HDTV TECH

Did you read that headline in Seinfeld's voice? While contrast ratio, black level, and light output all rightly occupy the top of the list of specs one considers when purchasing a new display, color is often completely overlooked.

Good color reproduction usually won't make or break a display, but it can make one that's good into one that's great.

Yet for all its importance, it's rarely understood - and it's regularly done wrong.

If there is one thing that just screams "future" to me, it's lasers. Sure, they've been around since the 1960s, but come on—it's lasers! Right now, they can be found in your CD and DVD players, but a few companies are hoping to put them in your TV, as well.

In the beginning, there was analog television. You aimed the antenna, tuned in the channel, and then sat back to watch as the amplitude-modulated pictures flashed on the TV screen and the frequency-modulated audio blared forth from the speakers. Some time later, analog TV added color by shoehorning in a small signal with the necessary information amongst those amplitude- and frequency-modulated pictures and sounds.