Home Theater Programming Sources
Off-Air TV
| Home Media Systems Future pg.2 |
These units are many steps closer to delivering the long promised “convergence” between
consumer electronics and computers. Multimedia PCs function as DVD players, personal
video recorders similar to a TiVO, and hard drive media storage. They allow storage of
digital photos for easy display on your TV or monitor. And can, of course, browse the net
on your TV via your broadband connection. As hard drive storage becomes more
economical and compression techniques become better, the storage of HD movies and
HDTV programming will become commonplace.
If copyright issues can be worked out, you will be able to stream this HD content over your
home network to any TV or video display in your home. A set top box called a thin client
will allow your various TVs and entertainment systems to become part of your network.
Once part of the network, you can access any content on the central server and/or
multimedia PC such as photos, stored TV programming, movies, or music.
These boxes can be either wired or wireless. Some of these thin clients are available
today from companies such as Net Gear, D-Link, and Turtle Beach and many more are
coming from industry heavyweights such as Microsoft. All of this will allow you to leverage
your home network into far more than simply a way to share a printer and Internet
connection.
The term set-top box will become something of a misnomer as most displays will become
too thin to allow a box to placed on top of them. As the price of plasma displays has
plummeted and their image quality has improved they are popping up in family & rec
rooms everywhere. Although they are the darlings of the media and the generic for flat
panel display in the minds of many, plasmas are about to be in a serious fight with other
technologies for the flat panel crown.
LCD displays, seen on the desktop for years as computer monitors, are finally increasing
in size to the point they are becoming a rival to plasmas in the 42" size. Picture quality is
similar to plasmas, however LCDs are immune to the burn-in that can affect plasma
displays when they are used to display static images such as video games. Plasmas
generally have an edge in the ability to produce deeper blacks and more saturated colors
than LCDs. Plasmas are also better at producing full motion video than LCDs because of
the response time of the LCD panels, although this difference is disappearing. LCD TVs
are a bit more expensive than plasmas at 42" but they should last quite a while longer.
Plasma displays should last 15,000 - 20,000 hours and LCDs should give 30,000+ hours
of useful life.
Currently Sony has a 42", NEC a 40", Sharp a 45", Samsung a 40". Samsung also has a
46" that should be shipping by early September. The Samsung 46" is the first consumer
LCD video display to have a 1080 line native resolution.
Stay tuned for the latest developments on this front from the CEDIA show where many
manufacturers should be showing their latest displays.
Other technologies are on the horizon as well. One that has shown great promise is
OLED, for Organic Light Emitting Diode. Developed by Kodak and Pioneer, this
technology has been used for a few years now in car stereo and cell phone displays. It's
just about ready for prime time. Philips has shown a 13" unit, Samsung a 17", and Seiko-
Epson has shown a 40" prototype.
OLEDs advantages are many. It actually emits light so requires no back light. It has a wide
viewing angle like a plasma display. Its power usage is very low, less than 1/2 that of a
traditional LCD display. At around 2mm, OLEDs are much thinner than either a plasma or
LCD. They have a refresh rate about 1,000 times faster than a traditional LCD so they will
far superior for video applications. They have fewer parts than LCD or plasma and can be
manufacturered using an ink jet printing process. This promises to keep prices low as the
technology is implemented. It is expected to see sub 20" displays in stores by 2006 with
larger units following one to two years later.
The pace of change in the home theater / media market has just kept accelerating. There
are some promising technologies around the corner that will allow, as usual, higher
performance, lower cost and more compact form factors. This will make it even easier for
the average person to have a fantastic media system in their home.
consumer electronics and computers. Multimedia PCs function as DVD players, personal
video recorders similar to a TiVO, and hard drive media storage. They allow storage of
digital photos for easy display on your TV or monitor. And can, of course, browse the net
on your TV via your broadband connection. As hard drive storage becomes more
economical and compression techniques become better, the storage of HD movies and
HDTV programming will become commonplace.
If copyright issues can be worked out, you will be able to stream this HD content over your
home network to any TV or video display in your home. A set top box called a thin client
will allow your various TVs and entertainment systems to become part of your network.
Once part of the network, you can access any content on the central server and/or
multimedia PC such as photos, stored TV programming, movies, or music.
These boxes can be either wired or wireless. Some of these thin clients are available
today from companies such as Net Gear, D-Link, and Turtle Beach and many more are
coming from industry heavyweights such as Microsoft. All of this will allow you to leverage
your home network into far more than simply a way to share a printer and Internet
connection.
The term set-top box will become something of a misnomer as most displays will become
too thin to allow a box to placed on top of them. As the price of plasma displays has
plummeted and their image quality has improved they are popping up in family & rec
rooms everywhere. Although they are the darlings of the media and the generic for flat
panel display in the minds of many, plasmas are about to be in a serious fight with other
technologies for the flat panel crown.
LCD displays, seen on the desktop for years as computer monitors, are finally increasing
in size to the point they are becoming a rival to plasmas in the 42" size. Picture quality is
similar to plasmas, however LCDs are immune to the burn-in that can affect plasma
displays when they are used to display static images such as video games. Plasmas
generally have an edge in the ability to produce deeper blacks and more saturated colors
than LCDs. Plasmas are also better at producing full motion video than LCDs because of
the response time of the LCD panels, although this difference is disappearing. LCD TVs
are a bit more expensive than plasmas at 42" but they should last quite a while longer.
Plasma displays should last 15,000 - 20,000 hours and LCDs should give 30,000+ hours
of useful life.
Currently Sony has a 42", NEC a 40", Sharp a 45", Samsung a 40". Samsung also has a
46" that should be shipping by early September. The Samsung 46" is the first consumer
LCD video display to have a 1080 line native resolution.
Stay tuned for the latest developments on this front from the CEDIA show where many
manufacturers should be showing their latest displays.
Other technologies are on the horizon as well. One that has shown great promise is
OLED, for Organic Light Emitting Diode. Developed by Kodak and Pioneer, this
technology has been used for a few years now in car stereo and cell phone displays. It's
just about ready for prime time. Philips has shown a 13" unit, Samsung a 17", and Seiko-
Epson has shown a 40" prototype.
OLEDs advantages are many. It actually emits light so requires no back light. It has a wide
viewing angle like a plasma display. Its power usage is very low, less than 1/2 that of a
traditional LCD display. At around 2mm, OLEDs are much thinner than either a plasma or
LCD. They have a refresh rate about 1,000 times faster than a traditional LCD so they will
far superior for video applications. They have fewer parts than LCD or plasma and can be
manufacturered using an ink jet printing process. This promises to keep prices low as the
technology is implemented. It is expected to see sub 20" displays in stores by 2006 with
larger units following one to two years later.
The pace of change in the home theater / media market has just kept accelerating. There
are some promising technologies around the corner that will allow, as usual, higher
performance, lower cost and more compact form factors. This will make it even easier for
the average person to have a fantastic media system in their home.
Home Media Systems Future -pg.2
1 Touch Movie.com
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