HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray or maybe something else entirely…

This post is excerpted from The New York Times CES Bits pages
High-Definition Movies, Without the Format War
By BRAD STONE

As the major studios continue to battle over Blu-ray and HD DVD, the competing standards for high-definition DVDs, it’s always worth considering whether both camps are ultimately doomed – leapfrogged by straight-to-the-home digital downloads of high definition movies.
The working prototype of a Vudu box, with its remote. Last summer, I wrote about Vudu, one of several companies selling a movie store-in-a-box service to consumers. The company has distribution deals with all the major studios and more than 5,000 movies available for instantaneous television viewing via its $400 device.
Now Vudu is here at the Consumer Electronics Show making a few interesting announcements. It says it is going to start introducing high-definition movies, starting with 70 titles. Oddly, it is not disclosing which studios are participating, but from the list of available films (”Star Trek,” “Transformers,” “A Mighty Heart,” “The Bourne Ultimatum”) it appears that Paramount and Universal are involved.
New HD releases will cost $5.99 to rent, while older titles will rent for $3.99 – slightly higher prices than the standard definition titles on the Vudu service. To really make the Blu-Ray, HD-DVD war irrelevant, of course, Vudu will have to add more than 70 titles and other direct download services, like Amazon Unbox, must start adding HD movies as well. But that can’t be that far off.
Vudu’s got some other news as well – its new $999 Vudu XL box (for rich movie buffs) sports a terabyte of storage capable of storing 500 movies.
Vudu’s digital TV box has a raft of strong competition from Apple, Amazon and now, Netflix, which announced a deal with LG Electronics last week. Patrick Cosson, Vudu’s vice president of sales and marketing, suggested that some of the digital video announcements coming from C.E.S. this week may be, in the industry’s parlance, a tad vaporish.
“Vudu is not a promise, it is a working device,” he said. “It’s not someone’s pipe dream, where they are saying that sometime next year they will release something. There’s a lot of work that has to go into delivering what were talking about. We’ve done it and we’re proving that its working.”

Pioneer is the New Black

This post is excerpted from the New York Times CES Bits pages

Black Is the Color of My True Love’s TV
By ERIC TAUB

When TV manufacturers tout their excellent picture, they often refer to the display’s resolution, the number of pixels it can put on a screen. But image aficionados know that pixels don’t make up the whole picture, so to speak. Equally important to good picture quality is the screen’s contrast ratio, its ability to display a wide range of tones, from dark blacks to white whites.
According to Pioneer executives at a C.E.S. press conference in Las Vegas Sunday, the debate as to who has the best contrast ratio is over. In a new plasma TV now in their labs and not yet ready for production, Pioneer says it has achieved blacks so black that they literally can’t be seen. In a pitch-black room, Pioneer execs said, a viewer cannot even tell the set is on if it is showing only black. Which makes their contrast ratio “off the charts.”

“True black is the holy grail of providing a great picture,” said Russ Johnston, Pioneer’s executive vice president of manufacturing and product planning. “This is an end to the discussion.”  Follow this link to see for yourself. 

And by the way. Foss-AVI has been selling a lot of Pioneer Plasma's, so they must be doing something right. Check out the photo courtesy of Pioneer of their 60 inch plasma display.

File this one under life imitating art.

This post is excerpted from the New York Times CES Bits pages

A Wave of Information
By ERIC TAUB

The technology featured in the blockbuster movie “Minority Report” is coming to a Hilton hotel near you.
The film showed Tom Cruise manipulating images on a large video screen by simply moving his hands around the display. Reactrix, a Silicon Valley company allied with Samsung, has created a system that mimics those features.
Think Wii without the remote, and you’ve got the idea. And Mike Ribero, Reactrix’s chief executive, readily admits that familiarity with the Nintendo paradigm is what makes the system so understandable.
Stand within 15 feet of a Reactrix-equipped Samsung L.C.D., wave your hands in the air, and watch a cursor (or other object) move around the screen.
During the demo in Samsung’s booth, users could control two boxers by punching the air, or puncture balloons with a virtual dart. If you weren’t watching the screen but only looked at the gyrating players, you would swear that they were possessed.
And we’ll all be able to look equally silly this summer, when 115 Hilton hotels get the screens to serve as “virtual concierges.” Hotel guests will be able to check in and get various information by moving a cursor across the screen with a wave of the hand. You might want to make sure no one is watching.

If size matters - don't miss this one

This post is excerpted from the New York Times CES Bits
Electronics Makers Look for the Next Display
By SAUL HANSELL

For the last several years, the biggest story in the biggest market in consumer electronics—televisions—has been the war between plasma and liquid-crystal displays. In the market now, L.C.D.s have clearly won. Even Matsushita,, the biggest backer of plasma technology, is investing in a big new L.C.D. plant.  But that isn’t keeping electronics makers from looking for the next big thing in televisions. Big, of course, is always a sure bet for bragging rights. And Matsushita’s Panasonic brand showed off a 150-inch plasma set, for those with an 11-foot-wide space and nothing to put in it. Beyond such stunts, Panasonic introduced new technology meant to make plasma sets thinner. To see a video clip of the 150 inch, 4096 x 2160 display resolution monster follow this link http://gizmodo.com/341676/video-hands+on-with-the-150+inch-panasonic-lifescreen-plasma

Cool Stuff from CES 2008

Following the footsteps of last year's Best of CES winner in the TV category, Samsung's FP-T94W series, LG this year is introducing its own wireless plasma TVs. The series is called PG70, and it includes the 50-inch 50PG70 and the 60-inch 60PG70. Yes, you'll still need to connect the power cord, but all those pesky audio-video connections can be moved to a separate AV transceiver box that networks with the panel over the 802.11n wireless standard. Judging from LG's claims regarding its similar wireless LCDs, the box can be set up to 50 feet from the panel and going wireless doesn't impact picture or sound quality. Unlike those LCDs and Samsung's units, however, the box on the PG70 series is optional (price TBD), so you can wait to invest in wireless. These sets will carry THX Display certification, for what that's worth, when they ship in the third quarter of 2008--pricing was not disclosed at press time. Here's a photo courtesy of LG.