about-electronics.eu

I4U: With the digital transition coming in early 2009 and some markets changing to digital broadcasts before that the market for LCD and Plasma TVs is booming. The economic stimulus checks soon to be showing up for most Americans will also see lots of new HDTVs coming to homes around the country. Today we are going to talk about a few of the things you need to consider when you are buying a LCD or plasma TV.

LCD or Plasma
There are certainly more things that most consumers will want to consider when shopping for a new flat screen TV. Two of the most basic decisions you will need to make is what size a TV you want and if you want to go with plasma or LCD technology. The decision on size will determine to some extent whether you can choose from LCD, Plasma or both technologies for the size you want.

Typically you won’t see plasma TVs under 42-inches in size. That means if you are shopping under 42-inches odds are all you will have to choose from is LCD TVs. That’s not a bad thing, it just means different technology.

Plasma panels have some pros and cons when compared to LCD TVs. The first is that plasma panels tend to not last as long as an LCD panel will. Though honestly, by time a plasma panel looses a noticeable amount of its brightness you will be ready to upgrade anyhow.

Plasma HDTVs tend to be brighter than LCDs and often have better contrast ratios. The contrast ratio is a particularly important specification of any LCD or Plasma TV. The higher the contrast ratio of a TV the better picture quality you will be able to get. It is important to note that there is no industry standard for manufacturers to use when measuring contrast ratio so the numbers are often considered arbitrary.
720p or 1080p
One of the biggest selling points for HDTVs is the resolution of the TV. The resolution is often stated in several ways so you may see things like full HD, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 1920 x 1080, or 1280 x 720. Most lower cost HDTVs will be 720p. I am not familiar with any network, cable, or satellite that broadcasts in full HD (1080p). That means that if you are only planning to hook your set up to cable or satellite for HD viewing you will only get a 720p signal. Many boxes will upscale to 1080i and every 720p set should be able to handle the 1080i resolution.

(more…)

read more

Akihabaranews: Carry your multimedia content with you everywhere with IOGEAR’s Portable Media Player.

IOGEAR’s Portable Media Player stores all of your favorite standard definition pictures, movies and music for easy playback viewing on a standard definition TV, HDTV or display. IOGEAR’s 720p HD upscaling capability allows you to play your standard definition content at up to 720p HD resolution on your HDTV. Highly acclaimed compact yet high capacity design allows you to carry a multitude of entertainment wherever you go!

The Portable Media Player holds:

Up to 34,000 digital photos
Up to 30,000 songs (MP3)
Up to 3,000 songs (uncompressed CD quality)
Up to 9 hours of Digital Video (DV)
Up to 50 hours of DVD quality video

read more

PC World: If you thought that buying your new plasma or LCD high-definition television was the hardest part of bringing a great viewing experience into your home, think again. To get the most out of your investment, you’ll need to overhaul your video source, the cables you use, your sound system, your remote, and even your furniture.

If you haven’t decided which TV to buy yet, we have plenty of resources to help you make the right choice.

Let’s first look at some of the specs used to describe high-definition pictures. Video at 720p, 1080i, or 1080p is considered “high definition” because it exceeds the standard TV definition of 480i. But these three resolutions certainly don’t produce pictures of identical quality.

read more

T3: If you’re looking for a “budget” Hi-Def  projector, this should be top of your audition list. It’s a winner before you even turn it on; where most projectors have all the chic style and chiselled good looks of your average technology journalist, this one is cloaked in purest black and features a strikingly muscular design.

This is HD-ready, with a native 720p resolution – it can also downscale 1080i and 1080p images – and produces really gorgeous-looking video.

Even better, you don’t need to have a living room that’s suitable for parking aircraft in to use this. It has both vertical and horizontal lens shift, controlled using a pair of dials rather than the usual, more fiddly, joysticks. That means dead straight projection, even when it’s sitting off-centre from the screen, while the short-throw lens produces massive images when it’s sitting relatively close to it.

(more…)

read more

Gizmodo: There is no doubt that 1080p is the holy grail of high definition, which is exactly why Sony has pursued that benchmark with such enthusiasm. But exactly how hard is 1080p to render for video game consoles? Here are some telling stats straight from senior software design Bruce Dawson:

* 2.25x: that’s how many more pixels there are in 1920×1080 compared to 1280×720
* 55.5%: that’s how much less time you have to spend on each pixel when rendering 1920×1080 compared to 1280×720–the point being that at higher resolutions you have more pixels, but they necessarily can’t look as good
* 1.0x: that’s how much harder it is for a game engine to render a game in 1080p as compared to 1080i–the number of pixels is identical so the cost is identical
* 1280×720 with 4x AA will generally look better than 1920×1080 with no anti-aliasing (there are more total samples).

Resolution is no longer the sole indicator of image quality because of technological advancements that improve graphics at the pixel level, like shaders. If the PS3 is a stronger computing platform that can run 1080p well, I’d like to see them scale the resolution down, max the shaders and give me a mind-blowing image I’m actually capable of displaying on my 720p TV.

read more