Thomas J. Norton

There are both advantages and disadvantages to acoustically transparent screens. On the downside they reduce screen gain as some of the light passes through them rather than contributing to the brightness of the image. They also affect the sound, however slightly, in much the same way (though sometimes more significantly) as grill on a speaker. And their lack of a completely smooth texture can reduce resolution, which will be even more important with 4K than with 1080p HD.

On the upside they position the sound to best support the picture on the screen...

JVC announced three new projectors building on its E-Shift technology. This process accepts a 4K source but displays it from a 2K chip. In doing so, however, is shifts each pixel slightly within each frame in a way that produces an effective halfway point between true 4K and 1080p.

I admit that I hadn’t been too impressed by this process when I reviewed one of the first E-Shift designs a couple of years back. But the process has been continuously refined...

Quantum Media showed its full RGB 4K laser projector. The booth was too dark to get a good shot of it, but it’s large (and loud) enough to deserve a small projection booth of its own. In its 4K guise it will cost you between $150,000 and $200,000...

I had a dream last night. I was wandering around lower Manhattan (New York). I think I was trying to find my way, but as dreams go I’m not exactly sure where to. I was apparently using a map on my tablet, but the tablet was an old CRT the size of the integrated CRT monitor/computer on the first iMac. I wandered into a bookstore, apparently in search of a more usable map, but all I recall seeing was a copy of Widescreen Review and a children’s version of the New York Times, the latter’s cover filled with full color comics (definitively proving, I suppose, that we do dream in color, though the hues were so odd that they must have been captured in two-strip Technicolor). I had left my “tablet” outside (perhaps the bookstore was a tablet-free zone) and when I went back outside it was still there but the screen had been smashed. In a New York minute. Then I woke up.

This was all likely inspired by my recent trip to New York to attend the Vizio launch of its new Reference series Ultra HDTVs...