Thomas J. Norton

Ultra-D is a development of Stream TV Networks, in conjunction with partnering companies, to offer glasses free 3D. Their press event was a less elaborate affair than those above (though the awful photograph shown here is largely my fault!).

TCL is one of the Chinese HDTV makers vying for attention at CES. While still little known in this country, the company claims to have produced 30 million HDTVs this year, the bulk of them going, so far, to markets other than the U.S. (most, of course, were sold in China). The company has 75,000 employees, with 23 R&D facilities, 21 manufacturing bases, and markets in 80 countries. It’s also building a new panel factory (it also sells panels to other manufacturers, some of them outside of China, for use in their sets). That factory will be 70% devoted to making TFT LCD panels and, interestingly, 30% to OLED.

PRICE $1,999

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Bargain price for a 65-inch Ultra HD set
Good blacks and shadow detail
Impressive sound
Minus
Clips above white and below black
Odd gamma
Typical LCD off-axis performance
Wobbly stand

THE VERDICT
The JVC required considerable tweaking to get the best from it, but once dialed in, it looked excellent with 4K test patterns and 1080p Blu-ray material.

AmTRAN plans to raise the 4K Ultra HD bar by lowering the price. AmTRAN who, you may ask? Based in Taiwan, the company is a major maker of video displays, both consumer and professional, for a variety of brands, the biggest of which is Vizio. In 2010, AmTRAN licensed the JVC brand to put on its flat-screen HDTVs in North America, which are sold and marketed by its U.S. subsidiary AmTRAN Video Corporation. This is the first JVC flat panel we’ve tested since that company left the TV business a few years ago to focus its display business on LCOS projectors.

Somewhere in the dim past I wrote a blog on whether or not you might want to work with a custom installer in designing and building setting up your home theater or media room. In a random search through my computer files (as messy as any physical file system on the planet!) on a different subject I came across it again. It appears to have been written for one of the newsletter in the now defunct Stereophile Guide to Home Theater/Ultimate AV. In the hope that it might be as pertinent now as it was then (given a significant update), here it is again...