Tom Norton

CES 2012
Sony Lightens Up
Tom Norton  |  Jan 12, 2012  |  0 comments
It may have been one of the less dramatic introductions at CES, but Sony's new, lightweight active 3D glasses will be welcomed by those of us with red bumps decorating the bridge of our nose after every 3D movie.
CES 2012
Samsung Does Vacuum Tubes
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012  |  0 comments
When have you last seen a Home Theater in a Box that uses vacuum tubes in its AV receiver section? Samsung has one in its 6730W home theater system&$151;flat panel available separately! It sounded warmer and more pleasant than it had any right to in an open space, though of course tubes alone are no panacea. No price available as yet, but it's the first HTiB I've found at least interesting. The tubes are in the receiver's input stages; the output is solid state. Samsung is also offering some one-piece, two-channel iPod (and Android) docs with vacuum tube inputs.
CES 2012
Samsung Explains
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012  |  0 comments
Here is Samsung’s story about its use of vacuum tubes in an HTIB.
CES 2012
Samsung is Totally Tubular
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012  |  0 comments
Here's a closeup of the two tubes (or at least the only ones that are visible) in Samsung's tube-input HTiB.
CES 2012
Samsung Does Compute
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012  |  0 comments
And I just bought a Macbook Air!
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CES 2012
Sharp Packs 'Em In
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012  |  0 comments
Crowds were around the block for all of the 4K (and OLED) prototype displays at the show, including a 4K demonstration in the Sharp booth.
CES 2012
Be Sharp
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012  |  0 comments
Also eye-opening were Sharp's 80" Quattron sets. Humans on broadcasts now can be here almost life-sized.
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CES 2012
Already Had a Bite?
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012  |  0 comments
Don't expect to get a quick lunch at CES. The food services t the Las Vegas Convention Center were overwhelmed by the crowds, with early estimates at 140,000 show attendees.
CES 2012
Who the %$#@ is TCL?
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012  |  0 comments
An ambitious Chinese manufacturer of LCD sets, that's who. The small booth had demos 3D sets and an innovative 21:9 flat panel set optimized for 2.35: 1 movies—with black windowbox" bars at the sides for 16:9 material. Reportedly, TCL makes sets for VIZIO, which makes sense seeing that VIZIO is nearly set to release 21:9 sets. The only puzzle here remains why my camera rendered the TCL logo on top a red-fringed yellow, when the sign was clearly solid red.
CES 2012
Volfoni Turns Active Into Passive
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012  |  0 comments
The Smart Crystal Pro polarization modulator from a new (to us) company called Volfoni (which also makes both active and passive 3D glasses) can take your single chip active glasses DLP 3D projector and turn it into a passive glasses 3D projector. The brochure says it can do this for any 3D single lens projector, but the device has only been verified effective on DLPs.

What it does, in effect, is to substitute rapidly alternating polarization of the filter, which is positioned in front of the lens, for the switching of active glasses. You'll need a connection from the sync transmitter output in the projector to the Crystal Pro to make this work, or alternately DLP Link in the projector (DLP Link is a process that uses rapid interframe bursts of light from the DLP projector that normally triggers active glasses). (If your projector has neither, that is, no DLP Link and an on-board sync transmitter, it will not work, as I understand it. You'll also need a screen that preserves polarization. Estimated cost will be $1500 for the Crystal Pro itself, or $2000 for a package including both the Crystal Pro and a slide that can automatically move the polarizer out of the way for 2D material.

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