Apr/100
LG’s passive shutter 3DTV
Just like everybody else in the display business, LG is trying to figure out exactly how they’re going to position themselves to benefit from the upcoming 3D Explosion! Since almost-sorta-not really pulling out of a deal with Sky TV to supply British pubs with 3D televisions, the company has announced that it will be offering its first 3DTV sets that uses polarization technology (as opposed to that active shutter stuff like NVIDIA’s 3D Vision) to consumers. Presumably cheaper than its active shutter counterparts, the LD950 supports HDMI version 1.4, 1080p HD, external storage via USB 2.0 (with DivX HD, MP3, and JPEG support), and comes bundled with four pairs of polarized glasses. There’s no word on a price or release date, but if it makes you feel better we can reveal that two new active 3D displays, the LX9900 (47-inch and 55-inch) and LX6900 (42-inch), featuring 1080p, Freeview HD, Netcast widgets (YouTube, Skype, Accu Weather, Picasa), and wireless AV link, will be available in May for a price yet to be determined.
Mar/100
Netgear’s HD streamering AV adapters
Another month, another blockbuster trade show. CeBIT’s show floor doesn’t open up until tomorrow (and yeah, we’ll be storming it like no other), but Netgear’s wasting precisely no time in unveiling its latest wares. The two pieces that are nearest and dearest to our hearts are the WNHDB3004 and WNHDB3004, the former of which is an 802.11n HD Home Theater Kit and the latter of which is a universal WiFi adapter that adds wireless support to any AV product with an Ethernet jack. Users interested in streaming “multiple, simultaneous, jitter-free 1080p HD video streams wirelessly throughout the home” should certainly give the first a look, as it enables instant wireless streaming from your existing router to any component with an Ethernet port; think of this as the beautiful alternative to running a 50 foot patch cable through your living room and simultaneously eroding your relationship with Mr. / Mrs. Significant Other. The outfit also doled out a few SMB-centric ReadyNAS devices and a couple of HomePlug AV boxes with AC outlet passthroughs, all of which are detailed there in the source links.
Dec/090
RAmos T11TE PMP Offers 1080p HDMI Output at a Modest Price
When it comes to portable media players, there are a lot of them on the market! Not the amount that you can find on the Asian market but I think Europe and the U.S. are doing pretty good in terms of offered devices. Especially seeing how from time to time, we get an infusion of gadgets with Asian origin so as to allow us to live the dream at a much lower price. Because the problem with the European and U.S. market is this: most really good devices cost a lot.
This is where the Asian imports come along and offer us decent items at less than half the price of what we can find locally. Such as the RAmos T11TE Full HD PMP, a portable media player (as the name says) that does not only come with above decent specs but also the possibility to output videos via HDMI to a resolution of 1090p. Yes, indeedy, ladies and gents, it can handle Full High Definition. The price? Well… about 177.45 USD.
It sports a 5.0-inch touch TFT LCD with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, has an OTG function, weighs about 320g, comes with stereo speakers and even dual 3.5mm audio jacks. It also doubles as an e-book reader, has 16GB of built-in memory and the storage can be further expanded via the microSD expansion slot. As far as format support goes… if there is something that this device doesn’t have support for, then I don’t know it.
You can watch just about any type of video ranging from DAT, MPG, MPEG, VOB to WMV, MKV, TS, RM, RMVB, it can read JPEG, BMP, PNG and TIFF images and will allow the user to also listen to a number of audio formats such as MP3, WMA, WAV or FLAC. All this for 177.45 USD? You got it, ladies and gents!
Dec/090
Is this what wireless HD has been waiting for?
WHDI RELEASES 1.0 Specification
WHDI is the Only Full 1080p/60Hz HD Wireless Solution for All CE, PC and Mobile Devices across the Home
Quality, Robustness and No Latency
WHDI LLC today announced the completion and availability of the WHDI™ (Wireless Home Digital Interface™) specification.
The WHDI standard enables full 1080p/60Hz HD with Deep Color at a distance of 100 feet and through walls. No other wireless standard combines this level of quality and robustness with the ease of multi-room wireless. By doing so, WHDI enables consumers to build a wireless HD network in the home to take advantage of the latest content and interactive services.
WHDI is the leading standard for the wireless, multi-room distribution of HD video, enabling manufacturers to deliver higher value added devices that can connect the increasing number of HD sources (CE, PC and mobile devices) and to TVs around the home. The WHDI standard ensures that by purchasing products with the WHDI logo, consumers will be able to bring home devices from different manufacturers that will simply and directly connect to one another and deliver HD content and services without the need for complicated and expensive wiring.
“WHDI is the only solution that meets consumers’ expectation and demand for a high-quality, multi-room HD wireless solution” said Leslie Chard, president of WHDI LLC. Adding that: “WHDI further enables two of the strongest trends in the A/V universe: the proliferation of HD content sources (now including the PC and mobile devices) and the increasing number of inexpensive, high quality displays placed throughout the home.”
“WHDI fills an important need to provide connectivity in the home, offering flexibility, convenience and additional features. Robust wireless connectivity and switching means that more devices and more high quality content can reach the consumer’s HD displays in a user friendly manner.”" said Dr. Paul Moroney, a Motorola Fellow.
“Consumers want access to all of their HD content, whether coming on their laptop, mobile phone, STB or other device. WHDI enables manufacturers to create devices that easily deliver this value. No other wireless technology can provide this connectivity with the quality and robustness of WHDI” said Dr. Yoav Nissan-Cohen, Chairman and CEO of Amimon, Inc.
WHDI – Enabling the HD Wireless Connected Home
WHDI will enable manufacturers to bring HD connectivity, from PC’s and laptops, and mobile computing devices, to wireless TV’s. With WHDI consumers can easily bring HD content from the STB in the living room to other HDTVs in the home – consumers will be able to easily add a TV to their bedroom, kitchen, playroom, etc. without having to worry about wiring.
WHDI – Brief Technical Overview
WHDI (Wireless Home Digital Interface) sets a new standard for wireless high-definition video connectivity. It provides a high-quality, uncompressed wireless link that supports the delivery of equivalent video data rates of up to 3Gbps (including 1080p/60Hz) in a 40MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band, conforming to worldwide 5GHz spectrum regulations. Range is beyond 100 feet, through walls, and latency is less than one millisecond. Additionally, WHDI relies on HDCP revision 2.0 to provide superior Hollywood-approved security and digital content protection.
Dec/090
LG mass production of LCD monitors with Full HD 3D capability
LG Display Co., Ltd, a leading innovator of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) technology, announced the world’s first commercial launch of 3D LCD panel boasting full HD resolution.
The new product is a 23-inch 3D monitor LCD panel for use with shutter glasses that delivers full HD resolution. It offers picture quality that is almost twice as crisp as HD 3D displays currently available in the market.
The panel adopts the company’s proprietary technologies such as “high performance 3D exclusive controller” capable of processing more than twice as much image data as other HD 3D LCDs and “copper bus line” to improve on the resolution and picture quality. In addition, the panel is able to reproduce both 2D and 3D images, meaning that users can switch back and forth from 2D and 3D modes.
Although full HD 3D images have been developed for contents such as video games, movies and animations, 3D display products with full HD resolution were unavailable in the market. The commercial launch of LG Display’s full HD 3D LCD panel is expected to help to boost development of high resolution 3D contents while allowing users to view true-to-life 3D images.
Mr. Davis Lee, LG Display’s Vice President and head of IT marketing department, noted “LG Display has made a major breakthrough in the display industry race to deliver the depth and dynamic nature of 3D images. LG Display will continue with efforts to keep pace with the fast growing 3D market with leading 3D technology and products in order to create new value for customers.”
The 3D display market is expected to grow at rapid pace as the industry players are shifting their focus from two- dimensional to three-dimensional technologies. The Korea Communications Commission recently announced plans to start a trial service for the world’s first full HD 3D terrestrial broadcasting from the second half of 2010. A launch of trial services for 3D satellite broadcasts had been also announced earlier in Japan and the UK
Dec/090
ViewSonic 23 & 26 inch IPS LCD Monitors
ViewSonic’s last round of LCDs were nothing short of unforgettable, but these two might actually grab (and retain) your attention if you consider yourself a “professional.” The 23-inch VP2365wb and 26-inch VP2655wb both fall into the firm’s VP series of 1080p pro LCDs, and the both of ‘em are blessed with IPS panels and 4-port USB hubs. You’ll also find pivoting stands on the pair, and while the 23-incher gets a 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution, the big boy steps it up to 1,920 x 1,200 and offers a 118 percent NTSC wide color gamut for those discerning retinas of yours. Interested? The duo is available now if you look in the right places, and while the VP2365wb will cost you just $399, the larger sibling will ding you for $1,299.
Nov/090
Rocketfish WirelessHD Adapter
When Belkin killed its FlyWire, it also put a serious hurtin’ on the hopes of wireless HDTV ever truly taking off in the near term. Granted, the device was horrifically overpriced, but it was easily the most well-known product in the fledgling sector. Now, however, it seems that a few other players are sneaking into the limelight, with Philips recently introducing its sub-$1,000 Wireless HDTV Link and Sony pricing its DMX-WL1 for the everyman. Today, Best Buy’s own Rocketfish has introduced its WirelessHD Adapter, a two-piece set that enables a single HDMI device to be connected to an HDMI-enabled HDTV sans cabling. You simply plug your source into one box and your HDTV into another; so long as the two are within 33 feet of one another, 1080p content can be slung without wires. It’s up for order right now at $599.99, which — amazingly enough — is actually more expensive than that 30-foot Monster HDMI cable you were secretly eying.
Nov/090
AMIMON’s WHDI wireless HD for netbooks and laptops
The market leader in wireless High Definition semiconductor solutions(AMIMON), today announced the availability of WHDI™ modules which can be embedded into notebook PCs and netbook PCs. The WHDI modules are available today with a mini-PCI form-factor of 50mm*30mm and will also be offered with a standard Display-Mini card form-factor of 44.4mm*26mm based on the interface defined by the PCI SIG® which uses Displayport™. Additionally, these cards are designed for the WHDI™ (Wireless Home Digital Interface™) standard and are capable of wirelessly delivering full uncompressed 1080p/60Hz HD content throughout the entire home.
The AMIMON WHDI modules’ compact form factor enables seamless integration into PCs. The WHDI modules are also designed for low power consumption suitable for battery-powered devices.
Notebook PCs embedded with the new WHDI modules are expected to be in the market in 2010 offering consumers the ability to connect their notebook wirelessly to any WHDI-enabled HDTV or, through an external WHDI-to-HDMI adaptor, also to any HDTV. The new modules will also enable external wireless PC-to-TV accessories (’dongles’) which connect to the PC and TV via HDMI.
With WHDI consumers can view the entire content of their notebook screen on their TV. Content such as Internet video, flash media, digital photos, PC games can all be viewed and experienced on the TV with a convenient wireless connection.
“PCs are increasingly becoming a source of multimedia entertainment like Hulu, YouTube, etc. Consumers will be able to wirelessly connect their PCs and watch all this cool new content on their big screen TV anywhere in the home,” said Noam Geri, vice president of marketing and business development for AMIMON. “WHDI is gaining momentum with TV OEMs and now also PC OEMs set to offer consumers multiple WHDI enabled products in 2010.”
The WHDI modules are based on the revolutionary video modem technology operating in the 5GHz unlicensed band, pioneered by AMIMON and the backbone of WHDI. WHDI co-exists in the same frequency spectrum with Wi-Fi and uses similar RF building blocks and antennas. The WHDI synergies with Wi-Fi enable a roadmap to integrated WHDI + Wi-Fi semiconductor components which will offer notebook OEMs the prospect of a very low cost WHDI wireless HD link to the TV.
The WHDI Modules are designed and manufactured by AMIMON’s ODM Partners. Key features include:
* Based on AMIMON’s AMN 2120/2220 WHDI chipset, designed for the WHDI standard
* Compact form factor
* Support for full high definition resolutions up to 1080p/60Hz
* Practically no latency – less than 1 millisecond
* Hollywood approved HDCP 2.0 copy protection
* Low power consumption modes for portable devices
* Low cost
* 5GHz unlicensed band with support for Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS)
Nov/090
Getting the best audio from PS3, without HDMI
Once you’ve actually decided what hardware to purchase, avoided the perilous purchasing decisions involved in finding cables, but actually setting it up can trip up the newbies among us. Suck is our friend David’s problem, trying to figure out if lossless audio is a possibility for his HDMI-less receiver:
“I read your article and I would like further advice. I have the brand new PS3, which I’m going to use with a 1080p Sony Bravia – the video is fine..HDMI to the tv. The problem is that I have an ONKYO THX 7.1 system (really 5.1), and there is no HDMI, so I plan on using an optical audio cable from the PS3 into the receiver. How do i get the best sound? Will the PS3 decode the trueHD (or whatever it is) and send the full spectrum of sound across the optical to the receiver? Will NOT having the HDMI to the receiver affect my sound, or will the PS3 internal decoding send a perfect lossless sound to my non-HDMI receiver?”
Just in case our HD 101 explanation wasn’t enough (First off, S/PDIF transmission — over either optical TOSLINK or coax — does not have the bandwidth to carry Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA signals. If you connect your Blu-ray player to your receiver with optical or coax, the audio will “fall back” to Dolby Digital, DTS or two-channel PCM — lossless, but only two channels,) any tips on how David can get the highest audio quality possible out of the equipment he has? Of course, if you think replacing one of the components is a better choice, that’s always an option as well.
Nov/090
Samsung’s TV combination monitor with inbuilt TV tuner
Remember the Samsung P2370HD monitor? Well, this is it at 27 inches. How’s that for concision? Oh, you want more — well, Samsung must’ve expected you to, because it’s also added a TV tuner and a HDMI input to its latest Full HD display, to go along with a 5ms response time and a 50,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. There’s also a pair of 3 watt stereo speakers that can simulate 5.1 channel sound — good for emergencies or if you just can’t stand speakers cluttering up your desktop. Filling out the goodie bag are Picture In Picture and Picture By Picture modes, which should make good use of the extra real estate on the screen by combining, for example, your desktop with a TV source. The price is set at 549,000 Won (or about $473) for Korea, though global availability looks imminent so don’t rush to import it just yet.