Displays & Projectors - Page 81

I'm a huge fan of high-resolution displays, and simply cannot wait for 4K to arrive just that little bit cheaper - I really want 4K 120Hz-capable displays - I'm dreaming, I know. But it looks like Apple could be pushing forward with 4K, refreshing iMacs, Cinema Displays and MacBook Pros with the high-resolution goodness.

Rumor has it Apple is moving toward 4K thanks to the new Intel Thunderbolt release, which the chipmaker showed off during a demo called "Thunderbolt Technology Update". This is basically the second-generation Thunderbolt technology, which is capable of pushing "4K video file transfer and display simultaneously". Marco Armanet, co-founder of Tumblr and founder of Instapaper, has said on his blog:

During this week's Microsoft TechForum, Craig Mundie, a senior advisor for Microsoft, said that the company is looking to take the Kinect to new heights including TV's and laptops. "My dream is to get a Kinect into the bezel of something like this", as he pointed to a Surface tablet.

The company was showing off a bulky, but very large display that featured a Kinect built into its bezel at its recently opened "Envisioning Center" along with many more Kinect integrated screens. The Kinect's being shown off were much smaller than the current model, but no one would comment on if they are version 2.0 or not.

Before you can expect to see a Kinect in your ultra-thin smart TV, or even in your laptop or desktop monitor, things will have to get much smaller and some new technology will have to be created. The Kinect sensor does not work in daylight. "It turns out it's infrared so when you go out in the sunlight the sun is a big infrared source that drowns it out," Mundie explains. "There's a whole bunch of problems, not just miniaturization, in designing the sensors so they actually do what you expect them to do in all of the environments."

Something we will be getting more into this year is 4K Ultra HD technology, this is the next-gen of PC and it's some seriously hot stuff. The Windows blog got their hands on a 55-inch 4K-capable Ultra HD TV and ran some DirectX 11 games on it.

They tried Max Payne 3 with an AMD Radeon HD 7970 and saw some great details from the game. The one thing to remember here is the insane amount of pixels being pushed from the 4K Ultra HD TV set. At 1280x720, you're barely scraping 1-megapixel of information at 0.91 megapixels. The standard now, 1920x1080, pushes 2.07 megapixels - but 4K? An insane 8.2 megapixels... a huge, huge jump. That jump requires some serious GPU horsepower.

The TV being used was set to just 30Hz, so the maximum frames per second will be 30. The 4K display wasn't the only one being used, with the GPU driving 3 other displays, too. There's a video on the site which you should check out, too.

VESA have officially updated their DisplayPort Dual-Mode 1.1 standard which paves the way for better performance, higher resolutions and increased interoperability when using HDMI and DVI ports through a cable or an adapter.

When using Dual-Mode, DisplayPort will be capable of outputting an additional HDMI/DVI-compatible signal alongside its expected DisplayPort link. What this will allow is connectivity for HDMI and DVI-capable devices without the need for cables or converters featuring active electronics. Current DisplayPort Dual-Mode converters/adapters are limited by an output maximum of 1080p @ 60Hz with 24-bit color.

This update to DisplayPort Dual-Mode would allow HDMI 1.4 to be quite versatile, handling deep-color, 3D 1080p @ 60Hz and 4K UHD (2160p) @ 30Hz, all through a single cable. These improvements are thanks to a near doubling in the Transitional-Minimized Differential Signal (TMDS) rate, which has been ramped up from 165MHz to 300MHz.

CES 2013 - Something quite astounding shown off at CES 2013 was from AMD where they had a dark room called the AMD SurRound House. The SurRound House was filled with TVs and looks like it's quite incredible to experience.

Bill Herz, Chief Multimedia Technologist at AMD, lead people into a room that was filled with 10 "windows", or 1080p-capable TVs. These TVs when added up are pushing a resolution of 10,800x1920 - I'll let you sit there for a minute thinking of that resolution - which is 20 megapixels of imaging. The resolution is pumped at 30 frames per second, which is 600 megapixels per second.

It's not all just about video, either, as audio is an equal part of the SurRound House experience. There were four speakers per TV, providing 32 channels of audio showcasing discrete digital multi-point audio. The audio is to lead the visual experience, telling your brain where to expect to look based on the audio.

CES 2013 - Check out the following picture. It was taken by a camera about a half-inch from the screen. As you can see, text on 1080p at 55"+ is somewhat blurry.

Now, check out the following. Different TV, same picture and roughly same screen size. Only difference? 4K resolution.

That's pretty impressive, right? You can clearly see the difference between the two and how 1080p, when stretched to a large screen size, becomes blurry. But why should you care? Why should you buy a 4K TV? The simple answer: you shouldn't. Now, you're probably saying "Why not?!?!" and the answer is simple.

Google TV hasn't quite taken over the world, but it looks like more TVs are going to be released next year with partner LG stepping up to the plate announcing new sets.

The South Korean electronics giant have current Google TV-powered sets in both 47- and 55-inch models but will expand this range to offer five different sizes. The new sizes will be 42-, 50- and 60-inch options. LG haven't stopped there, either, they've also updated the design of the TVs, too, giving them a thinner bezel and new support legs.

LG's new TVs will ship with Google TV 3.0, as well as built-in OnLive support. LG will bring their new Google TV 3.0-powered TVs to CES 2013, so it'll only be a few weeks until we get some hands-on time with them.

We have been hearing about flexible displays for years now. It seems that every display company sees these as the future of mobile display technology. Up until now the claims have been mostly vaporware and prototypes only found inside labs. Samsung has announced that they will be showing off a 5.5 inch flexible display at CES 2013.

The display will most likely not be featured in any device releases in the near future, but the 720p prototype will be sure to grab the attention of all who get to see it in person.

We are going to take a chance and say that the display is OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) based, but we could be wrong. We want to hear from you on this whole flexible screen idea. Do you think that we will one day be able to roll up our smart phones and place them in our pockets?

Sharp have just announced a beautiful new screen, dubbed the PN-K321. The PN-K321 is built for professionals in mind, sporting a 4K resolution (3840x2160) as well as HDMI and DisplayPort connectivity.

Sharp has some bragging rights with the PN-K321 in the way that they claim it is the industry's thinnest frame, measuring in at just 35mm thick. We should expect a price of around 450,000 yen, or around $5500. The 4K-capable 32-inch monitor is to debut in February 2013, so it should be flashing itself around at CES in Las Vegas in January next year.

It's great that we're finally see desktop-bound 4K-capable screens in a decent size, just 32-inch, and not 85-inch like the huge HDTVs lately. At $5500 - it's also priced decently. 30-inch monitors were around $3000-$3500 when they debuted, so this is not that far out from those prices, for a much higher-res screen. I want one, no, three of them.

It looks like Sony are really pushing their new 4K TV, the XBR-84X900 Ultra HDTV - which is set to not leave first adopters twiddling their thumbs without 4K content when they drop over $20k on a new 4K TV. Ray Hartjen from Sony jumped on the company's blog to address some consumers concerns over the new 4K resolution-specific features that will ship with the new TV.

The new TV will feature three chipsets that will help give the X-Reality PRO picture engine the extra juice it requires to upscale today's programming to close to 4K quality, this includes even your collection of current Blu-rays that you already own. It does get better, much much better - in that the new Sony XBR-84X900 Ultra HDTV will include the world's first 4K Ultra HDTV delivery solution.

The new TV will come pre-loaded with native 4K content, and won't be just some flyover demos of a forest, but would be full-length Hollywood productions, available only to those who purchased this specific TV. There's no exact details of what content to expect, or what 4K delivery solution will be deployed, so we'll have to wait a little while longer to find out. Sony's 84-inch Ultra HDTV sports a resolution of 3840x2160, and has been up for pre-order since September for the wallet-busting price of $25,000.