Sony isn’t the only 1080p LCoS game in town with their SXRD technology. JVC has their LCoS technology they call D-ILA and HD-ILA. All of JVC’s 2006 sets will have 1080p inputs, which is cool. JVC’s sets go up to 70″ in size, which I don’t have to tell you is pretty big. My HDTV is 57″ and it’s hard to imagine adding another 13″ to that. That’s huge!

Here are the models:

HD-56FN97 $3,499.95
HD-61FN97 $3,799.95
HD-70FN97 $5,499.95
HD-56FH97 $3,799.95
HD-62FH97 $4,099.95
HD-70FH97 $5,799.95

JVC Now Delivering A Full Range Of 1080p HD-ILA Televisions

Sometimes I think it would be really nice if I lived in a world where all the HD programming I want could be grabbed over the air (OTA). Unfortunately, I live in an area, in a country actually, where OTA HDTV is not all that common.

Why? Well then solutions like home-made PVR’s would become available to me as an option. And I could use OTA tuner cards like this one from ATI:

The TV Wonder 650 is based on the Theater 650 chip, including a “motion-adaptive 3D comb filter” as well as noise reduction, and touts the ability to work in Vista systems, even though it’s still questionable whether the rest of your system will. Aside from recording over the air HDTV signals in MPEG-2, DivX, H.264, MPEG-4, and WMV9, the card also sports “Avivo image quality enhancements” for those less stunning SD broadcasts. ATI gives you the ability to record / watch two shows simultaneously via the MulTView functionality (if you own two cards, of course), and touts the nifty ThruView technology that displays content in a translucent box as to keep from interfering with all your (presumably) important background tasks.

I’m sure a lot of people in big cities will be taking a look at this solution. Too bad I don’t have this opportunity.

ATI releases TV Wonder 650 OTA HDTV tuner card

Paramount is the only major studio besides Warner Brothers to support both HD DVD and Blu-ray (BD). As such, they have announced two additional waves of titles in addition to their previously announced MI:3. All releases will have an MSRP of $29.99.

September 26th will see the release of Tomb Raider, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Four Brothers, and Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow.

Additionally, October 10th will bring U2: Rattle and Hum, Aeon Flux, and The Italian Job.

No additional details have been announced about the titles. Here’s what I’d like to see: some DD TrueHD or DTS HD soundtracks. How about some VC-1 or MPEG4 compression, to make the movie fit on a single layer disc? Or maybe MPEG2 compression, but on a dual-layer disc?

September Blu for Paramount

PS I’m feeling quite sick today, and yet I still bring you some HDTV news! How’s that for dedication? Now I hope my boss at IBM doesn’t read this…

The HDTV conference was last week and a flurry of activity happened. Mostly it looks like displays will be getting larger and cheaper. Some high points

I don’t know. Seeing how trepid many are on HDMI 1.3 coming this year. The fact that Sony hasn’t even produced 1 PS3 yet, and the fact that the last dev kits just went out last week makes me believe that we won’t see the PS3 till spring next year. Just watch, pressure and stories will mount in the next few weeks that Sony isn’t ready.

Ultimate AV: The State Of HDTV

So it looks like DirecTV is serious with it’s new HD DVR. It just may be enough for me to trade in my HD-DirecTivo. Here are some quick specs.

• HDMI output - Doesn’t say if it will be 1.3
• Dual Sat and Dual OTA tuners - Naturally
• Ethernet - Nice addon
• USB Port - Does it work or does it need to be hacked like the DirecTIVO?
• 300Gb SATA drive with external SATA connector - Will I be able to add external drive space?
• RF remote (but IR can be used)

One thing in the specs that made my heart jump:

Moving the items around in the prioritizer is nearly instant… no lag when moving the items up and down the list…

badda bing. In fact it says that many tasks are much faster.

Also, it seems to cache some menus so interacting is much quicker and smoother plus:

FF 1x,2x,3x (no 4x)
RW 1x, 2x, 3x (no 4x)

30s SLIP and Jump Back

Single Live Buffer - 90 Minutes, with autosave.
…

The TrickPlay works fantastic… fast, very quick responding, to start the action, and return to playback.
In most cases, it is nearly instant… A few times there was less then 1 second delay for audio to return

The Jump Back appears to be consistent, and the 30s Slip is just as good

The only drawback I see that I use all the time is having 2 live buffers where you can watch two channels without recording and just jumping around the last hour or so of a show. That will be a bummer if it isn’t implemented.

So am I now more excited to get moved up to this? Heck ya!

HR20-700 - The Review - DBSTalk.Com

We saw the other day that LCoS is making inroads in the HDTV market, thanks probably almost entirely to Sony and JVC for their SXRD and D-ILA products (respectively). In 2001, 1% of the rear-projection microdisplay HDTV’s sold were LCOS. In the second quarter of 2006, that number has jumped to 17%.

Syntax-Brillian is looking for a part of that market come September when they release their Syntax-Brillian 6580iFB03 1920x 1080p 65″ LCoS HDTV. Strangely enough, for a brand new product, this thing doesn’t have an HDMI input. But it does have a DVI/HDCP input that accepts 1080p, which should be good enough. But I’d do some heavy investigating first just to make sure! On the plus side, it includes an ISF calibration, which is unusual and cool at the same time.

This set has something called “exact pixel” which is basically a direct passthrough of the signal to the display, undergoing no processing in the transition. This is something every display should have, and allows an external scaler to do its job more effectively. It should also help eliminate gaming lag.

The reviewer of this set had lots of good things to say, so you should go check out the review at Ultimate AV. But here’s a paragraph to whet your appetite:

It had the most transparent presentation of any microdisplay-based RPTV I’ve seen, in part because it didn’t exhibit any “sugar coating.” Yet the picture was pleasingly bright and vibrant. Post calibration, the peak light output measured 115 foot-Lamberts! The 6580iFB03 is also equipped with the most non-reflective RPTV screen I’ve seen yet, though the Sony’s was also outstanding in that regard. The Brillian’s effective viewing angle is also noticeably wider than any other RPTV I’ve looked at, both vertically and (especially) horizontally.

High praise indeed. The reviewer often compared this set to Sony’s SXRD one, and the Syntax-Brillian came out on top every time. That goes back to the high praise thing again. As a matter of fact, this more expensive set ($8000) is the best RPTV this reviewer has seen.

Great, now I have to add another set to my “must audition if I ever get another RPTV” list.

Syntax-Brillian 6580iFB03 1920x 1080p 65″ LCoS HDTV

AMEX DIGITAL has announced a Blu-ray recorder to be available in Europe on August 28th. Cool, huh?

The M505-BDR plays back BD movie titles at up to 1080p resolution via its 1080p HDMI output. As well, it can upconvert standard DVD movies up to 1080p as well.

Additionally, AMEX DIGITAL has included a dual Hybrid digital TV turner with PIP (Picture in Picture) Function and wireless WiFi b/g, 100/1000Mb network, Fire Wire IEEE1394, S/P DIF in/out interface that supports all the major formats source from internet and HD-DV Cam, the native high definition resolution contained in 2-megapixel and larger digital still pictures can be fully rendered on a high definition television via slide show functionality built into the M505-BDR.

Connectivity includes HDMI Supported audio formats include: Dolby, DTS, MP3 and 192KHz LPCM. The M505-BDR will be available in stores on AUGUST 28, 2006 at a Price from $2,000 come with free Blu-ray movie title.

Everyone was wondering what the next BD player would be - Pioneer? Panasonic? Philips? As it turns out, the winner is AMEX DIGITAL, with the second BD player on the market, next to Samsung’s. I wonder when this product is coming to North America, or if? I find it strange that I never heard a hint of this player before, and now I hear about it 8 days before its launch.

AMEX DIGITAL Blu-ray disc recorder

Growing up, Star Wars was my favourite movie. Along with Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Actually, I couldn’t really comprehend the idea that anyone wouldn’t have Star Wars as their favourite movie. It just didn’t make sense.

The Star Wars films are still my favourite, even the new ones. So shoot me. First.

Now all you Cinemax subscribers are in for a treat, because they’ve struck a deal with Lucasfilm to show all six Star Wars in glorious HD for the first time this November. This marks the first time the original trilogy is shown in HD.

Does this mean anything with respect to a release on disc? I somehow doubt it, but here’s hoping!

All six Star Wars films coming to Cinemax HD

Warner Brothers is releasing four BD movies on September 5th: Blazing Saddles, Firewall, Full Metal Jacket, and Lethal Weapon. I just saw Firewall the other day, and it’s not bad. Especially when compared to some of Harrison Ford’s other recent efforts. All these movies have already been released on HD DVD, and are now making their way to Blu-ray.

All titles will be 1080p transfers and have standard DD 5.1 soundtracks. No DD+ or TrueHD hear folks. Firewall will retail for $34.99, while the others have an MSRP of $28.99.

Below is a link to HD Digest’s version of this info. But if I remember correctly, I read somewhere that these movies would be MPEG2 encoded. Why are studios insisting on using MPEG2? Warner Brothers already has the VC-1 encoded version of these movies, because they were used for the HD DVD! Why don’t they use them here?

Warner Unveils Second Blu-ray Wave