chair (and bulletproof vest).

[Thanks, Michael J.]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

After raising eyebrows by having no Blu-ray plans to show at its dealer show in Orlando a few days ago, LG finally announced its new BD100 Blu-ray player at the Best of Stuff show in London yesterday. The BD199 player shown previously was cancelled abruptly, and for a moment LG seemed ready to replace it with a dual format HD DVD / Blu-ray player, but the company later backed off those plans. The BD100 will include HDMI, component, composite, coaxial, and S/PDIF outs, whether 5.1 audio output via analog is included is unclear. 1080p Blu-ray playback and DVD upconversion is definitely part of the package, plus DivX, WMA and MP3 compatibility. LG officials refused to commit to a price or launch date, only that it would be “competitively” priced. Whether that means competitive in Australia, relative to the Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD player (£499) or the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player (£1000) — both were also on display at the show — is unknown.

[Via Cnet UK & Stuff Mag]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

Stop trying to type faster, watch TV for hours, or organize the largest water balloon fight: there’s now another way to get a Guinness world record holder in your home, as LG has just announced it is going to begin mass producing its record-setting 100-inch LCD. The 6-million pixel 1,920 x 1,080 display won’t come cheap though — while a final price has not been decided, the manufacturing costs alone are expected to be over $150,000 US. But anyway, how can we be satisfied with a 100-inch LCD HDTV featuring a 3,000:1 contrast ratio, 92% color gamut and 5ms refresh time when we know Mark Cuban is just going to come over and start bragging about his $70,000 103-inch 1080p plasma from Panasonic? While sneaking in and watching Oxygen Network until the logo burns in on his precious plasma would be nice, we’ll probably just wait for the first price drop and save everyone some pain and suffering.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Man, if you thought BenQ’s PE8720 was a winner, then try on the Full HD W10000 three-chip DLP projector. Just like its 720p bro, the W10000 pumps a 10:000:1 contrast ratio with TI’s DarkChip3 DLP at the guts and brings a 250W lamp capable of delivering 1,100 lumens over a life of between 2,000 hours on up to 3,000 hours in economy mode. And yeah, Benq’s calling “Full HD” on this as is the trend, so we’re talkin’ heaps of pixels in this 1080p (1920×1080) resolution projector operating at 25dB normally, or as low as 23dB in eco-mode. As for the inputs, you’ll get what you need: HDMI v1.2, S-Video, 2x component, RGB, and RS-232. Expected to start shipping first in Japan starting early November for ¥628,000 or about $5,253 — righteous pricing for that trio of DLP chips. Click-on for a pic of the backside inputs.

[Via Impress]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Peripherals, Storage

Xbox wasn’t showing up to TGS empty-handed, nosiree. They’ve finally stepped up with a couple of interesting, albeit expected, announcements. First up: the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive finally has a price and date of launch — for Japan. The land that forgot the Xbox are first to have their HD DVD add-on announced, due to hit overseas streets on November 17th for ¥19,800. That’s about $170 US, which is not only an awesomely and unexepectedly low price for an HD DVD device (especially when bundled with a Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote), but it’s also a good indication that the US version of the device should be around the $200 range when released in the US, as we’ve been predicting. Part two: a software update this year will enable 1080p output on the friggin’ Xbox 360! Your rig will finally benefit by pushing the full 60 megapixels per second of visuals to your compatible HDTV. Sorry, no HDMI cable yet (or ever?), though, this is only over component and VGA. Users can expect 1080p upscaling immediately on current games and DVDs and native 1080p on compatible HD DVD titles, but Microsoft hasn’t yet announced future games that will rock 1080p natively. Watch out Sony, that whole 1080p song and dance isn’t such a marketing edge for you guys anymore.

P.S. -Just to sate your curiosity, we were chatting with Shane Kim about this stuff and asked specifically about 360s with an internal HD DVD. Microsoft’s answer is and continues to be a staunch no. That whole thing about paying for what you need, etc.

Update: It would appear there’s some contradictory information already — Reuters is reporting that it’ll be November 22nd for ¥20,790 (about $180 US). Our press release and conversation with Shane Kim are both pretty straight up about November 17th for ¥19,800, so we’ll see how it unfurls. Ultimately it shouldn’t matter too much to those reading this post, we’re still talking about the Japanese release of the device.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

You’d think they’d have enough of these HD LCDs of theirs to be getting on with by now, but JVC Victor just can’t seem to resist another size/res combo if afforded to them, and we can’t really complain when they’re dropping 1,920 x 1,080 displays like this. Their new 42-inch LT-42LH800 and 37-inch LT-37LH800 HDTVs have plenty to love under the hood, including 500 nits of brightness, 14-bit “GENESSA” processing and that lovable “MaxxBass” spec that JVC is so fond of. Plugs are aplenty as well, with dual HDMI, a single D4 plug, component, i.LINK, Ethernet and optical audio out. The prices aren’t quite so fun, but 450,000 Yen ($3,815 US) and 350,000 Yen ($2,967 US) aren’t terrible pricetags for some 42-inch and 37-inch displays with this kind of spec love. Both displays should be out in early November.

[Via Impress]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

To the audiophile set, McIntosh should need no introduction, since they’ve been raiding pocket books and delighting listeners for about 55 years now. Today it seems they’re bringing both their attention to quality and hefty pricetags over to the home theater space, since they just busted out a 1080p DLP projector at CEDIA, along with a whole lotta HD processing power. While the new MDLP1 projector does its 1080p thing, it’s accompanied by the VP1000 processor that includes dual scalers, 4 HDMI ports, 6 component plugs, and other lovable ports and specs. Of course, all this McIntosh action comes at a cost: the projector is in the $30k+ range, while the processor squeezes by for a cool 16 grand. We suppose they didn’t get the “1080p is cheap now” memo that’s being passed around CEDIA. Quite unfortunate.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

Our pals over at HD Beat continue to rock CEDIA, taking time to check out Meridian Faroudja’s latest high-end projector offering — the D-ILA1080PMF1 — retailing for a hefty $20,995.. If you stare at that model name for a bit, you should realize that this one sports full 1080p with D-ILA technology backing it up, though the real stand-out spec seems to be its D65 reference color temperature, which should ensure that your colors are spot on. If there’s one area where it comes up a bit short, however, it’s inputs, with just RGB, s-video and DVI coming standard. You’ll have to cough up another $5,000 for the processor upgrade to get a few more options — according to HD Beat, it adds multiple progressive analog video outputs/inputs including RGBHV, component, RGBS and RGsB. Sure, $5,000 may seem like a lot for an add-on, but if you’re throwing down $20k+ for a projector, we’re guessing you can handle it.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Media PCs

Niveus has just announced its latest media centers, dubbed the Rainier and Denali Editions, the two products that comprise the 2007 Summit Series line at this year’s CEDIA, being held in Denver. The just-over 4-inch tall Rainier ($3,500), runs Windows Media Center 2005, and is loaded up with HDMI, WiFi, an SD/MMC reader, IEEE 1394, dual USB ports, VGA, composite and S-Video in, eight-channel analog audio out, S/PDIF, and of course, Ethernet. Further, it boasts up to three television tuners (two NTSC and one ATSC), 750GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, and an ATI X1600 Pro graphics card. If that wasn’t enough to whet your appetite, the 8-inch tall Denali ($7,000) is even more loaded, with an Intel Core 2 Duo (no word on what speed yet), four television tuners (a pair of NTSCs and ATSCs), NVIDIA’s GeForce Series 7 graphics card, a full terabyte of storage, a whopping 4GB of RAM, and even has, as we previously reported, built-in support for CableCARDs. Expect both editions to ship on September 30, but while you wait we’ve got more pics of the Rainier and the Denali Editions on the other side.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

We’ve already seen these players get dolled up for their European release as the HD-E1 and HD-XE1, but now Toshiba is showing some love for North America with their new HD-A2 and HD-XA2 HD DVD players. No real surprises in this A1/XA2 followup, and not a whole lot of spec love. The main enhancement goes the the XA2, which can now output a full 1080p resolution, and includes HDMI version 1.3 for enhanced color and sound thanks to the doubled bandwidth. The best news is the pricetags: the HD-A2 will be out in October for $500, while the HD-XA2 should follow in December for $1,000. Not quite free, but a whole lot better than our friends over in Europe fared.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Displays

Everybody’s gotsa have some 1080p these days, and Optoma is doing their share with a new 2-piece HD81 projector system that not only pumps the pixels, but processes them as well. The projector unit is based on a Texas Instruments DarkChip3 DLP setup, with a spankin’ 12000:1 contrast ratio, 1300 lumens, Auto IRIS and 10-bit color. That’s all well and good, but what really takes the cake is the included processing unit, which has three HDMI inputs (the projector has a single HDMI plug) along with plenty of other connectivity. The processor supports up-scaling to 1080p, and can handle wrangling with 1080i to 1080p conversion. The projector is available now in Taiwan for 299,000 TWD (about $9,114 US), but it should be showing up in the States before long.

[Via AboutProjectors]

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Sony schmony, Sharp’s here to remind us that they too, make some compelling gear by dropping 3 new LCD panels onto the stack of smaller sets rolled out earlier this month. Each of the 52, 46, and 42-inch LCDs bring that 1920×1080 Full HD (1080p) resolution you’ll want at these sizes, a 450cd/m2 brightness, a “world’s highest” 2000:1 contrast ratio, and “world’s fastest” full-motion video response rate of 4-milliseconds — just take those numbers with a grain of salt as methods of measurement vary, mkay? The three sets feature two Familink compatible HDMI inputs and remote control (which is presumably like Panny’s Viera Link HDMI control interface), a single DVI-I jack and dual digital/analog tuners. You can then configure each panel with either two side-mounted speakers or a single speaker under the panel which Sharp claims will produce clear, natural sound. Fine, but you’ll more than likely pitch ‘em in favor of your home audio system anyway. The 52 and 46-inch panels (LC-52GX1W / 2W, LC-46GX1W / 2W) should be available August 1st in Japan for ¥600,000 (about $5,125) and ¥500,000 (about $4,271) respectively, with the 42-incher (LC-42GX1W / 2W) coming a bit later in November for ¥450,000 or about $3,844 whenever these show-up Stateside.

[Via Impress]

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

When money is no object, it usually rings true that bigger is better, but in the case of the extra-large $16,000 Sharp AQUOS display, those blinded by bragging rights may overlook the unexpected lack of quality. While the general consensus has held the AQUOS lineup in high regard, the 57-inch LC-57D90U 1080p LCD HDTV has somehow missed the mark, or at least failed to reach those stratospheric expectations created by the pricetag. Although we can’t imagine this thing looking awful — or even bad, actually — Home Theater Mag stated that it “couldn’t be taken seriously” considering the “inexcusable faults” on the “most expensive TV it had reviewed in years.” The most glaring fault in the erroneously-priced set was its apparent inability to accept a 1080p signal over HDMI (ahem), while several other sets way below this price range currently can. Reviewers were also annoyed by the unparalleled 10+ second lag time experienced when the display attempted to lock up to a 3:2 sequence, and the “inaccurate color points” seen when viewing HD DVDs. While the list of issues probably overshadow the boons, the set did manage to “bring out a lot of detail” in 480i content, and no one could argue with the speedy 4ms response time. Realistically, however, a display this expensive is presumably expected to obliterate any prior efforts of TV manufacturers, and to be frank, it failed — so if you’d been saving those pennies benjamins just waiting for this to drop, you’re probably better off just picking up a less expensive model (and a new commuter car while you’re at it).

[Via HD Beat]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Deets are a bit slim, but Runco seems set on having something for pretty much everyone (everyone with money, that is) with their new line of high-end 1080p projectors. They’re starting things off with their new RS-1100 Ultra, a DLP unit that will be released for around $20,000 once it’s done with quality assurance testing, but they’ll also have models ranging from $12,000 for single chip models to $100,000 for three-chip action. Runco also plans to have CineWide versions of most models, which boosts the aspect ratio to “true widescreen” at 2.35:1 for a cinema-style experience. Other options include CineWide AutoScope, which can switch between 16:9 and 2.35:1, but bumps the price substantially. They’ll be showing off these models at the upcoming CEDIA tradeshow in September, and if prior quality is any indication, they should be some pretty hot stuff — so you might want to start saving those pennies.

[Via AboutProjectors]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

If you can't make heads nor tails of the whole HD DVD / Blu-ray debacle but still want a taste of 1080p, Denon's new lineup delivers just that. Realizing some people are still waiting to see how the next-gen optical disc war pans out, Denon has unveiled three new 1080p upscaling DVD players that are marginally more affordable than its more luxurious options. Apparently Denon is marketing these units to easily fit into any custom installation by labeling each model "CI," although we can't really think of how else to install a DVD player. Regardless, the DVD-3930CI ($1,499), DVD-2930CI ($849), and DVD-1930CI ($369) all offer 1080p upconverting over HDMI and SACD / DVD-Audio playback. The DVD-3930CI sports the same Realta HQV chipset as in the DVD-5930CI, Denon Pixel Image Correction (DPIC), on-board keystone correction, and Burr-Brown PCM-1796 DACs. The mid-ranger features the Silicon Optix REON VX chipset and DPIC while the DVD-1930CI steps down to a Faroudja DCDi chipset and a more economical version of the Burr-Brown DACs. Not much has changed outside of the technical rundown, as all of the units feature Denon's subtle black styling and promise to deliver that "uncompromising quality" we've come to expect. If you need something to hold you off awhile longer before choosing an HD format, or maybe a good reason to see what you've been missing on DVD, Denon's two higher-end models can be grabbed now while the DVD-1930CI will be available in August.

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Matt Burns over at HDBeat tells us how it is, and how it’s gonna be, when it comes to the two high line-count HD formats:

How can you tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p? You probably can’t.

He goes on to explain that most flat TVs today will deinterlace a signal anyhow. Matt’s reasoning is solid, if you’re into logic and stuff.
Matt, you may be right, but you’re seriously underestimating how much we gadget geeks like to flex our specs.– Brian Lam

How Can I Tell the Difference Between 1080i and 1080p [ Via HDbeat ]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

We’ve been waiting on this one for a good long while, but we’re pleased to say that if your chosen flavor of TV happens to be a 1080p, LED-based DLP set with 56-inches of screen real estate and a hard to remember model number, Samsung has just the display for you. Their HL-S5679W packs in a 4000:1 contrast ratio, HDMI input, analog/digital tuner, and of course that 20,000 hour lifespan, speedy startup and heat and energy savings provided by the LED backlit pixels. It’s shipping now with a MSRP of $4,199, but the word is you can nab one for around $4,000 on a certain proverbial street.

[Via HD Beat]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

We don’t mind checking out a business-oriented projector once in a while, but we’d much rather spend our time with high-end HD models like the three Sim2 has announced at this year’s UK CEDIA expo. The D35 Domino sports a 1280 x 720 resolution and a 3200:1 contrast ratio for £2999 ($5248), while the mid-range Grand Cinema HT305E, which adds increased light output and a shiny “gun-metal body, runs £4,999 ($8748). Both come equipped with HDMI inputs and Sim2′s Alpha Path light engine, but the star of the group is the 1080p HT3000. With a 1920 x 1200 resolution, a 7-segment color wheel and a pair of HDMI inputs, this long-throw hotness will set you back £11,999 ($20998), which is about the same price as 2100 trips to the multiplex. We know it sounds like a lot, but just think of how good it’ll look with your new NXT speaker-screen.

[Via Shiny Shiny]

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

If you like to watch high definition video-- and we mean really, really like to watch it-- then Pioneer has a new 50-inch plasma on the market that promises unrivaled picture quality and realism -- for a pretty steep price. We first heard of the Elite PureVision PRO-FHD1 back at CES in January, where we instantly knew from the specs that this was a pretty special model: it delivers full 1080p resolution using over two million pixels that are just .576 millimeters across, features a 3,000:1 contrast ratio and 1,000cd/m2 peak brightness, and sports two HDMI, one DVI, and one component input. What you're not getting here, though, are any built-in tuners; not only does this display lack a digital ATSC tuner, but it's also missing even a regular NTSC version -- which actually isn't that big of a deal for consumers with a set-top cable or satellite box. Apparently you can run right out and pick up your very own FHD1 as of today, but some of you may need to bring along several methods of payment, just in case you don't have any credit cards that are $10,000 under the limit.

[Via HDBeat]

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

It took a while for them to get all 103 of those inches in order -- we first saw this display in January at CES -- but Matsushita is finally ready to sell their "world's biggest plasma" to well-heeled customers with large empty spaces on their walls. At 473 pounds, you'd better hope that's an incredibly strong wall, but as for price we're still in the dark. With a 1080p resolution, and a 3000:1 contrast ratio, the only display that comes close to this is Samsung's 102-incher, but not only does it miss a whole inch of real estate, but Samsung hasn't offered theirs up for sale yet. Around 5,000 of these will be made each year, so if you want to nab one by the holidays we recommend you pull out an indescribably large wad of cash and head on over to Japan before we beat you to it.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Here ya go TeeVee fans, 5ish new models straight out of Japan. We know it hurts to see all this not-for-the-US tech coming through but just hang with us on these, ’cause from the looks of it, they’ll be available on these golden shores under the EyeFi branding soon enough. The five HDMI-equipped sets break down into 37, 32, and 27-inchers capable of 1920×1080, 1366×768, and 1280×720 pixels respectively. Each model features an ISDB-T Hi-Vision (high definition) digital tuner for Japan (with ATSC and DVB-T tuners on the way for the US and beyond). The big, bad, 37-inch LF-3701DFK (pictured) brings a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 8-millisecond response, and 176-degree visibility along with the usual in and outs consisting of S-Video, 2 x composite, Japanese D4, and RGB. And fortunately, that speaker sprouting below the panel can be chucked for a cleaner look when attached to your home audio system. The two 32-inch models — LW-3202DFK and LW-3201DFK — are the same panels only with fixed speakers mounted either below, or along sides of the LCD. Same story on those 27-inchers — the LW-2702DFK and LW-2701DFK — with the former also offering that 1366×768 pixel resolution seen by the 32-inch models. Prices are set to range from ¥99,800 to ¥199,800 (or about $863 to $1,729) when these panels hit the streets of Japan starting today — righteous pricing by the time these panels hit the US.

[Via Impress]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

With all this crazy money being spent on rolling out new standards like HD DVD and Blu-ray, you’d think at least they’d be able to manage that 1080p res they’re soaking you for, right? Well, sort of. HD DVD runs at about 10-15Mbps, compared to SD-res bitrates of around 8-10Mbps. That means a whole lot of compression is going on, and some of that film grain that you’re paying for with such high resolutions is getting lost in the process. Now Thomson is stepping in with a solution to reintroduce that grain, by simulating it in the actual player as a visual effect on the image. Sounds pretty cheesy to us, since the whole point of seeing film grain is for the subtle nuance of it, not for the mere effect of distorted picture. It does sound like they have some algorithm in place to pickup the actual patterns of noise during compression, so that the final representation has at least a semblance to the original, but it sounds like true film grain purists are going to have to stick with movie theaters for their fix for now.

[Via HD Beat]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Those good sports over at PC World subjected themselves to the tough job of spending time with that 58-inch DLP HDTV from HP we first heard about at CES, and the verdict is overwhelmingly positive. The 118-pound wobulator takes up its fair share of living room space, but with a wide array of features, like built-in 2.1 sound, 1080p resolution, a menu system that’s “just about perfect,” and an extensive array of picture tweaking options, the trade-off is easily justified. The inputs, which are conveniently located in the front of the TV, include two HDMIs, two component-videos, a VGA, CableCard and two RF inputs, as well as a USB port for firmware upgrades. At $3,500, it’s a lot cheaper than most other, flatter alternatives, so you might even have enough money left over to keep your PS3 fund alive.

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Filed under: Displays, HDTV

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Filed under: HDTV

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