New Technology TV

With the rapid advancements in home entertainment technology, it’s easy to be confused by all the concepts and terminology related to new equipment. One of the most puzzling factors is video resolution – what it means, how it relates to the picture you see on the screen, and how it’s relevant when you’re trying to choose a new TV or video component. Here’s a little background on the subject.

While you will pay for the privilege, it is now possible to not only have High-Definition DVD movies and other content in the living room, but Sony now has a new laptop that is Blu-ray DVD capable. Costing slightly over three grand, Sony has suddenly made cutting edge video technology very portable. With an impressive screen resolution of 1920 X 1200 pixels, the video display has the raw technology to enthrall the attention of any serious video buff. Deep blacks are delivered in spades, as is surgical blade sharpness of the high-definition images. The wide-screen is a seventeen incher, so movies will be striking whether the notebook is sitting on a desk, riding in a train, or camping in Yosemite. Hi-Definition content is going to be stunning on this machine.

Digital television or DTV was introduced in the United States in 1996, when Congress made it legal for each broadcaster to add a channel featuring the DTV format, while they continued to offer regular, analog programming. DTV represents a drastic improvement over the old, analog format, supplying viewers with a better picture and better audio quality. In the world of broadcasting, DTV also made it possible for parts of the broadcasting spectrum to be used for public and other purposes. DTV is simply more user-friendly than analog TV, making it possible for broadcasters to function over a smaller number of channels. As a result, parts of the broadcast spectrum can now be devoted to wireless features, like cell phone service, and public safety services related to rescue squads and police departments.

By now, most TV viewers have encountered high definition (HD) programming. Today, you can watch the news, your favorite drama series, movies, Pay Per View concerts and sports in high definition format. HDTV will one day be the norm. If you’ve seen HDTV but don’t know all the details about what makes it so great, then read on.

There are plenty of options available to TV fans who are setting up a home theater for the first time. If you’re thinking of buying a rear projection television set for your home entertainment system, be sure to consider the following factors before making your purchase.
Rear projection sets provide the big-screen experience and don’t require any kind of special set up. If you have the room, you can get a rear-projection set at an affordable price with a generous screen size and high definition (HD) compatibility. Both liquid crystal display (LCD) and digital light processing (DLP) sets are available in a variety of sizes, with different depths. The average range is 40-60 inches, with a depth of about 15 inches. The maximum screen size for a rear projection DLP or LCD television is about 70 inches. Popular models include the Toshiba 52HM94 DLP Integrated HDTV and the Panasonic PT-50LC14 Widescreen HD-Ready Television. Most rear projection sets are cheaper than front projector models.

Everyone knows how cool a plasma set looks – with its flat screen, stream-lined design, and crystal clear picture, the plasma set represents the best in cutting-edge technology. But how does such a set compare to the other types of TVs available now?

We are seeing more advertisements in the glossy magazines for the High Definition Blu-ray discs and its companion technology. The big-box electronic retailers generally have the Blu-ray players in stock at all of their far-flung locations. The disc’s 50 GB storage capacity doubles the storage capacity of entire computers sold just a few years ago. Sony is shipping copies of some of its high profile movies in quantities of around fifteen thousand per launch. Some of the titles by Sony cited in a recent ad were 50 First Dates, Hitch (with Will Smith), Resident Evil: Apocalypse, A Knight’s Tale, The Last Waltz, and a few others. The advertisement also made note of the other movie studios involved in the release of Blu-ray titles. It includes Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Lionsgate. Lionsgate studio noted slow but encouraging sales of some of their titles: Terminator 2, Crash, and Saw.

Imagine a video screen that is so thin and flexible, it could be rolled up and stored away in a shirt pocket. That technology is here now in various forms, and is not far from widespread mass production by a number of leading companies. While the first screens will not be a substitute for High Definition Televisions (HDTV), they will greatly enhance the options of handset makers, computer manufacturers, and the video display industry. The creator of the cult classic Blade Runner, Phillip K. Dick and other writers of science fiction surmised that large video screens might one day cover entire walls and be commonplace. Now, it seems possible that new flexible video screens will change our ideas about video forever. Scientists, particularly those at a Phillps subsidiary called Polymer Vision, are mass producing screens that can be rolled out to be much larger than the device in which they are housed. Although these screens are in Black and White now, it is forseen that their color technology is on the horizion.

If Japanese engineers have their way, we may be stimulating more than our visual and auditory senses sometime in the future. The idea of combining video with specific smells that coincide with the subject of the movie or television show has long been sought by directors, scientists and filmmakers. The idea was immortalized by Aldous Huxley in his great novel Brave New World and was subsequently used by the late Mike Todd Jr. in the 1960’s. The process was designed to produce smells from under the theatergoer’s seats from a series of tubes. Common smells like coffee, cigar smoke, garlic, and onions were reproduced. Another film called, Beyond the Great Wall attempted to utilize this idea to only limited success. One of the main problems, other than convincing audiences that this smelly idea has much merit, is the clearing away of a smell, to make way for the next smell in the program or movie. Filling the air conditioning ducts with the appropriate odor was another technique that has been used by filmmakers. John Waters employed another ingenious and yet low-tech method—he distributed cards that were scratch-and-sniff, so the audience could encounter the smells at the proper time in the movie.

Internet giant Yahoo is scrambling to get in on the lucrative action of hosting homemade video clips from users across the globe. The early lead taken by the video upstart YouTube surprised all of the Web heavyweights, including Google and AOL. Now, all of the them, and probably even other currently unknown competitors are vying to become The destination on the web for the masses to enjoy watching the video content of others and to upload their own movies for others to see. YouTube seemingly overnight gained international popularity and grew to millions of users in a very short time. Based in the computer savvy area of San Mateo, YouTube is yet another rags to riches story of two twenty something computer geeks who rose to prominence in the span of only a few months.

Liquid crystal display (LCD) technology may sound exotic, but in reality we use it every day. LCD technology is utilized in stereos, computer monitors, microwave ovens, digital clocks and calculators. Today, the technology is also being used in high-tech flat screen TV sets and video monitors that produce incredibly clear images.