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CES 2011
Sony 3D Camcorder
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 06, 2011
Sony's new HDR-TD10 3D High Definition Flash Memory Handycam Camcorder (about $1500, April) is one of the first the full HD 3D consumer camcorders. It includes two separate 1920 a 1080 CMOS sensors and two lenses to capture distinct 1920 x 1080 data streams for each eye. It's also capable of 2D still image capture at 7-megapixels. At present, playback is from the camera only via an HDMI link to the video display. The future should bring dedicated playback devices (such as a 3D Blu-ray player with a flash card slot). Oh, and you can view the image you're shooting in autostereoscopic 3D on the 3.5" viewfinder—no 3D glasses required.
CES 2011
Sharp Products
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 06, 2011
Sharp's big announcement was the addition of a 70-inch Quattron set to its lineup. The LE935 will have full LED backlighting with local dimming and is expected by spring. A 70-inch set was said to offer 62% more viewing area than a 60-incher. There will also be new sets in the LE835 an d LE830 ranges, all connectable with Wi-Fi. The XV-2 17000 3D DLP projector under $5000), first shown at CEDIA EXPO 2010 last September, will also be on display here at CES.

Sharp also announced three new 3D Blu-ray players (February), the BD HP25U, 35U, and 75U. Sharp also launched an E-Media Tablet and reader, the Galapagos. (Tablets appear to be a big item this year, thanks to Apple's iPAD!).

CES 2011
Samsung Leads 3D Parade
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 06, 2011
Samsung went all Opra on us with it's sit-down, let's talk press conference. They announced that one million 3DTVs were sold in the US in 2010, well under predictions but ahead of the rate that many other new technologies have achieved in their first year. About 35 million TVs are sold in the US each year, however, so that's actually a pretty small percentage. Nevertheless Samsung claimed a 70% market share of 3DTV sales, and this year 3DTVs make up 60% of the company's new HD lineup.

Samsung is going with the flow in using "Smart" as a catch phrase this year for many of its products. The company expects to sell 6 million 3DTVs this year, two thirds of them Smart TVs. The new gee-whiz feature in the D7000 and D8000 sets is an ultra thin frame, barely 0.2" wide (see photo). In addition, Samsung's new active 3D glasses sport an ultra svelt, and it's said far more comfortable design.

Samsung's new BDD 7500 3D Blu-ray player is as ultra thin as the new TVs, and incorporates its own built-in 2D-to-3D conversion.

CES 2011: Smart Stuff from Samsung
Al Griffin  |  Jan 06, 2011

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CES 2011: Panasonic Talks TV Tech
Brent Butterworth  |  Jan 06, 2011

Panasonic's CES 2011 press event was like a salad topped with a few perfectly seared pieces of tuna. The salad- i.e., the dull part - was lots of talk about 3D and Internet-connected TV. The seared tuna - i.e., the good part - was a list of improvements was can expect to see in Panasonic's already-awesome line of plasma TVs.

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CES 2011: Sony Announces New Products in Grand Fashion
Brent Butterworth  |  Jan 06, 2011

Emerging from beneath a gigantic video screen stretching about 100 feet across, Sony chairman/president/CEO Sir Howard Stringer appeared in the car from the upcoming movie The Green Hornet with the movie's stars Seth Rogen and Jay Chow. It was just the start of what will almost surely be the splashiest event at this year's CES-maybe the splashiest CES event ever.

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CES 2011: Active Vs. Passive 3DTVs Battle it Out
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Jan 06, 2011

LG and VIZIO announced today many new models with Passive 3D. This contrasts with Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, and Sharp who all announced new Active 3D models.

The main differences are that active uses comparatively heavy and expensive LCD shutter glasses. The advantage to this method is that you can have full HD resolutions with minimal modifications to the underlying television. The disadvantages are that potential for flicker, crosstalk, and the aforementioned glasses.

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Sharp 70-inch Quattron LCD TVs
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 05, 2011
LG wasn't the only manufacturer to show an extra-large LCD TV. Sharp unveiled a new 70-incher in its Quattron line, which adds yellow subpixels to the normal red, green, and blue. The LC-70LE935 uses LED backlighting with local dimming and offers online content and 3D capabilities, while the LC-70LE732 omits 3D. In all, Sharp will introduce five new lines with screen sizes up to 70 inches and six lines with sizes up to 60 inches in 2011, and all will have WiFi connectivity.
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LG Display FPR Polarized 3D
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 05, 2011
LG Display, a subsidiary of LG that manufactures LCD panels for its parent company as well as Toshiba and Vizio, held its own press conference today to introduce its Film-Pattern Retarder (FPR) technology, which allows the use of passive-polarized glasses with 3D TVs. Among the benefits of this approach are much less-expensive glasses that are lighter in weight and require no electronics, higher brightness and refresh rate, and no crosstalk. Of course, the main disadvantage is that each eye sees only half the available vertical resolution—540 lines instead of 1080, though the company reps argued that the brain fuses each eye's image into a "full HD" image.

The demo included several side-by-side comparisons with active-shutter glasses. For example, as seen on the right in the photo above, you can lie on your side and still watch 3D with FPR glasses, which use circular polarization, whereas shutter glasses completely darken at 90 degrees as seen on the left.

Another demo tried to illustrate how shutter glasses produce flicker while FPR glasses are flicker-free; from what I saw, this was extremely subtle. More pronounced was the comparison of crosstalk in several still images, which was obvious with shutter glasses and absent with FPR. Finally, a comparison of brightness revealed that passive 3D is indeed brighter than shutter glasses, though surprisingly, Tom Norton thought the shutter glasses display was actually brighter. We both agreed that the passive display looked more washed out and less punchy, and I thought the passive image was a bit softer in all cases, which would be worse on a larger screen.

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LG 3D Smart TVs
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 05, 2011
LG holds the coveted position as the first official press conference of CES, which is great for the company, but murder on journalists, who must get to the Venetian before 8:00 AM if they want a seat in the huge ballroom. (Apparently, 3D-glasses maker Xpand had an unofficial press conference at 7:00 AM, but I sure wasn't going to make that!)

As expected, LG's TV lineup for 2011 includes more 3D models and more network connectivity, which is quickly turning out to be the TV story at the show. Out of 31 new LCD TVs, 10 are 3D-capable, and all but five are what LG calls Smart TVs; of the 12 new plasmas, eight are 3D and four are Smart TVs. In both cases, many models include both feature sets. Also, two-thirds of the LCD TVs use LED edgelighting or backlighting.

There are two big tech stories here. First, the LED-edgelit 3D models use passive-polarized glasses instead of active-shutter glasses, a technology LG calls Film-Pattern Retarder (FPR), which I'll discuss in more detail in a following post. Second, the top three LCD TVs—which reach up to 72 inches diagonally—are LED-backlit with local dimming using a technology LG calls Nano Full LED, in which the LEDs are smaller than usual and deliver brighter, cleaner, smoother local dimming in a cabinet less then one inch thick.

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