An article in EETimes reports that Japan Broadcasting Corporation has being showing what could be the next generation of high resolution broadcasting. They're are calling itSuper Hi-Vision. The new 8K by 4K or 7680 x 4320 resolution is 16 times higher than the current 2K by 1K or 1902 x 1080.  read more »

Japanese manufacturers (sony, panasonic, canon, sharp) have long been the established brand names for consumer electronics products until Korean manufacturers (Samsung,  read more »

If I was shopping for a reaonably priced HDTV and wanted to get the best bang for the buck, I would seriously consider passing on "Full HD," or 1080p and go for a 42 or 50 inch LCD or Plasma TV. First of all most people can't even see a difference between 1080p and 720p at distances greater than 8 or 9 feet. Secondly most programming coming over the air on cable or satellite is 720p or 1080i. High definition DVDs are the only reason right now to spend the extra bucks for 1080p. Retrevo's new Value Engine scientifically analyzes thousands of products along with features and prices to produce a Value Map that makes it very clear that 720p LCD and Plasma TV sets offer the most bang for the buck.  read more »

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This year, the hot new feature in HDTV just might be "motion control motion enhancement," or MEMC. MEMC chips can help reduce blurring in fast-action programming like sports. This has been a differentiation between Plasma TVs and LCD TVs. Plasma TVs have had fewer problems handling fast moving subjects than LCD TVs.  LCD TVs have countered with faster refresh rates (120 Hz) and faster pixel response times (8 ms. and lower).

MEMC promises to narrow the gap further. MEMC has been used for some time in the compression and decompression (CODEC) schemes but is  read more »

The HD DVD camp is reeling from the Warner Brothers announcement to distribute Blu-ray only discs as of June 2008, . Warner is one of the largest DVD producers and could significantly change the balance in the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD format war. In reaction, the HD DVD group cancelled a big press event at CES. To make matters worse rumors have Apple's new Macbooks sporting Blu-ray DVD drives. This has got to have the Microsoft camp riled up and huddling with Toshiba to plan a counter attack. On the other hand I think it was Bill Gates who said this will probably be the last physical media format  read more »

Toshiba has thrown in the towel and it looks like Blu-ray will be the one and only high definition DVD format for the time being. Is it time to buy a Blu-ray player? Maybe not. 

The Blu-ray group has been a little behind on approving the Profiles that provide features like picture in picture commentaries, and intenet connectivity. Since the features haven't in place on the players the studios haven't been including them in the discs. To make matters worse it hasn't been possible to upgrade firmware on older players. All that should change but it should take another couple  read more »