Unfortunately for all us SED watchers out there, the SED launch is being delayed to Q4 2007. The reason? Alternative technologies like LCD and plasma are just so much more affordable to consumers than SED would be. Well, that’s my paraphrase of the phrase “will delay [SED] by more than a year to improve cost competitiveness, casting a shadow over the product’s commercial feasibility”.

SED panels are flat like LCD’s and plasmas, but use CRT-like technology to produce the image. Each pixel has its own little electron emitter, and when the electron hits the phosphor for the pixel, it glows, just like a CRT. But a CRT just has one electron emitter, unlike the thousands an SED display would have.

Reuters - Toshiba, Canon delay SED TV launch to Q4 2007

LCoS is famous for being a pain in the butt. Toshiba gave up on it. Intel gave up on it. Who else was there? I know there was someone else… hmmm. But anyway, this time LCoS has bit LG in the big behind, causing them problems. So much so that LG had to withdraw its new LCoS televisions:

“We have received an update from our factories regarding the production status of the new 71SA1D and 62SA1D LCoS HDTVs.” Bob Perry, LG Consumer Electronics sales VP, stated in a letter that went out to dealers Wednesday. “Based on certain parts procurement issues, the future production date of these models for the U.S. market is uncertain.”

The models were to have been the first LCoS microdisplay HDTV sets for the LG line. However, the company was unable to procure LCoS chips to meet its delivery schedule. Meanwhile, Perry said the market for micro-display rear-projection products has continued to decline as demand for flat-panel televisions has increased.

“Based on the growth in the large-scale plasma market as well as strong growth of LCD there are serious questions about the size of the microdisplay market in the future. We expect substantial shrinkage in the market for microdisplay products this year and next year we see even more dramatic shrinkage. So, there are serious questions as to the future viability of microdisplay as a TV format.”

Perry said the LCoS models have been removed from the lineup “to avoid negatively impacting dealer assortment and business planning” Perry said an announcement would be made if the company decides to reinstate the products.

TWICE - LG Withdraws New LCoS TVs

The MovieBeam service, available now, aims to replace your local Blockbusters / Rogers / Whatevers video rental store. It’s a new service that actually broadcasts movies to a device in your home in little pieces through your local PBS affiliate. Once a movie is accumulated on the device’s hard disc drive (HDD), you’ll be able to watch it for $1.99 or $3.99. Getting the box will cost you about $230, and you can rent HD movies too, for an extra $1 each (there’s I trend I don’t want to see move forward).

Interestingly, the 160GB HDD on the device will hold 100 movies. That’s 1.6GB per movie. I’m pretty sure that’s doable using MPEG4, but if they’re using MPEG2, then those are gonna be some cruddy looking movies!

The HD movies will be 720p, in case you’re wondering, and I wonder how good they look. Do any of my readers have this service? And guess what? If you want to watch the HD movies over an analog connection, you’re out of luck. They’ll be downconverted to 480p.

TWICE - MovieBeam HDTV Service Hits Retail Shelves

Dan Ramer at DVDfile got a chance to see all the fuss Toshiba is making on the HD DVD roadshow.

First of all, take a moment and be jealous for a bit. He has a Sony VPL-VW100 (a.k.a. “Ruby”) SXRD projector. Mmmmm…..

Anyway, he notes that the picture quality of HD DVD is quite good indeed. Good colour, remarkable illusion of depth, great detail, and finely grained textures. Of course, much of this is due to the display, but the source format is just as important.

And contrary to some other reports I’ve noted, the players will be fully functional:

Toshiba assured me that when its first two players come to market, they would have full interactive capability; they will not have a partial feature set that must be updated later with a firmware upgrade. This also confirms a reported quote from Toshiba spokesperson Junko Furuta to Macworld.co.uk, “Toshiba’s first HD DVD players will support the advanced content features called for by HD-DVD.”

He concludes by saying HD is “true eye candy”. If you’ve been watching the Olympics in HD, then you know he’s right.

DVDFILE.com - A Report From Toshiba’s HD DVD Road Show

HDTV sales have gotten a spike recently due to events like the Olympics and the Superbowl. I can definitely understand that. The other day the HDTV channel my wife was watching suffered some MPEG compression glitches. So she switched to the equivalent SD channel to continue watching the same event, and boy did I get an earful! Watching the Olympics in HDTV is clearly wonderful. Any Olympics fan deserves to treat themselves to HD versions of all their favourite events. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the Olympics, but watching four snowboarders race down a hill to the finish line really caught my attention. Wow that was cool!

What do y’all think of the new snowboarding events?

eMediaWire - Olympics Generate Major Spike in HDTV Sales

President Bush signs the DTV bill:

President George Bush signed legislation into law today that set February 17, 2009 as the date when U.S. broadcasters must end their transmission of analog television signals. Some in the press have called it the “end of television as we know it.” Others see it as a dawning of a new era. The legislation also allocates up to $1.5 billion to reimburse consumers who purchase digital-to-analog converter boxes, so their analog TV sets continue to work after the shut-off. The legislation excluded a provision that would have allowed cable operators to degrade a broadcaster’s HDTV signals to “standard definition,” and in doing denying consumers the means to see the highest-quality digital programming.

“With today’s action,” said Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro, “President Bush set a hard finish line for the nation’s transition to DTV.” The CEA, along with several other lobbying groups including the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), supported a hard cut-off date. The stated belief has been that it would settle things down for the industry and public alike as well a free spectrum for more crucial uses, like homeland security communications. “This deadline,” said Shapiro, “will provide certainty to manufacturers, retailers, consumers and all others with a stake in the transition.”

The newly installed NAB president David K. Rehr said at the time of the signing, “We have crossed an important threshold…The NAB is pleased that Congress adopted many pro-consumer DTV measures in the legislation, and we’re encouraged that the bill thwarted cable industry attempts to degrade the quality of HDTV pictures to consumers.”

HDTV Mag - President Bush Signs Historic DTV Bill

Alak and alas, it is true after all. After hearing rumours that Qualia was squashed, then no it wasn’t, here is the final confirmation that it is indeed dead. Sorry if this is old news for some of you, but this confirmation just couldn’t go unremarked.

A local AV store has the huge 70″ rear projection Qualia. Man that thing is mouth watering. It’s really too bad that it doesn’t know it’s going the way of the dodo.

At least Sony isn’t giving up on its SXRD technology. They have several other rear projection SXRD sets and one front projection one (with 1080p input capability to boot!).

Note that the link below doesn’t mention the Qualia, but if you follow it, you’ll see a slide that does.

Forever Geek - Sony ceases production of the Aibo

Didn’t we already see this vote? Well, for technical reasons Congress had to vote it again, and that’s exactly what they did.

Broadcasters will have to turn off their analog broadcasting by 2009.

Under the legislation, broadcasters will have to end their analog broadcast, switching to digital television. DTV gives broadcasters the ability to air one or two high-definition TV channels or several standard-definition channels. HDTV gives viewers a movie-quality picture and CD-quality sound.

The DTV transition has been grinding along for decades. Under current law, broadcasters are required to vacate their current frequencies this year or when digital TV reaches 85% of the television audience, whichever is later. Critics have contended that the 85% threshold is unlikely to be reached.

While about 16% of U.S. television watchers do not get cable or satellite TV and depend on over-the-air transmissions, there are many more TVs that use only an antenna to receive programming.

This affects me…. not a bit.

DTV Blogs - Congress gives OK to digital TV switch

Consumers just can’t win.

AACS, a system to be used in both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc (BD) players, will require that those players downconvert video over their analog outputs. But only if the studio decides to use this feature.

… the affected analog signal must be “down-converted” from the full 1920×1080 lines of resolution the players are capable of outputting to 960×540 lines—a resolution closer to standard DVDs than to high-def. Standard DVDs are typically encoded at 720 horizontal by 480 vertical lines of resolution.

The 960×540 standard stipulated in the AACS agreement represents 50% higher resolution than standard-def, but only one-quarter the resolution of full high-def. Whether a particular movie is down-converted will be up to the studio.

I have a feeling that every studio will end up using this “feature”. Though if this “feature” is used, it’ll be specified on the movie’s packaging, which is a good thing. It’s like a warning that you’re about to be smacked upside the head. At least you can brace yourself for it.

VB Online - HD ‘Down-Converting’ Forced