They’ve been sitting on the fence for a while, dipping their toes in the water to see if it’s to their liking. Well, today they finally jumped in.

Fox has announced that they will begin releasing films, television shows, and other programming once Blu-ray hardware is available.

“Blu-ray is a superior high definition technology that is a full step forward in the evolution of consumer packaged media,” added Mike Dunn, President Worldwide, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. “For consumers, the release of our films on Blu-ray will provide in-home entertainment beyond anything they have imagined. On the business side, the advanced functionality, picture quality and data capacity at a competitive manufacturing cost along with ‘room for growth’ as new consumer usage options are developed, fully realizes the promise of a next generation format and represents the future of home entertainment.”

This is great news for the Blu-ray camp, who now have about half of Hollywood (by volume of movies) behind them, and very strong support from consumers electronics and computer manufacturers.

Personally, I can’t wait to get Star Wars on BD-ROM and watch it on my new PS3! (When the time comes.)

Link: Home Businesswire -
20th Century Fox to Support Blu-ray Disc Format

The other day I reported that the Toshiba HD-DVD players will support HD on their HDMI output only. People with HDTV sets with DVI but no HDCP, or just component connections, will be left out in the cold. (The same will probably be true of Blu-ray players when they arrive.)

Obviously, there are many people just a little bit displeased with this decision. Ron Epstein from the Home Theater Forum is calling for a boycott of players that don’t offer full resolution, full bandwidth output of HD material on analog component video outputs.

Link: DVDFILE - It Hits The Fan
Link: Digital Home Canada - There’s talk of boycotting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

A bedsheet. A bedsheet on a frame. A wall. A wall painted white. A wall painted with special paint.

If you’re on a limited budget, there are lots of ways you can go to get that projector’s image to show up on something watchable. But for the absolute best performance, nothing can beat a real screen.

ultimate AV has a great article about screens that go up and screens that go down. Starting at the beginning: your projector and desired screen size. Then go from there. A great resource.

Link: ultimate AV - Screening the Screens

The beta users have twiddled and fiddled long enough. SnapStream is ready to tell the world: HDTV is in!

SnapStream’s Beyond TV 4 will include HD support. They are adding support for several over-the-air ATSC tuner cards, including the AVerTVHD A180, HDTV Wonder, VBox DTA 151 and USB-A 3560, and Fusion HDTV 3.

The only real catch is the words “over-the-air”. Well, it’s not a catch, more like a limitation. Personally, I don’t get much (any?) over-the-air HD, so I rely on my cable for HD. But like they say: baby steps!

Beyond TV 4 will be available in the next couple months from SnapStream.

Link: SnapStream - Beyond TV 4 Announced!

Joe Wilcox: “Microsoft has made content owners the priority over consumers with respect to protected content.”

Microsoft plans to introduce PVP-OPM (Protected Video Path-Output Protection Management) in Longhorn, something incompatible with most (all?) monitors sold today. engadget explains how this works:

“What will happen when you try to play premium content on your incompatible monitor? If you’re ‘lucky,’ the content will go through a resolution constrictor.” If “unlucky,” the screen will be black. “The purpose of this constrictor is to down-sample high-resolution content to below a certain number of pixels. The newly down-sampled content is then blown back up to match the resolution of your monitor. This is much like when you shrink a JPEG and then zoom into it. Much of the clarity is lost. The result is a picture far fuzzier than it need be.”

What is Microsoft’s reason for this?

“The top objective for these mechanisms is to enable the Windows-based PC to play premium content in 2006 and beyond, offsetting any content-owners fears that high-value content could be pirated if played on a PC.”

What about the rights of consumers? What about all those monitors out there that won’t be able to display this “high-value content”? Joe Wilcox says “I see the rights-protection technologies as shifting the role of the PC from a fairly open and flexible platform to one that is quite a bit more closed.”

Thanks to Thomas Hawk, or I wouldn’t have noticed this. Read the full article, it’s quite disconcerting.

Link: Microsoft Monitor Weblog - The Four Musketeers

[Update: see comments - this isn’t an HD camera]

The action thriller “Throttle” was shot entirely with an HD camcorder. Sure, it’s an expensive camcorder ($26,750.00 MSRP), but still a camcorder.

Director James Seale said that he needed a camera that “allowed us to shoot fast and that looked terrific without having to rent a huge lighting package.” The amazin part is his next statement: “By using just the available overhead lights in the garage and blocking the actors accordingly, we were able to get tremendous results.” Whenever you go to a movie set you see lots of lights shining on actors faces to make them look just right. James Seale didn’t need these lights, making it easier to set up each shot and reducing costs. Two things he had to be very conscious of working on an indie film.

Link: Creative Mac - Action Thriller “Throttle” Shot on Panasonic AJ-SDX900

Yamaha makes pianos, motorcycles, receivers, and many other things. Included in there somewhere is DLP projectors, and ultimate AV reviews their latest.

The DPX-1200 is Yamaha’s 4th generation DLP projector. It uses the DarkChip3 / HD+ 1280 x 720 DLP chip from TI. It has a seven-segment colour wheel, for better colour reproduction and detail in darker scenes. The 1200 includes an HDMI input. It includes a vertial lens shift, but no mention was made of horizontal. Which is a shame - many good LCD projectors for a quarter the price have both horizontal and vertical lens shift.

Conclusion?

I don’t know what the next year will bring in home theater projectors. Will the dynamic or auto iris that impressed me so much on a few projectors in recent months be incorporated into others, bringing us closer yet to that still-unattained goal of CRT-quality blacks and shadow detail? Will 1080p projectors become more affordable or remain the Mercedes of video displays? Will the ongoing battle for supremacy between DLP, LCD, and LCoS (and its variants) continue to heat up? And what kind of new HD sources will we have a year from now, and in what quantity?

None of these questions should stop you from making a decision now if you are currently looking for a good projector. The Yamaha is not only good, it’s a contender for the best consumer projector on the market.

Link: ultimate AV - Yamaha DPX-1200 DLP projector

The CEA thinks that FCC’s plan to accelerate and expand the DTV tuner mandate will hurt consumers. It will “sharply” raise prices on smaller televisions leading to “disruption in the marketplace and harming low-income consumers”.

The FCC wants to include digital tuners in all DTVs, regardless of size, by December 31, 2006. This is a change from the previous July 1st, 2007.

The CEA doesn’t take too kindly to the idea:

Accelerating the tuner mandate deadlines for all sets would have the unfortunate result of decreasing the number of DTV tuners in the marketplace, which clearly does not further the goals of the Commission nor the goals of the DTV transition as a whole,” said CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro. “By contrast, the current and anticipated July 2007 date allows time for economies of scale to develop fully. This will lessen the sticker shock for consumers, allowing these products a chance to compete against less expensive, tuner-less alternatives.”

Link: CEA - PROPOSED NEW DTV TUNER MANDATE SCHEDULE WILL RAISE TV PRICES AND DISRUPT MARKET, SAY CEA AND CERC

Matsushita Electric (parent company of Panasonic and Technics) that global demand for plasma is running above target. Therefore the profitability of their plasma business is also above target. Matsushita is the top seller of plasma televisions, ahead of other big names such as Samsung and Pioneer. Masaaki Fujita, head of Matsushita’s plasma TV business, expects 6 million plasmas to be sold by March, and for Matsushita to grab a 35% share.

Link: Reuters - Matsushita says plasma TV sales above target

Tucked away in an article about whether people prefer going to the movies or watching at home, was this little revelation:

“Those of us with severe hearing loss cannot understand the dialogue and are forced to make up a story to go with the images. Theaters are required to have Assistive Listening Systems, which usually do not work. We spend half the movie running to the lobby to get it fixed, or we suffer quietly and waste our $8 admission fee. My home theater with HDTV and surround sound will have to suffice.”

So says Larry Kavanaugh, 55, of Davenport, Florida. I didn’t know that theaters were required to have Assistive Listening Systems, though I have seen them around. Nor did I know that they have problems at all, much less to the extent mentioned by Mr. Kavanaugh.

When was the last time you turn on subtitles for your DVD and it didn’t work? I seem to recall a subtitle problem with my Episode I disc, but that’s all. So DVDs at home are much more reliable for hearing-impaired movie mavens than going to an actual theater. Who’d a thunk it?

Link: Yahoo! News - Movies as you like them

I have one.

Several of my friends have them too.

They’re called rear-projection televisions (RPTVs) and they dominate U.S. retail channels among large screen (30″ and up) purchases. RPTVs count for 57% percent of “available product placements” at leading U.S. retailers. I assume that “available product placements” somewhat correlates to sales, because I have no clue what it means. Plasmas account for 29% and LCD 14%. Why? Cost. RPTVs are simply a lot cheaper than plasmas and LCDs of the same size.

While 57% is an interesting figure, you have to notice that front projectors were not included at all. I wonder how they fit in.

Link: Audioholics - Rear Projection TV Is Apparently Still King at U.S. Retail Chains

Bo Andersen, the President of the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA), has called for unity in the format wars. “The launch of a single high-definition DVD format is unquestionably preferable to a ‘format war’ that could cause consumer confusion and lead to a reluctance to embrace either format.” He made this statement at VSDA’s Home Entertainment 2005, currently taking place in Las Vegas.

In conjunction with Andersen’s call for a single high-definition DVD format, VSDA released its “Baseline Criteria for High Definition DVD Format (From the Retail Perspective).” In addition to advocating the adoption of a single high-definition DVD format, the document also argues that, whatever format is adopted, the features, dimensions, packaging, and marketing materials for high-definition DVD must be designed to generate widespread consumer and retailer support for the product.

Their ideas for this baselines are in this document.

Link: Creative Mac - VSDA President Calls for Compromise in HD DVD Format War

At Cinema Expo this year Sony shows off the first commercially available 4K projector. That’s a resolution of 4096 x 2160. The SXR-R110 SXRD projector conforms to DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) standards and still accepts and displays 2K digital as well, upscaling the image to 4K.

The SRX-R110 is equally suitable for screening ‘all digital’ productions that have been shot and produced entirely in High Definition, or features that have been acquired with 35mm film. The new projector is based on Sony’s SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display) panel technology that produces a smooth, film-like picture with higher levels of image resolution, contrast, and response speed than any other digital presentation system.

Link: Regional Film & Video - Sony demonstrates world’s first commercially available 4K projector

Westinghouse Digital Electronics recently announced the availability of its 37″ LCD HD video monitor. The native resolution is 1920 x 1080, for true HD imagery. It has a contrast ratio of 1000:1, and response time of 12ms.

The monitor features a 1920×1080 progressive scan (1080p) resolution, delivering unparalleled clear images and vivid color in a convenient and attractive thin, flat-panel design that can be easily mounted on a wall. With two DVI inputs with HDCP, two component video inputs and standard VGA and RCA, the monitor allows users to connect to PCs, satellite and cable boxes, game consoles, DVD players and the latest multimedia video source to experience the stunning picture quality of 1080p. The detachable 20-watt speakers and a classic clean, contemporary style complete a beautiful display for the home, boardroom or commercial applications.

Link: Business Wire - Westinghouse Digital Offers Its Largest LCD Monitor to Date

[Update 01aug05: Home Theater Magazine has an article with pictures]

Sony is shipping it’s new KLV-S32A10 and KLV-S26A10 “S” series of LCD televisions, at 32″ and 26″ sizes, respectively. These two new models complete the “S” series, which already has models in the 15″ to 23″ range.

These two new models have resolutions of 1366 x 768, making them fully HD.

Other features include a digital amplifier, along with SRS® WOW and the SRS TruSurround® audio effect, which deliver high quality sound through two 10-watt speakers. With connectivity options like HDMI, component, PC, composite and S-video inputs, the new slim all-in-one design also offers mounting holes for increased compatibility with VESA(TM) compliant brackets.

The new KLV-S32A10 and KLV-S26A10 HDTVs are available now for about $2,000 and $1,500, respectively.

Link: Yahoo! Finance - Sony Delivering New Flat-Panel LCD HDTV Line