Displays & Projectors News - Page 74

Just when I'm looking to upgrade my TV, LG have announced a new TV. LG have of late been pushing their 3DTVs as Cinema 3D, but now they're introduced some new 3DTVs that include a 1mm thin LCD bezel called "Cinema Screen".

LG claim that this brings the experience closer to the theater, but that's not the only cool feature this new range sports. LG have also announced it will throw in Dual Play, which uses polarized glasses to allow two different players only view their perspective on the full screen at once in games that support it.

President and CEO of LG Home Entertainment Company, Havis Kwon, chimes in with:

Welcome to 2012, where the end of the world is higher TV prices. This is what TV manufacturers such as LG want to bring, after being hit by profit declines over the years, this year will start with even thinner and lighter TVs in the hopes of sparking new customer interest and driving the average TV price, higher.

LG said on Friday that it plans to sell a 55-inch TV that is just, wait for it, 3/16 of an inch thick and only weighs 16.5 pounds. Samsung are expected to unveil a similar TV at the industry's biggest trade fair, Consumer Electronics Show, in just a few days time in Las Vegas.

Both companies have yet to discuss the thing we rub between our fingers as a gesture for... money. Of course, this new technology is expected to have a nice premium. NPD DisplaySearch estimates the new 55-inch TV models will begin at around $8000 in Q3 2012, and fall below the $4000 mark by the end of 2013 as sales volume increases and companies find new ways to manufacture the TVs less expensively.

LG have announced that they will be throwing an 84-inch TV into their truck when they drive over to CES next year. 84-inch may sound impressive, but that's not all that is coming to Las Vegas next year. The new 84-inch TV is 'ultra definition' sporting a resolution of 3840x2160.

It includes LG's usual Cinema 3D and Smart TV features built-in, including support for the upgraded Magic Motion remote and voice control. At the moment it's just a tease, with no information like pricing, or availability. There are also no easy sources of 4K-res video content, not even games. One of the biggest pushes by LG for this new set is 3D.

LG's Cinema 3D technology uses a Film Pattern Retarder screen and passive glasses that result in lowered resolution, but with the plentiful amount of pixels, there's no question about whether viewers are still getting at least an HD picture. What I want now, is 3 of these screens, in portrait, an new hover-chair for my PC, and eleventy-million AMD Radeon HD 7970's in CrossFire. Battlefield 3 would never be the same...

We all know that Apple and Samsung's relationship has been a bit... interesting, over the past few months, but today's news is actually quite the surprise. Apple is reportedly shifting production of iPhone and iPad displays to Sharp in Japan, and may even introduce a television with Sharp-based screens as early as the middle of next year.

Jefferies & Co were behind the latest report, with New York-based analyst Peter Misek giving the skinny on Apple's new foray into display production. Apple moving its business to Sharp will be at the expense of Samsung, as they are the current partner for Apple's displays.

Misek said in an interview:

Everyone is waiting on Apple to "reinvent" the television set, but Sony CEO Howard Stringer has recently confirmed that Sony are stepping up to battle, too. Stringer recently said during a breakfast hosted by The Wall Street Journal, that:

There's a tremendous amount of R&D going into a different kind of TV set. We can't continue selling TV sets [as we currently do]. Every TV set we all make loses money.

Stringer said that he has "no doubt" that Steve Jobs had intentions of designing a brand-new kind of television, but also stated that "it will take a long time to transition to a new form of television". Reports have floated around that Apple would use its Siri voice control engine on their yet-to-be-announced television set, where Stringer wasn't specific on how Sony would reimagine the television set.

After using my Samsung GALAXY S II for the past week, I have fallen in love with its Super AMOLED Plus display. Hearing this news today, is great. Currently, the display technology standard that powers most PCs and TVs is LCD. LCD of course, has its issue such as limited viewing angles, poor colors, motion blur and input lag.

Most people don't seem to notice it, but its there. When compared to an IPS panel, or CRT set, it is instantly noticeable to most people. There are various types of LCD technology in mainstream use today which attempt to solve the issues, but none fix all of them. TN panels are cheap to buy, relatively fast (they're the ones that power 120Hz screens) which reduces motion smear and input lag, but the shortcomings are viewing angles and color accuracy. Good for gamers, but not great for video or picture work.

IPS displays have the opposite characteristics, making them perfect for professional photography work, where accurate colors and vibrant pictures are required. AMOLED can step in and swoop up all of these problems and throw them away offering bright, crystal clear displays with wide viewing angles and excellent motion smoothness. This is thanks to LEDs having extremely fast response times. But.

Rumor has it that Apple could be preparing to launch the long-rumored Apple television in 2012. The project is reportedly being led by the same software engineer who developed iTunes, according to Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the product. Jeff Robbin, who helped created the iPod, is set to be leading the Apple television development.

Piper Jaffray analyst, Gene Munster, believes that Apple already has a prototype in the wild, and could be prepared to launch it late 2012, if not, early 2013. But, Munster has been saying this since 2009, so we should always take that with a grain of salt. Rumors have floated around of an Apple-branded television set for years now, but what has changed the playing field is Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs.

Excerpts hit the Internet last week, with Jobs telling Isaacson that he wanted to create a television set that was integrated with Apple products and would be easy to use. Jobs elaborated in the Biography with:

Its only been in the last 18 or so months since the release of the iPhone 4 and it's "Retina Display" that smartphone and tablet display resolutions have been a key marketed feature when the products are advertised or sold. Just last month Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S II HD LTE which sported a 4.65-inch 1280x720 display.

It was the first smartphone with a HD (720p) resolution and there are already a few smartphones who have followed, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and LG Optimus LTE. Back in May, Samsung also showed off a 10.1-inch panel capable of 2560x1600, something that we only see on current high-end 30-inch displays.

Toshiba have gone one better, releasing a 6.1-inch LCD with a 2560x1600 resolution. If we're talking pixels per inch (PPI), that's an astounding 495. How does that compare to the best our currently?

It has just been announced that Sony's PlayStation 3D Display is finally getting released in Australia. The display allows gamers to play split screen games on a full screen via 3D glasses, with the 3D display receiving a limited "test" release in Australia - exclusively through Harvey Norman.

Sony Australia's Michael Ephraim says that this limited launch is to test the market. He goes on to say:

We're going to test it because it is innovative technology. We really wanted to test it before we made a big commitment because it's not like a Memory Stick kind of product, there are long lead times on manufacturing, high price. I can tell you that we will sell it initially exclusively through Harvey Norman. It is Harvey Norman embracing new technology and us having a partner there that we can test it with. If it goes extremely well, we'll keep supporting it. It is a high ticket price item and there is 3D TVs out there, we just want to make sure there's a market for it.

Once upon a time Sony was killing it in the TV market with their beautiful Bravia line, but thanks to increasingly fierce competition from the likes of Korean players Samsung and LG over the past eight years, Sony has been experiencing continuingly declining losses.

This latest report that's come out via Routers certainly doesn't help the situation for Sony, with word that several of its Bravia series LCD TVs manufactured in 2007 and 2008 have been subjected to faulty parts that may cause the TVs to overheat and emit smoke, or melt certain components inside. Lovely.

While Sony has noted 11 overheating incidents solely in Japan, the company has said in a news release that the faulty parts may affect TV sets sold all over the world, although the majority of the ones in the bad batch were apparently sold in Europe and the U.S.