If you’re looking for a widescreen LCD monitor, you may have noticed that both Dell and Apple sell 20″ widescreen displays that are similarly spec’d. You may wonder how they’re different and which one is better. Well, if thoughts like this are wandering through your brain today, check out the comparative review of these two LCD monitors over at AnandTech. To summarize: the monitors are VERY close in quality with almost nothing to choose between them, but the Dell is much cheaper so buy it.

Link: AnandTech - The 20″ LCD Shootout: Dell versus Apple

Huge! Big! Large! TV! At 67″, Samsung’s 67″ DLP RPTV is rather humongous, and is a 1080p set. Only (?) $6,199.

Link: engadget - The HL-R6768W, Samsung’s 67-inch DLP TV

And PC World magazine is taking a look at a bunch of smaller LCD TVs of late, here they are, listed by decreasing score (highest first):

Link: PC World - Mitsubishi LT-3050
Link: PC World - Sharp Aquos LC-32G4U
Link: PC World - Samsung LT-P326W
Link: PC World - LG Electronics DU-30LZ30
Link: PC World - ViewSonic N3000w
Link: PC World - Panasonic TC-32LX20
Link: PC World - Syntax Olevia LT30HV
Link: PC World - JVC LT-32X575

Microsoft is using www.startsomethingpc.com to start a PC design contest. I heard about it at Addicted to Digital Media (AtDM). They have a teaser video that shows a whole lot of nothing, as teasers often do. At AtDM they have several versions of this teaser video: standard definition, 720, and 1080. I downloaded an HD one and took a gander, just because. When I saw the HD options I thought wow, cool, Microsoft is really promoting this High-Def thing. Even their videos now come with an HD option. But then I went to www.startsomethingpc.com, and I couldn’t find the HD versions of the video anywhere. So much for supporting HD.

Microsoft has a lot to gain by the adoption of HD, especially when the blue-laser disc format hits stores. VC-1 is their format, they invented it, and it’s supported by both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps. They want their technology to be used and to proliferate. But if they want to do that, they really have to get behind it. They have part of it right - the Xbox 360 sounds like it’ll be an HD monster! But website videos have to support HD too. Every place where they can show off HD, they should. I hope they get to it!

Speaking of getting to it, take a look HERE. It’s a HD gallery of video clips. (Edit: and someone talks about them here.) Some are movie trailers, others not. But Apple has proclaimed that 2005 is the Year of HD, and they’re moving forward with it adding HD support to their products. They are releasing HD hardware (all their LCD displays are widescreen and support at least HD resolutions, some more) and software. And content. Right. Content is king and all that. Good for you Apple - keep at it! Oh, and here’s a link.

CyberLink makes PowerDVD, and is adding support for Blu-ray to the product. They previewed some of the features at the Blu-ray Association’s member seminar. CyberLink will also be adding Blu-ray support to PowerProducer and Power2Go.

Link: BetaNews - CyberLink Previews Blu-ray Support

Canadian Star Choice users rejoice! The day has finally arrived - an HD PVR! They are finally taking preorders for an HD PVR based on a Motorola platform. It is a two-tuner PVR with a 160GB hard drive. It has a DVI/HDCP output, though no HDMI is mentioned.

Link: Digital Home Canada - Star Choice set to release HD PVR

Microsoft has chosen Samsung to show off their new Xbox 360 console in kiosk displays around the country. The 23″ LCD display to be used has a new super-fast 12ms switching speed, making this LCD better at displaying fast moving objects.

Link: PRNewswire - Samsung Electronics and Microsoft Announce Revolutionary HDTV Alliance
Link: Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection

If you’re considering switching to DIRECTV for your HDTV viewing, beware that DIRECTV’s new HD satellite will use MPEG4, not MPEG2. This is a tricky changeover that needs time to iron out some wrinkles, which you can read more about at TVPredictions.com.

Link: TVPredictions.com- Should You Get HDTV From DIRECTV?

[Update: more details at DesignTechnica and engadget]

HP is introducing some more HDTVs with wobulation technology. Wobulation is the technique by which the image is painted in stages - in each stage the image is shifted slightly and a different part is painted. This allows a 1024×768 DLP, for example, give a perceived resolution of 2048×1536, if using 2X wobulation. This is a new technology, and if I remember correctly this is how TI is getting 1920 x 1080 resolution out of their upcoming DLP chips. The jury is still out of the effectiveness of this technology, but if it works well, that’s good news.

HP’s new TV’s also adjust the image to the room’s ambient lighting and uses a 3D color enrichment system. I’m not so sure I like the sound of that. Typically, such add-on tachnologies (like scan velocity modulation) try to make the image seem better at the expense of true image fidelity.

HP also announced HD entertainment centers (maybe they mean Media Center PCs?) that allow 55 hours of HD recording.

Link: News.com - HP unveils high-definition TV line
Link: techsmec.com - HP Unveils New TVs and Media Centers

Saturday Night Live is now going HD. Well, in the fall. One more TV show in HD. Only 30,546 to go!

Link: NY Post - ‘SNL’ Goes High-Def

Also, Discovery HD Theater has some Star Wars related HD content coming soon:

Discovery HD Theater presents ALIEN PLANET on Saturday, May 14 at 8 pm (ET), the network’s first ever simulcast event with the Discovery Channel. Continuing its out-of-this-world theme, on Wednesday, May 18 from 8 pm to 11 pm, Discovery HD Theater will present THE SCIENCE OF STAR WARS, a special that reveals various types of “Star Wars-like” equipment in use today - or at least in development stages.

Link: TVPredictions.com - Discovery HD Theater

Apple gorgeous widescreen LCD monitors are perfect for editing HD video. They have an aspect ratio of 16:10, great for showing an HD image. Prices have recently come down: the 20″ model is just $799, the 23″ model is $1,499, and the 30″ model is $2,999.

Link: PRNewswire - Apple Monitors
Link: Apple - Displays

LA Audio File has a review of the Epson PowerLite Cinema 500 HD LCD projector. At a resolution of 1280 x 720, this thing is ready to display your HD imagery.

Link: LA Audio File - Epson PL500
Link: Epson - PL500

Sanyo, Sharp, Pioneer, and Hitachi have jointly developed a standard for recording movies and music to removable hard disc drives and compatible devices. The copyright protection technology is called “Security Architecture For Intelligent Attachment device”, or SAFIA. SAFIA enables “iVDR” or “information Versatile Disk for Removable usage”.

The article below says that Sharp has developed a prototype of an iVDR compatible Blu-ray recorder. I’m not sure what this means….

Link: Tech-On! - iVDR Removable HDD Consortium Develops Copyright Protection Technology for Digital Recorders

Yesterday morning DIRECTV launched the Spaceway F1 satellite. This satellite is capable of beaming hundreds of HD signals to DIRECTV subscribers. The Spaceway F1 is just the first of two satellites DIRECTV will launch this year. The first group of markets targeted by this satellite will comprise of 36 million viewers, or 32.8% of all US TV households.

Link: SpaceRef.com - DIRECTV

In other DIRECTV news, DIRECTV is offering abandoned VOOM subscribers a $200 mail-in-rebate to switch to DIRECTV.

Link: DIRECTV - Say Hello to DIRECTV HD

The CEOs of nine high-tech companies (Intel, HP, Unisys, IBM, NCR Corp., Dell, Applied Materials, EMC Corp., and Motorola) have banded together to press the issue of the digital TV official switchover date. They sent a letter to House Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), who is in charge of drafting the legislation that will set the “date certain” when broadcasters have to stop sending analog transmissions.

Link: engadget - High-tech CEOs want their DTV and they want it now

Not to be confused with the upcoming HD-DVD format, this is a normal (well, super-normal) DVD player that can play HD content stored on DVDs. Also, it will upscale normal DVDs to 1080p or 1080i. If you want to play DVDs with HD content, you’re choices will be limited to the few DVDs with HVD on them. But it’s still quite cool. I’d love to see what this thing looks like hooked up to my HDTV. I’m unsure of the benefits of upscaled DVD (my TV already does that anyway) but native HD content from this thing would look great!

Link: bytesector.com - NeuNeo Review

If plasma is your thing then Sound & Vision magazine should be your friend this month. They have reviews of several plasma displays for your edification.

Link: Sound&Vision - Vizio by V, Inc.
Link: Sound&Vision - HP PL4245N
Link: Sound&Vision - Pioneer PDP-4350HD
Link: Sound&Vision - Panasonic TH-42XVS30U

With all this talk of the battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, and all the talk of a possible fusion of the two formats, it’s good to look back at the article linked below for a little bit of a technical background behind the two formats. The article is from November, but it’s still relevant and contains some interesting facts that aren’t coming out in most common articles on the subject.

Link: NE Asia Online - Blu-ray vs HD DVD: Fight or Unite?

Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display, or SED, is a technology I’ve talked about before. It’s getting closer and closer to being available in stores, which is a good thing. Something I didn’t previously know is that SED sets will probably be more expensive than plasma sets, which isn’t such a good thing. Personally, I think that plasma televisions are way too expensive for what you get, image quality wise. For me personally, the flat form factor is not enough enough of a draw to overcome the price and poor image quality (with respect to CRT). SED is going to give the convenience of a flat panel display and the quality of a CRT, but at a cost.

Link: Computerworld - Toshiba to Start SED Production in August

On the display quality front, Toshiba and Canon have shown an SED panel with a contrast ratio of 100,000:1. It looks like SED will be the quality leader when released to the public.

Link: Tech-On - SED Panel Contrast Ratio Boosted to 100,000:1

[Update: another review at ExtremeTech]

Often products come out that combine several different functions in new, unique ways. You know, a product that has so many features you don’t really know what it is. Is it a blow dryer or handgun? A pencil or ear-wax remover? You know the types of products I mean.

Epson has one of these products, and it’s called the Livingstation. It combines an HDTV with a digital photo printer. It includes memory card slots the TV uses to suck in digital bits and bytes and uses 6 by 4 inch paper to spew color photos. The TV even includes an external CD-RW drive to burn the images from the memory cards onto CDs.

Weird stuff. And Sound & Vision has a review.

Link: Sound & Vision - Epson Livingstation

Sony’s SXRD technology is making it’s way to more affordable products, if you consider $13,000 affordable. Well, it’s affordable when you compare it to the already-available Qualia 004 front projector, which costs more than twice as much. SXRD is Sony’s version of LCOS (Liquid Crystal On Silicon). Other manufacturers have done work with LCOS too, but many find the technology too hard to work with. Intel announced LCOS chips but later decided not to go that way. Toshiba sold some LCOS sets, but is now moving into DLP instead. But Sony seems to be making a real go of it.

The Qualia 006 is one of the few HDTVs with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. That, combined with a great fill rate when compared to DLP or especially LCD, gives SXRD images a very smooth quality. But is that quality worth the price? And how are the black levels? “Yes” and “good but not CRT” seem to be the answers, according to Sound & Vision magazine.

Link: Sound & Vision - Object of Desire