Illustration by Rick Wessler Confused about HDTV? Well, it can be hard to find somebody who isn't - which is why I recently had a consultation with my esteemed colleague, Dr. Hidef, who isn't the tiniest bit perplexed when it comes to high-definition TV.
The transition to high-definition television really picked up steam this fall as ABC, CBS, NBC, and the WB filled their 2003-04 prime-time schedules with more hours of HDTV programming than ever before. During an entire week, these networks are offering some 70 hours of HDTV.
On Wednesday, September 10, the Federal Communications Commission approved a package of standards designed to make digital televisions compatible with a wide range of digital and high definition cable television programs. The "plug and play" agreement will allow consumers to connect digital televisions directly into cable systems, without a set-top-box.
Photos by Tony Cordoza A newcomer to HDTV has to face so many new abbreviations and technical terms that he could end up feeling like a freshman at MIT. Competing for your hard-earned buck are technologies like LCD, DLP, plasma, LCoS, and CRT - all of which can be found in sets that feature 1080i, 720p, and 480p scanning, ATSC tuners, and DVI with HDCP.
Photos by Tony Cordoza Using a standalone DVD player in the connected home seems so inappropriately standoffish. Why live by disc alone? That's the thinking behind the Go-Video D2730, a richly featured DVD player that's also adept at playing music or videos, or displaying photos stored on a Windows-based computer.
Another case of separated at birth? If you close your eyes during a movie, it's difficult to distinguish Panasonic's top-of-the-line SC-ST1 from the middle-of-the-pack SC-HT900. Open your eyes, and it doesn't get any easier to tell these two home-theaters-in-a-box apart. Aside from the Penn-and-Teller, tall-versus-small DVD receivers and slightly different center-channel speakers, the two systems are dead ringers.
The only thing that's less likely to impress me than a plasma display from a mass-market manufacturer is a lower-priced plasma display from a mass-market manufacturer. Yet Sampo has done just that. At $6,999, the PME-50X6 isn't necessarily cheap, but it is one of (if not the) lowest-priced HD-capable plasma displays on the market, and its image has many impressive qualities. This price point also puts the plasma in the same market as the high-end rear-projection display. Should you extend your search to include this flat-panel model? Read on to find out.
This projector's so bright, you've gotta wear shades.
18.1 foot-lamberts. This light output would be impressive for any front projector. What makes it amazing is that I measured 18.1 ft-L on a 7.5-foot-wide (100-inch-diagonal) Grayhawk screen with a 0.9 gain. If you were to use this projector on a 6-foot-wide (82.5-inch-diagonal) Studiotek 130 screen (which has a gain of +1.3), you'd get an almost-blinding 48.6 ft-L. With that kind of light output, you'd be able to use a screen larger than 12 feet wide (165 inches diagonally) and still have a bright, watchable image. And that's in the low-power mode.