HD DirecTiVo And Other CES Treats

Gadget Guy writes "The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) has announced their CES (Consumer Electronics Show) Innovations 2004 winners. Within is a shot of the new Hughes HD DirecTiVo with some new LED's on the front including "Temp" for those sure to be occurring overheats. The surprise winners were the Motorola IM Free with no backlight along with it's "left un-justified" keyboard and the color SideKick who's black and white cousin was debuted at the 2003 CES show. Plus check out this Samsung DLP TV! Stealth bomber cool!"

Comments

no so cool

[frovingslosh]

Plus check out this Samsung DLP TV! Stealth bomber cool!"

Wasn't one of the cool promises of a flat plasma TV that we could hang them on the wall with little wasted space? Not have to ballance them on top of a space wasting cousing of R2-D2? Who in the world wants this TV with it's queer makeover and awkward space wasting base?

Re:no so cool

[iainl]

The Samsung isn't a flat plasma TV though; its a DLP rear projection that, since the single DLP unit is much smaller than the multiple bulbs of a traditional CRT rear-pro, they've hollowed out the stand to the bare minimum for maximum cool looks.

If you want flat plasma, then get flat plasma. I wouldn't hang one on my wall though, as not only do I need the stand space underneath it to house DVD, Laserdisc, Amplifier, Satellite decoder, VHS recorder, Minidisc player and multiple consoles, but the sheer weight of a 43" plasma screen means you need blooming great bolts in it to ensure it doesn't fall off.

Re:no so cool

[Zathrus]

Wasn't one of the cool promises of a flat plasma TV that we could hang them on the wall with little wasted space?

Sure, and you can still do that. You'll only pay roughly twice as much for a HD plasma screen as you will for a HD DLP. DLP may not be perfect, but I do think it's the best digital display technology out there right now. It's light (our 46" is only 80 lbs (36 kg); our 32" CRT TV is far heavier), they're not flat but they are narrow (ours is only 16" deep), they have no burn-in issues (plasma does), pretty good black levels (best of the digital bunch), great resolution (1280x720 currently), high contrast and brightness (you don't NEED to watch in a pitch black room), and good connectivity (DVI and VGA input!).

Yeah, it's still much more expensive than a RPTV CRT HD set, but I think it's worth it. And, as I mentioned, it's considerably cheaper than plasma.

As for the stand -- it's separate. Don't buy it if you don't like it. Mine is in a huge honking entertainment center, many people buy various stands for them -- with the weight you don't need to worry about whether or not the stand can hold the TV. And, after all, you need somewhere to put the receiver, DVD player, TiVo, etc.

Re:720p Versus 1080i

[-noefordeg-]

"Your mind sees approximately 22-30 frames per second." - I hope you mean motion blured frames per second, since otherwise you can easily see the difference between 30fps and 60 fps and up to ~72fps.

The obvious questions...

[ChangeOnInstall]

Will an HDTV DirecTivo function exactly as my current original-generation Tivo in terms of letting me watch any show I recorded, i.e., are these affected by the broadcast flag stuff? Will it provide component video outputs and an optical audio output such I can watch those programs on the HDTV I bought three years ago?

If the answer is yes, I'll certainly buy one.

Re:720p Versus 1080i

[Single GNU Theory]

So, I wonder what pets think of our modern video and audio systems?

Pets probably think modern video and audio systems don't smell very interesting.

Re:720p Versus 1080i

[xeaxes]

There was a report on the news about cats and tv. They were distinguishing why some cats watch and some cats do not watch.

The answer? The cats that watch TV have slower brains then the cats that do not watch TV. They cannot distinguish that TV is not real.

I'm guessing the same is true for dogs. Especially in regards to sound. It's interesting that some dogs can distinguish that hearing a doorbell or dog bark on TV is fake and some dogs cannot. So, higher quality audio and video probably means that in the end, more pets will watch and listen.

Re:720p Versus 1080i

[davegust]

The problem with your position on 1080i is that many of your 720p "advantages" are due to the limits of today's technology.

- Today's sets can't show full 1920
- Today's cameras can't shoot full 1920
- Interlaced to progressive conversion is expensive
- Digitizing progressive is easier

While these statements are true today, in 5 years these problems will be be solved. They are technology limits.

Approximating the recovery of interlaced fields is simply a technology problem, not a mathematical limit. We throw away these fields as a compression technique, to compliment the other techniques used in MPEG2. Recovering an approximation should be as accepted and accurate as the color-depth recovery that we employ with JPEG and MPEG decompression filtering.

What won't change is that at the same bit-rate, the higher resolution interlaced fields have the potential to look sharper than the lower resolution progressive frames.

Good motion compensated de-interlacing can make interlaced fields look smooth, and these systems will be cheap enough to include in every set in 5 to 10 years. As far as I know, no such solution exists to enhance the lack of resolution. (Yes, I know sharpness filters exists, but the results are poor, and they are not typically sought as a solution to video problems. Maybe these will get better too, but I doubt it.)

I'm sure most people would agree that if we had been stuck with something like 320p vs. 480i for NTSC, that we would have been living with poorer quality images for the last two decades, once image processing had reached the limits of the format.

Fortunately, ATSC wisely accomodates multiple formats.

Dave

P.S. Most of today's sets are not natively progressive scan, but are still built with tubes. I agree this is rapidly changing, but tubes still have the picture quality edge. I'm betting on nano-tube cathode displays as the best replacement for direct-view tubes.