Keith Jack's Blog

Philips has announced Net TV, a new addition to a number of its high-end television ranges that will see you getting internet access through your TV screen. It will allow users to browse the net using just their remote, with a number of websites and services tailored and enhanced specifically to view through the TV.

Philips breaks new ground in the realm of home entertainment with the world’s first cinema-proportioned LCD television. Cinema 21:9 lets you enjoy movies as you would in the cinema and just as the director intended. Cinema 21:9 delivers the ultimate immersive home cinematic viewing experience. Movies are displayed in the 21:9 aspect ratio – exactly as they are at the cinema – on its 56” Full-HD screen, at 2560x1080p resolution.

VIZIO is coming out with several new HDTVs that include 802.11n wireless networking, and support for Amazon Video On Demand, Blockbuster OnDemand, Flickr TV Widget, Yahoo! TV Widgets, Netflix, Pandora, Rhapsody, and Accedo’s popular casual gaming service, Funspot.

They also announced two 240Hz HDTVs, priced at $1,099 (42″) and $1,399 (47″). Like LG, Vizio uses a “scanning backlight” technology to achieve its 240Hz processing, unlike the frame interpolaton technology used by Sony and Samsung. The frame interpolaton technology system inserts three interpolated frames for every 60Hz source frame; the scanning backlight system technology turns the backlight on and off very rapidly.

Based on Intel’s CE 3100 Media Processor, Toshiba is adding several capabilities to their new networked HDTVs, including support for Yahoo! TV Widgets and Extender for Windows Media Center (MCX) technology.

Dolby has available its Dolby Vision technology that features a proprietary algorithm that manages LEDs behind the LCD panel. Each LED is controlled individually in concert with the image on display. By selectively turning off areas of the backlight behind black areas in scenes, Dolby Vision allows the area to become truly black. Dolby Vision also has the ability to selectively brighten areas of the backlight behind bright areas allowing them to truly radiate. A Xilinx® FPGA chipset is available today enabling fast time to market for displays using Dolby Vision’s complex HDR algorithms.