Scott Wilkinson

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CES 2010
Sony OLED
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 12, 2009

Sony's OLED demo included several 27-inchers and some 11-inch XEL-1s as well as a new 11-inch model (in the center of this shot) that's less than 1mm thick. The prototypes were all mounted in super-cool brushed-aluminum flat stands. As OLEDs are wont to do, these looked stunning. I only wish this technology was practical and economical from a manufacturing perspective.

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CES 2010
Teardown
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 12, 2009

At the stroke of 4:00 PM on Sunday, a great cheer was heard throughout the show and the mad rush to tear down the booths began. Stay tuned for our wrap-up reports in a couple of days after we catch our collective breath and take a little time to digest all that we saw and heard.

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CES 2010
Dish Network ViP 922
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

New to Dish Network's lineup of HD DVRs is the ViP 922 with Slingbox built in, which lets you watch any recorded program from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. To store all the HD programs you can't live without, it houses a 1-terabyte hard disk. Also new is the remote, which sports half the number of buttons as the previous design and a little touchpad that moves an onscreen cursor around a much more graphical menu system. As if that weren't enough, the 922 also offers RSS widgets, and it even recommends shows you might like based on what you select to watch.

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CES 2010
Optoma HD8200
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

I've always liked Optoma's 1080p DLP projectors, except for one thing—no lens shift, which makes placement difficult. I guess the company listened, because the new HD8200 takes lens shift one step beyond normal. Called PureShift, the Optoma shifts the entire light engine up to 20% left/right and 30% up/down, keeping the light path in the center of the lens. It'll be available only through custom installers for $5000 starting in February. The similar HD808 will be available at retail for $3500 in March; the 808 uses the DarkChip 2 DMD, whereas the 8200 uses the DC3 chip for greater contrast.

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CES 2010
Dolby Vision/Contrast
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

Dolby has been working on an LED local-dimming system for LCD TVs for a couple of years, but now it's finally finished and ready for manufacturers to use in their products. It comes in two flavors—Dolby Vision is intended for prosumer, commercial, medical, and industrial applications, while Dolby Contrast is intended for consumer TVs. Pictured here is a 47-inch prototype implementation of Dolby Vision from SIM2. I also saw a demo of Dolby Contrast next to a Samsung 950 LCD with local dimming, and the difference was clear—the set with Dolby Contrast had better contrast and lower blacks, and the colors popped more.

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CES 2010
Samsung SP-A900B
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

When I heard that Samsung has a new Joe Kane-designed single-chip DLP projector, I had to check it out. The SP-A900B boasts 35% better contrast than the SP-A800B, mostly due to lower blacks thanks to the DarkChip 4 DMD and other refinements. To help Samsung sell the projector—which it has been unable to do in any volume with previous models—Kane is helping to set up a real distribution channel that will make the projector available only through dealers who install and calibrate it. The SP-A900B should be available next month for $15,000. The demo is using the new Da-Lite Affinity screen, which Kane also helped design, and the result is spectacular—the best video image at the show in my view.

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CES 2010
Vizio VF551XVT
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

The 55-inch VF551XVT is Vizio's first LCD TV with LED backlight and local dimming. Slated for June, it also operates at 240Hz and offers a USB port and five HDMI inputs. The price? Only $2000! For that little, I could certainly tolerate the garish red soundbar grille below the screen.

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CES 2010
Vizio VBR100
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

After its meteoric rise in the flat-panel business, Vizio is expanding into the realm of Blu-ray players with the VBR100. It's BD-Live with 1GB of internal memory, it has 7.1 analog audio outs, and it can bitstream and decode all the advanced audio codecs. It should be available in April for—get this—$200, the magic price point. Mainstream, here we come!

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CES 2010
Vizio Connected HDTV
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

Vizio is getting on the widget bandwagon with Vizio Connected HDTV, a feature set that will be added to all XVT models this fall. With 802.11n WiFi and an Ethernet port, it can run various widgets to access online weather, news, and so on, and new widgets can be downloaded from the company's website into the TV's Widget Gallery shown here on the left of the screen. Also included is a new Bluetooth remote that slides open like a smartphone to reveal a QWERTY keyboard.

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CES 2010
Hitachi Wireless HDMI
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 10, 2009

Sure enough, Hitachi is demonstrating wireless HDMI using ADI's JPEG2000 codec and UWB wireless transmission. The LCD TV is the current Ultra Thin model with an outboard input/tuner/processor box (on the floor) whose output is connected to a transmitter (on the riser next to the box) that sends the signal to a receiver (mounted on the TV's pedestal), which is connected to the TV's HDMI input. The picture looked fine to me under less-than-ideal conditions.

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