(Credit: Tech-On)While we're still waiting for OLED TVs to get more realistic prices, a Japanese company is moving on to making OLED-based posters for advertising.
The prototype, pictured above as a poster for Japan's Rakuten Eagles professional baseball team, uses both organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) and inorganic ...
Mitsubishi's new DLP sets include a 60-incher for $1499.
(Credit: Mitsubishi)Rear-projection HDTVs have been waning in popularity with the waxing of flat-panel plasmas and LCDs, but Mitsubishi's new lineup of DLP models proves that the technology will be available in stores for at least another year.
In 2008, Samsung and Mitsubishi were the only two companies selling rear-projection behemoths and, due to lack of demand, we only reviewed one model from each company: the Samsung HL61A750 and the Mitsubishi WD-65735.
The LED-powered Samsung was clearly better, but that company has not announced any new DLP models for 2009, although it will continue to sell its 2008 models. I asked Samsung's reps last week about the company's DLP plans but they refused to provide any information, and I have a hunch they won't announce any new models this year, or ever.
That leaves the market for gigantic-screen HDTVs wide open for Mitsubishi. DLP-based models are generally less expensive and more efficient than LCDs or plasmas of a similar screen size, and despite sagging sales, rear-projection may still have legs, especially in a down economy. Mitsubishi's betting it does, and the price is right. It's least expensive 2009 model, the 60-inch WD-60737, lists at $1,500--the same as the 61-inch Samsung commands at Best Buy today and a lot less than any plasma or LCD in that size range.
Mitsubishi announced two new series of big screens, starting at 60 inches and going up to a new size peak: a colossal 82 inches....
Ceatec attendees try out motion-controlled TV in September 2008.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)The TV remote control of the future isn't an expensive device with an LCD screen and blinking lights. It's your hand.
The classic TV remote control most of us have grown up with has been around in essentially the same incarnation for half a century. It's been tweaked over the years, but now one company is looking at ditching the remote altogether and using a camera mounted below a TV screen that senses hand motions instead of button pushes. The result is something that seems right out of Minority Report.
But the high-tech user interface Tom Cruise coolly manipulates onscreen isn't even all that far-fetched now, thanks to incremental improvements. Until now, the most innovative new input for entertainment in the living room has been the Wii-mote, the motion-sensing remote control/wand that has made Nintendo's game console a cultural phenomenon. Swing it like a tennis racket and you can pretend you're playing tennis, point it at the screen and use it like a mouse to navigate menus.
Televisions have progressed as well, with better picture quality and capability. Now TVs can record TV shows, stream Netflix movies, check the weather, read news headlines, and skim RSS feeds. The menus on those TVs appear more and more like what we see on our computer screens, so a new interface that operates more like a mouse seems almost inevitable.
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If you have cash to spare and want the best picture quality, dang right you should.
Q: "David - Do you recommend waiting for the new higher-end plasmas from Panasonic or pulling the trigger on one of Pioneer's Kuro plasmas? Money no object."
-- Mark, via e-mail.
A: Having just finished reviewing one of those higher-end Panasonic plasmas, the G10 series, I'd recommend that deep-pocketed videophiles grab a Pioneer Kuro while they're still available.
As we'll remind everyone for what's sure to not be the last time, Pioneer will making plasmas. That's significant for shoppers looking to buy a high-end TV for one big reason: Pioneer makes what are still, in my and many other experts' opinions, the best HDTVs on the market. The company's Elite Kuro series earned the only "10" I've ever awarded in Performance for a flat-panel TV, while the superb non-Elite PDP-5020FD series were nearly as good, minus some adjustments and color accuracy (and plus about two grand).
Pioneer's factory in Pomona, CA will continue to manufacture these Kuro displays through April before it closes, according to the company, but after that I expect them to disappear quickly from store shelves. Of course, as long as the company itself is still around, I expect it to stand behind any Kuros it sells.
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There's an interesting article over at Slate entitled "The problem with 3D." I'd encourage you to read the whole thing, but the subtitle pretty much sums it up: "It hurts your eyes. Always has, always will." Author Daniel Engbar argues that today's digital-assisted 3D technology isn't so far removed from earlier incarnations of the 1950s and 1980s, and that it's still effectively hacking your brain's depth perception triggers--and putting a lot of strain on your eyes in the process.
This matters, of course, because Hollywood is doubling down on 3D technology in a big way. In addition to new movies like "Monsters vs. Aliens" and James Cameron's upcoming "Avatar," studios are repurposing existing favorites for eventual 3D releases. And why not? With increasingly affordable giant-screen TVs in the home (and ever-shrinking theater-to-DVD release windows), the industry needs new and more elaborate gimmicks to get customers into the theater.
But it's not just the movie theater. ...
