HDTV Almanac - More Bad News for Sears

Times have been tough for Sears Holdings, the company that owns Sears and Kmart retail stores. In the fourth quarter of 2011, which is the season that retailers hope to post most of their profits for the year, Sears reported a loss of $2.4 billion. As a result, the company is looking to raise money by shedding some of its assets. According to the company’s announcement, it plans to sell an additional 11 stores in 2012. In addition, it will spin off the Hometown and Outlet stores. The company also plans to reduce inventory and implement other cost-savings measures.

This is not good news for the company and its shareholders, but it could mean that you’ll want to keep a close eye on sales at your local Sears stores. It’s possible that they may have to move some of there electronics inventory at aggressive discounts in order to raise some cash, and you might be able to snag some attractive bargains.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 24, 2012 5:00 AM

Alfred Poor is a well-known display industry expert, who writes the daily HDTV Almanac. He wrote for PC Magazine for more than 20 years, and now is focusing on the home entertainment and home networking markets.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

HDTV Almanac - Retransmission Saga Continues

One step forward, maybe two steps back.

One major retransmission dispute is now resolved. After nearly two months, the Madison Square Garden (MSG) channels have been turned back on for Time Warner Cable (TWC) customers. This did not happen until the New York governor and state attorney general weighed in to put public pressure on both parties to settle. One reason that make the negotiations particularly sticky is that MSG is controlled by the family of the CEO of Cablevision, which is TWC’s major competitor.

So now we can look to Rhode Island and Pensacola, Florida, where LIN TV is threatening to pull the plug on its stations from Cox in those markets unless they can come to terms. What makes this dispute particularly interesting is that LIN TV has two franchises in each of those markets. They own a Fox and a CBS affiliate in Rhode Island, and a Fox and a CW affiliate in Pensacola. Relaxed FCC rules made it possible for a company to own more than one station in a market, which gives LIN TV increased leverage in its negotiations. According to an article in FierceCable, LIN TV has seen a severe drop in ad revenues, and so appears to be turning to retransmission fees as its main source of income.

The pay-TV services are not bottomless buckets of money, as many of their subscribers are all too happy to tell you. Milking these services (and their subscribers) for ever-larger retransmission fees is a dangerous game that is likely to hasten the inevitable review of the FCC’s rules, and who knows what changes that might bring.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 23, 2012 5:00 AM

Re: HDTV Almanac - Retransmission Saga Continues

eliwhitney • Feb 23, 8:57am
TO: alfredpoor

Good morning , Sir - -

Here, all of this week, our gas stations might just as well "stationed" a guy permanently w/ that long-handeled Pole & suction cup "thingie" to keep updating the gas prices!!! ...wicked, with LOTS MORE to come as soon as "they" dare!

That, in addition to $12.99 for a large can of generic coffee, $2.29 / pound for most varieties of apples, almost $4 / gallon now for milk etc., etc.. - - - without ANY "fear" of disagreements from others herein - - - the DAYS of simply accepting & accepting ever-greater local Cable Billings for LESS content are quickly coming to an end!

I see many "disconnects" on my Horizon as there are better / or, mandatory bills-needing-to-be-paid!

OR, at least, in my opinion!

eli...

HBO Arrives on Samsung Smart TVs

Nearly a year ago, Samsung and HBO announced a partnership that would let consumers stream HBO content to Samsung TVs. You would have to be an HBO subscriber to access the service, which meant that you had to be signed up with a pay-TV service.

Since then, you could get this HBO Go content on your computer, iPad, iPhone, Android smart phone, or even a Roku box. But not a Samsung TV. Until now.

Samsung has just announced that the service is available on certain models of their Smart TVs, with one additional restriction; not all pay-TV services are eligible. While Verizon FiOS, Charter, Cox, DISH Network, and DirecTV are supported on the Samsung screens, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are among the most conspicuously absent (though they do support the smart phone and iPad apps).

I continue to find it fascinating that the content providers such as HBO are being so timid about opening up streaming access to their content. The HBO Go service is free, but available only to HBO subscribers, perhaps so that HBO doesn’t anger the pay-TV services that provide the bulk of its revenues. On the other hand, this may simply be the company’s way of limiting demand for the streaming service, giving them time to test it out before rolling out in a big way.

It might well be that HBO is planning a streaming-only offering down the line with it’s own monthly fee. The same pay-TV service that currently gets subscriber dollars for the HBO channels would almost certainly be the same company that provides the broadband connection used to access the streaming service, so while this could mean less money for the pay-TV service, it’s not as though HBO would be cutting them off completely with the new service. There is no doubt that the cable, satellite, and telco services are going to have to be nimble and responsive over the next few years if they are going to survive the rapidly-changing video entertainment landscape.

Retransmission Saga Continues

One step forward, maybe two steps back.

One major retransmission dispute is now resolved. After nearly two months, the Madison Square Garden (MSG) channels have been turned back on for Time Warner Cable (TWC) customers. This did not happen until the New York governor and state attorney general weighed in to put public pressure on both parties to settle. One reason that make the negotiations particularly sticky is that MSG is controlled by the family of the CEO of Cablevision, which is TWC’s major competitor.

So now we can look to Rhode Island and Pensacola, Florida, where LIN TV is threatening to pull the plug on its stations from Cox in those markets unless they can come to terms. What makes this dispute particularly interesting is that LIN TV has two franchises in each of those markets. They own a Fox and a CBS affiliate in Rhode Island, and a Fox and a CW affiliate in Pensacola. Relaxed FCC rules made it possible for a company to own more than one station in a market, which gives LIN TV increased leverage in its negotiations. According to an article in FierceCable, LIN TV has seen a severe drop in ad revenues, and so appears to be turning to retransmission fees as its main source of income.

The pay-TV services are not bottomless buckets of money, as many of their subscribers are all too happy to tell you. Milking these services (and their subscribers) for ever-larger retransmission fees is a dangerous game that is likely to hasten the inevitable review of the FCC’s rules, and who knows what changes that might bring.

HDTV Almanac - HBO Arrives on Samsung Smart TVs

Nearly a year ago, Samsung and HBO announced a partnership that would let consumers stream HBO content to Samsung TVs. You would have to be an HBO subscriber to access the service, which meant that you had to be signed up with a pay-TV service.

Since then, you could get this HBO Go content on your computer, iPad, iPhone, Android smart phone, or even a Roku box. But not a Samsung TV. Until now.

Samsung has just announced that the service is available on certain models of their Smart TVs, with one additional restriction; not all pay-TV services are eligible. While Verizon FiOS, Charter, Cox, DISH Network, and DirecTV are supported on the Samsung screens, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are among the most conspicuously absent (though they do support the smart phone and iPad apps).

I continue to find it fascinating that the content providers such as HBO are being so timid about opening up streaming access to their content. The HBO Go service is free, but available only to HBO subscribers, perhaps so that HBO doesn’t anger the pay-TV services that provide the bulk of its revenues. On the other hand, this may simply be the company’s way of limiting demand for the streaming service, giving them time to test it out before rolling out in a big way.

It might well be that HBO is planning a streaming-only offering down the line with it’s own monthly fee. The same pay-TV service that currently gets subscriber dollars for the HBO channels would almost certainly be the same company that provides the broadband connection used to access the streaming service, so while this could mean less money for the pay-TV service, it’s not as though HBO would be cutting them off completely with the new service. There is no doubt that the cable, satellite, and telco services are going to have to be nimble and responsive over the next few years if they are going to survive the rapidly-changing video entertainment landscape.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 22, 2012 5:00 AM

HDTV Expert - Dish Network Hops Over the Top, by Ken Werner

In World War I, going “over the top” of your trench into often-withering machine-gun fire took tremendous courage – and ended the lives of millions of soldiers.  The consequences are not as dire for the new management team at troubled Dish Network, and the company is light-heartedly hopping over the top with the help of two kangaroos as mascots and logos.  Still, new CEO Joe Clayton is dramatically remaking his company’s mission – and the company’s health, if not its survival, is in the balance.

As he demonstrated at his company’s press presentation at CES, Clayton is a huckster of the old school – and a brilliant one.  In keeping with the presentation’s (and Clayton’s) over-the-top style, recorded cheering and applause accompanied Clayton’s appearance with a live joey – that is, a young kangaroo.   The other half of the mascot/logo team is Hopper, an adult kangaroo.  Why?  We’ll get to that.

One of Clayton’s favorite words was “new.”  He was presenting, he said, a new Dish, with a new brand, new mascots, new management team, new CEO (him), new corporate partnerships, new logo, new products, new services and promotions, new website, and new advertising.

Dish’s transformation is striking.  Instead of being primarily a satellite TV provider that is steadily losing market share to competitor Direct TV, the company’s new focus will be to provide a whole-home set-top box (STB) fed by broadband.  Satellite services will remain, and be enhanced, for those without broadband access.

As well as being Dish’s new logo, Hopper is the name of the company’s new “whole-home” set-top box (STB), and will be the conduit for, in Clayton’s words, “more music, more movies, more magic.”  Joeys are small satellite STBs for TV sets in other rooms.  Hopper includes a 2 terabyte hard drive  and stores hundreds of hours of programs.  With “Prime Time Anytime,” which includes Sirius XM Radio, you can automatically and simultaneously record all prime-time programming from the four major networks, plus two additional programs of your choice, and you can simultaneously play back four of them to different Joey satellite STBs throughout the house, and TVs can be controlled separately as long as each one has a Joey.

Dish’s purchase of Blockbuster last year was not greeted with unanimous praise, but Dish is incorporating Blockbuster@home, and its ability to stream 10,000 different movies, into its services.  If you don’t have access to broadband, there is Blockbuster unplugged, which downloads movies via satellite to your Hopper hard drive at less than real-time rates.

Communications VP Stephanie Pence quoted research that says 87% of TV households subscribe both to pay TV and broadband, with 83% of Netflix subscribers still maintain pay TV subscriptions.  And that is the new Dish’s target.  Dish will supply something approximating a cable TV experience using just your broadband connection.  If you want a free sample, you can register on line for the “Dish Test Drive” and receive 24 hours of typical content.

Back to Joe Clayton:  “The Dish brand will start growing again in 2012.  We are re-launching our company and restoring our brand.”  The ad campaign will roll out this quarter.

This is going over the top with a vengeance and cable should be worried.  Even if Dish does not get the viewer experience and pricing quite right, somebody else will, and soon.  Once that happens, what will the much-hated cable companies have to sell?  Only the broadband pipe that carries other peoples’ content.

Ken Werner is Principal of Nutmeg Consultants, specializing in the display industry and display technology.

 

HDTV Almanac - More TV for Wii

There are almost 40 million Wii video game consoles installed in U.S. households. And now a partnership between Nintendo and Hulu has brought Hulu Plus to the Wii. For $7.99 a month, viewers can add the service that provides access to many television shows and movies, and unlike the free Hulu service (which apparently still is not available on the Wii), you are not limited to the last five episodes of many current shows.

This offers a low-cost way for viewers to experiment with making their current television a “Smart TV” and access streaming video content from the Internet. You’ll need a broadband connection, but the vast majority of American households already have this either through cable or telco service, so this should not be a limitation for most people. If the offerings on Hulu Plus are not enough, you access use your Netflix streaming subscription on the Wii as well.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 21, 2012 5:00 AM

Alfred Poor is a well-known display industry expert, who writes the daily HDTV Almanac. He wrote for PC Magazine for more than 20 years, and now is focusing on the home entertainment and home networking markets.

The Power of Aggregated Data

What do people really watch when they watch the SuperBowl? Thanks to the new world of connected entertainment systems, TiVo has a very good idea. By monitoring an anonymous sample of 41,666 households equipped with TiVo DVRs, the company can compile a map of “live and same-day” viewing of content that was watched at “play” speed on the systems. And guess what? People really do like the SuperBowl commercials.

According to the TiVo results, the Dorito’s “Man’s Best Friend” showed the greatest increase compared with the viewing numbers for the adjacent 15 minutes. Even this was well below the numbers for Madonna’s halftime show, and the highest viewership number for the entire program was the desperation “hail mary” pass that ended the game.

The big take-away from this, however, is not about the SuperBowl. It simply demonstrates how granular our data can be now about who watches what. These “temperature” graphs showing what viewers find most interesting is going to help content producers attract sponsors both for in-line commercials and for embedded product placements in the content itself. This data is likely to become the foundation for new funding models that will make it possible to reach specific markets more effectively, which means that individual sponsors can spend more per viewer in a smaller audience, because they will know what that audience is watching and what holds their interest.

For me, the main point is that the future does not belong to the companies that can deliver the stars and blockbuster content. Instead, the winners will be those best equipped to handle Big Data and be able to match viewers with content and sponsors in a tightly-integrated system. The world of video entertainment is indeed changing.

HDTV Almanac - The Power of Aggregated Data

What do people really watch when they watch the SuperBowl? Thanks to the new world of connected entertainment systems, TiVo has a very good idea. By monitoring an anonymous sample of 41,666 households equipped with TiVo DVRs, the company can compile a map of “live and same-day” viewing of content that was watched at “play” speed on the systems. And guess what? People really do like the SuperBowl commercials.

According to the TiVo results, the Dorito’s “Man’s Best Friend” showed the greatest increase compared with the viewing numbers for the adjacent 15 minutes. Even this was well below the numbers for Madonna’s halftime show, and the highest viewership number for the entire program was the desperation “hail mary” pass that ended the game.

The big take-away from this, however, is not about the SuperBowl. It simply demonstrates how granular our data can be now about who watches what. These “temperature” graphs showing what viewers find most interesting is going to help content producers attract sponsors both for in-line commercials and for embedded product placements in the content itself. This data is likely to become the foundation for new funding models that will make it possible to reach specific markets more effectively, which means that individual sponsors can spend more per viewer in a smaller audience, because they will know what that audience is watching and what holds their interest.

For me, the main point is that the future does not belong to the companies that can deliver the stars and blockbuster content. Instead, the winners will be those best equipped to handle Big Data and be able to match viewers with content and sponsors in a tightly-integrated system. The world of video entertainment is indeed changing.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 20, 2012 5:00 AM

HDTV Expert - March is Read an eBook Month If Youre Canadian, by Ken Werner

Award-winning Canadian eBook and print author Rita Y. Toews (Prometheus, The Centurion, and The Price of Freedom, among others), convinced the Canadian Parliament to name March 2012 as “Read an eBook Month.”

How did she do that, HDTVexpert asked in mid-February.  “The effort,” Toews said, “was two years in the making.  I researched how to go about it, and then talked to my MP [Member of Parliament].  She was polite but not enthusiastic.

“I then talked to Betty Kasischke, President of EPIC [The Electronic Publishing Industry Coalition], who helped draft a resolution.  Epic had been interested in a similar resolution for the U.S., and they wrote to [President] Obama, who never answered.”  Toews gave the resolution to her MP, who was now enthusiastic and took the prepared resolution to Parliament, where it passed quickly.

HDTVexpert:  Do you think “Read an eBook Month” will encourage additional eBook and eReader sales?

Toews:  It probably won’t have a lot of practical effect.  But it provides an umbrella for events organizations might want to organize and it provides legitimacy.

HDTVexpert:  Do you think eBooks promote reading?

Toews:  Yes.  Young people love them. I have a two year old granddaughter who is fascinated by anything that lights up, and children with autism relate to eReaders and computers better than they do to human beings

HDTVexpert:  From your perspective as both a writer and reader, what makes a good eReader?

Toews:  The perfect eReader is still coming.  Readers need a longer battery life.  I don’t find color important but I can see why some people want it.  The addition of color can make eReaders attractive for comic books, cook books, and other kinds of books that don’t work well with current eReaders.

The concept of flipping through the pages conveniently is very important.  In my reading group, what was holding people back from eReaders was the inability to flip forward and backwards.  When I sent people the KAIST link [see below], they said “Wow!   This is what we’ve been waiting for!”   The combination of the KAIST interface with flexible screens would make a really effective eReader.   Then you could run your fingers along the edge and have the feeling of flipping the pages.  Wouldn’t that be cool?

Toews maintains a well-designed Website, ebookweek.com.  One of her current links is to the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Institute of Information Convergence smart eBook interface prototype (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rVyBwz1-AiE).   The interface really does permit intuitive book-like page flipping in both directions.  One should ask about the hardware, software, and power overheads required to make this excellent interface work.  But Moore’s Law is still working, so it should just be a matter of time before the interface can be implemented in a practical way, if it isn’t already.

Blu-ray Review: Dolphin Tale

Dolphin Tale (+ UltraViolet Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]

Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
List Price: $35.99
Street Price: $18.99
Amazon.com: $12.95
Release Date: Dec 20, 2011
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Running Time: 0 minutes

Synopsis

Dolphin Tale is inspired by the amazing true story of a brave dolphin and the compassionate strangers who banded together to save her life. Swimming free, a young dolphin is caught in a crab trap, severely damaging her tail. She is rescued and transported to the Clearwater Marine Hospital, where she is named winter. But her fight for survival has just begun. Without a tail, Winter's prognosis is dire. It will take the expertise of a dedicated marine biologist, the ingenuity of a brilliant prosthetics doctor, and the unwavering devotion of a young boy to bring about a groundbreaking miracle-a miracle that might not only save Winter but could also help scores of people around the world. -- (C) Warner Bros

Review

Cute movie based on a true story, it’s a great movie to watch as a family. It is a heart-wrenching story that had the wife crying. The script is extremely well written. Nathan Gamble delivers a likeable performance as Sawyer, generating chemistry with both Cozi Zuehlsdorff and Winter. There's also strong support from Ashley Judd (as Sawyer's single mother) and Harry Connick Jr, while Morgan Freeman and Kris Kristofferson try to out-twinkle each other. The true story factor means this movie is very predictable; however you will still recommend it to everyone you know.  Superb movie…from beginning to the “Tale” end.

Posted by Ryan Gibbs, February 17, 2012 7:48 AM

FCC to Revisit “Must Carry” Rules

I’ve already written a bunch about the problems with retransmission fees and how pay-television subscribers get caught in the squeeze between their services and the content providers. Many people don’t realize that there is a fascinating flip-side to this problem, which is known as “must carry”. It works like this.

Every three years, local television broadcasters have to make a choice. They can either make their content available to local pay-TV services (cable, satellite, and telco) in return for a retransmission fee, or they can choose to forego the fee and just require the pay-TV service to carry their signal on the subscriber system. It’s a tricky proposition. If you’re sure that consumers will want your programming (note that the pay-TV service is not allowed to go to some adjacent market to replace yours if it’s from the same network), then you go for the gold. If you’re not sure that anyone would miss it if your programming gets left off, then you may want to invoke the “must carry” rule so that you can reach a bigger audience and get more money from your advertisers.

This whole system got more complicated with the digital transition. Cable companies started as community antennas, distributing the over-the-air signals through cables on the ground so that all homes in the area could get good reception. Originally, all cable systems were analog, and they just pumped the signals from the antennas through the wires. Then they got premium channels which they encrypted, which led to set top boxes to decrypt them. And then we got digital systems that offer improved image quality (and more secure encryption). The digital systems also made it possible to deliver high-definition images.

So now we have digital transmissions from almost all television broadcasters, but many cable companies still maintain analog distribution networks. This means that the digital signals have to be converted back to analog in order to be sent to analog subscribers. Cable companies would like to convert over to all-digital systems, but this requires capital investment and converter boxes for any subscribers who still don’t have a television set with a digital tuner.

Cable companies would like to free up some of their capacity by dropping local stations that don’t have much of an audience. Smaller broadcasters want to keep the “must carry” rule so that they don’t lose a major part of their audience (since so few people rely on over-the-air signals these days).

This issue has come to a head because cable services were given a three-year waiver from the requirement to not degrade the rebroadcast signal. This was required because the standard definition analog systems cannot display the high definition content of some digital broadcasts without scaling it down significantly. That waiver expires in June, and the FCC needs to decide whether or not to renew it. If it does not renew the waiver, then local cable companies may be forced to switch to digital networks unless the FCC makes other changes to the “must carry” rule as well. In preparation for these deliberations, the FCC has called for comments on the issue.

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #518: Cord Cutting A Financial Analysis

Today’s Show:

Cord Cutting – A Financial Analysis

Cord cutting has been in the news quite a bit lately.  A week doesn’t go by when we don’t receive an email from a listener telling us about how they have cut the cord and couldn’t be happier. Every email prompts us to consider a life without cable bills but inevitably there is something that keeps us from taking the plunge. A recent email from Van in Odenton Maryland got us thinking. Could we combine OTA with a Tivo Box and iTunes and a AppleTV and essentially eliminate our Pay TV bill altogether? For this paper study we will use Ara’s TV usage as the base.

The bulk of what is watched in the Derderian household are the broadcast networks which can be made up via OTA with no issues at all. Its the cable shows and Sunday Ticket that pose the real problem.  Pay movie channels are nice but with Netflix and a deep video server library, there is seldom a lack of things available to watch moviewise. We’ll begin the study with outlining the current cost and capability followed by the replacement solution and finally what if anything has to be given up.

Current Cost for Programming

Ara subscribes to DirecTV Premier Package including locals. The Premier package includes just about every channel including pay channel that DirecTV has to offer. The total cost is $114, but its the fees and add ons that kill you! Check out the itemized list:

• Monthly Fee for the Premier Package $114
• Protection Plan $6.00
• HD Extra Pack $5.00
• HD Access $10.00
• DVR Service $7.00
• Whole Home DVR $3.00
• Additional Receiver $6.00
• Leased Receiver $6.00

Total cost $157 a month plus Taxes. Ara also subscribes to Sunday Ticket which adds an additional $300 a year or $25 more per month. So the base we have to work with is roughly $185 a month. An advantage that using DirecTV or other provider is that you don’t have to buy your equipment and if something goes wrong the provider will fix it for you

Tivo

Part of the solution is a Tivo box that can act as a DVR. Tivo comes with a monthly fee but its a far cry from what you pay at DirecTV. Our solution will use the Tivo Premier which goes for $99 and we’ll connect it to the antenna on the roof. We will have to buy three of them so our cost start up cost will be just about $300 plus tax. In addition to the purchase price Tivo will require $20 a month service fee and since we have three boxes it will cost us $60 a month.

The reason we are choosing Tivo over a basic DVR is that the recording features of the Tivo are quite nice and we have become accustomed to setting season passes and all the other cool features of a modern DVR. Tivo also offers connections to Netflix, Hulu+, Amazon, and Blockbuster so for most people you can stop right there and be quite happy!

AppleTV

AppleTV will be our means of getting cable content that we lose by cutting the cord. Many shows are available in iTunes the day after they air on cable. These shows are in HD and 5.1 audio. The quality is quite good. If you can wait a season, many, but not all, shows end up on Netflix or Amazon so you may not need this option. The AppleTV will run you $99 a piece and we’ll need three of these as well. Like the Tivo we are up to $300 plus tax. For the Derderian’s the season passes that we’ll have to buy are the following:

• Covert Affairs – $40
• Burn Notice – $38
• Sons of Guns – $25
• American Guns – $24
• various shows on ABC Family for the kids – $200
• Budget of another $200 for single episodes or new series not yet discovered.

Total cost for non OTA programming $527.

Now let’s add a budget for movies. We’ll allow 2 HD rentals at $5 and one purchases at $20.

Cost

Let’s add it up and see what it will cost us!

• Hardware (One time Cost)  - Let’s say $650 after you consider tax and incidentals
• Content
  • Season Passes and individual shows on iTunes $527
  • Movie rentals/Purchase $30 ($360 for the year)
  • Tivo Service $60 ($720 for the year)

Total content cost for the year – $1607
Total cost for DirecTV without Sunday Ticket – $1884
Savings $277 ($577 without Sunday Ticket)

In actuality your savings may be more. If you don’t rent or buy movies from iTunes and if you buy a generic OTA DVR without the niceties of the Tivo you can save over a Thousand dollars. In the Derderian scenario we have three DVRs but if you only have one or two you can save quite a bit of money. Finally, this plan requires you to pay upfront for the equipment. In the Derderian’s situation, breakeven would be in just over one year.

What do you give up?

In the Derderian case you give up Sunday ticket. That means about seven or eight less Chicago Bears football games a year. They also give up Food Network and the joy of discovering a program simply by flipping through channels. While this isn’t a big deal for us there have been some Saturdays where this was the only option. Maybe it will free me up to do other things like create more content for the show!

Conclusion

Cutting the cord is probably a great thing for most people out there. Whatever is being missed on the cable channels can be found through Amazon, Netflix, or iTunes so you really don’t have to do without. Live content like news and sports can be found via the old fashion airwaves in better quality than what you would get on cable so there is no loss there at all. The only drawback is that there is an initial outlay of cash that may take a year or two to payback. With all that said, Ara is not ready to cut the cord. He is ready to talk to DirecTV about his bill however! We’ll revisit the analysis in a year or so.

Download Episode #518

Posted by The HT Guys, February 16, 2012 11:18 PM

About The HT Guys

The HT Guys, Ara Derderian and Braden Russell, are Engineers who formerly worked for the Advanced Digital Systems Group (ADSG) of Sony Pictures Entertainment. ADSG was the R&D unit of the sound department producing products for movie theaters and movie studios.

Two of the products they worked on include the DCP-1000 and DADR-5000. The DCP is a digital cinema processor used in movie theaters around the world. The DADR-5000 is a disk-based audio dubber used on Hollywood sound stages.

ADSG was awarded a Technical Academy Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2000 for the development of the DADR-5000. Ara holds three patents for his development work in Digital Cinema and Digital Audio Recording.

Every week they put together a podcast about High Definition TV and Home Theater. Each episode brings news from the A/V world, helpful product reviews and insights and help in demystifying and simplifying HDTV and home theater.

HDTV Almanac - FCC to Revisit Must Carry Rules

I’ve already written a bunch about the problems with retransmission fees and how pay-television subscribers get caught in the squeeze between their services and the content providers. Many people don’t realize that there is a fascinating flip-side to this problem, which is known as “must carry”. It works like this.

Every three years, local television broadcasters have to make a choice. They can either make their content available to local pay-TV services (cable, satellite, and telco) in return for a retransmission fee, or they can choose to forego the fee and just require the pay-TV service to carry their signal on the subscriber system. It’s a tricky proposition. If you’re sure that consumers will want your programming (note that the pay-TV service is not allowed to go to some adjacent market to replace yours if it’s from the same network), then you go for the gold. If you’re not sure that anyone would miss it if your programming gets left off, then you may want to invoke the “must carry” rule so that you can reach a bigger audience and get more money from your advertisers.

This whole system got more complicated with the digital transition. Cable companies started as community antennas, distributing the over-the-air signals through cables on the ground so that all homes in the area could get good reception. Originally, all cable systems were analog, and they just pumped the signals from the antennas through the wires. Then they got premium channels which they encrypted, which led to set top boxes to decrypt them. And then we got digital systems that offer improved image quality (and more secure encryption). The digital systems also made it possible to deliver high-definition images.

So now we have digital transmissions from almost all television broadcasters, but many cable companies still maintain analog distribution networks. This means that the digital signals have to be converted back to analog in order to be sent to analog subscribers. Cable companies would like to convert over to all-digital systems, but this requires capital investment and converter boxes for any subscribers who still don’t have a television set with a digital tuner.

Cable companies would like to free up some of their capacity by dropping local stations that don’t have much of an audience. Smaller broadcasters want to keep the “must carry” rule so that they don’t lose a major part of their audience (since so few people rely on over-the-air signals these days).

This issue has come to a head because cable services were given a three-year waiver from the requirement to not degrade the rebroadcast signal. This was required because the standard definition analog systems cannot display the high definition content of some digital broadcasts without scaling it down significantly. That waiver expires in June, and the FCC needs to decide whether or not to renew it. If it does not renew the waiver, then local cable companies may be forced to switch to digital networks unless the FCC makes other changes to the “must carry” rule as well. In preparation for these deliberations, the FCC has called for comments on the issue.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 17, 2012 5:00 AM

Over-the-Top Over-the-Air

Would you pay for a service that lets you watch over-the-air broadcasts on your tablet or smartphone? That’s what a company called Aereo (formerly known as “Bamboom“) plans to launch just such a service for New York City residents starting next month.

The company is building a system of thousands of tiny television antennas; each one is the size of a dime. These capture free broadcast television signals over the air, which are then encoded and made available as streaming data sent over the Internet. These arrays are positioned so that they get excellent reception, which is not a trivial matter in the concrete canyons of New York. Each subscriber is assigned a specific antenna, so all the service is doing is providing a feed from the antenna that you rent. The intent is that the service is not acting as a shared antenna like a cable company, which would be subject to retransmission fees. Instead, each subscriber gets their own dedicated antenna. The company also has massive amounts of data storage, so that they can offer DVR service as well; this means that subscribers can record the shows that they want to watch, and then view them later.

All the control and viewing is done over the Internet, and you can get HD quality programming. The service is starting with 20 channels. The system can also be accessed using a personal computer, an Apple TV, or a Roku network media player. The system comes with a 30-day free trial and a $12 per month membership fee. You must be a New York City resident to sign up.

If this system works, it could present an attractive and low-cost alternative to basic cable or satellite services in the Big Apple. And if it can make it there, it could probably make it anywhere (as the song goes), especially in other major urban markets.

The Big Three Networks

Everything seems to come in threes. We had the Big Three Automakers in Detroit. There were those little pigs. And then there were the major television networks: Netflix, Amazon, and Google.

Wait a minute; what happened to ABC, CBS, and NBC?

From where I sit, that is ancient history. The traditional networks are dead men walking, and just don’t know it. They are trying to stick with the old models of providing the conduit for video entertainment, and they are failing. Streaming content over the Internet bypasses the traditional network, making it an unnecessary intermediary in the system between content producer and consumer. And it may also squeeze out the traditional role of “advertiser” at the same time. If we have learned one thing from the Internet, it is death to the middleman; Amazon Kindle, Square, and Zappos are just a few examples.

Most of the content shown on online systems such as Netflix and Amazon are reruns. The traditional networks and Hollywood movie studios try to wring out some additional value from these leftovers so they license the content for streaming. And in the process, they have sowed the seeds of their own demise. They have provided the fuel for the fire that is the consumer demand to watch what they want, when they want, where they want. And that is a fire that can’t be put out at this point.

But can the networks be replaced? Netflix has launched its original content with the series “Lilyhammer” and will follow up with “House of Cards” with Kevin Spacey and a revival of the popular “Arrested Development” next year. Google’s YouTube is investing in original content as well, and is providing full-length programming of all sorts.

And here comes GigaOM with a breaking story that Amazon has posted job openings for creative positions with the goal of creating its own content. The service is a bit of a sleeper in the streaming video arena at this point, but its Amazon Prime members get to watch all sorts of content for free (along with many other useful bonuses) in return for a Netflix-like monthly fee. Many consumers may find that they can get a better combined value from Amazon, and if the company starts producing compelling content, it could be a major force.

The new world of video entertainment is going to require a new world of ways to pay for the content’s creation. Who do you think is in a better position to deliver a new model: ABC, CBS, and NBC, or Google, Netflix, and Amazon?

I rest my case.

HDTV Almanac - The Big Three Networks

Everything seems to come in threes. We had the Big Three Automakers in Detroit. There were those little pigs. And then there were the major television networks: Netflix, Amazon, and Google.

Wait a minute; what happened to ABC, CBS, and NBC?

From where I sit, that is ancient history. The traditional networks are dead men walking, and just don’t know it. They are trying to stick with the old models of providing the conduit for video entertainment, and they are failing. Streaming content over the Internet bypasses the traditional network, making it an unnecessary intermediary in the system between content producer and consumer. And it may also squeeze out the traditional role of “advertiser” at the same time. If we have learned one thing from the Internet, it is death to the middleman; Amazon Kindle, Square, and Zappos are just a few examples.

Most of the content shown on online systems such as Netflix and Amazon are reruns. The traditional networks and Hollywood movie studios try to wring out some additional value from these leftovers so they license the content for streaming. And in the process, they have sowed the seeds of their own demise. They have provided the fuel for the fire that is the consumer demand to watch what they want, when they want, where they want. And that is a fire that can’t be put out at this point.

But can the networks be replaced? Netflix has launched its original content with the series “Lilyhammer” and will follow up with “House of Cards” with Kevin Spacey and a revival of the popular “Arrested Development” next year. Google’s YouTube is investing in original content as well, and is providing full-length programming of all sorts.

And here comes GigaOM with a breaking story that Amazon has posted job openings for creative positions with the goal of creating its own content. The service is a bit of a sleeper in the streaming video arena at this point, but its Amazon Prime members get to watch all sorts of content for free (along with many other useful bonuses) in return for a Netflix-like monthly fee. Many consumers may find that they can get a better combined value from Amazon, and if the company starts producing compelling content, it could be a major force.

The new world of video entertainment is going to require a new world of ways to pay for the content’s creation. Who do you think is in a better position to deliver a new model: ABC, CBS, and NBC, or Google, Netflix, and Amazon?

I rest my case.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 15, 2012 5:00 AM

Re: HDTV Almanac - The Big Three Networks

videograbber • Feb 15, 7:51am
> And then there were the major television networks: Netflix, Amazon, and Google. Wait a minute; what happened to ABC, CBS, and NBC? From where I sit, that is ancient history. The traditional networks are dead men walking, and just don’t know it.

Wow. That's quite a leap. Usually I can't find too much to fault in your commentaries, Alfred, but you're way off base with this one, IMO. Why do I say that? Because content is king. And your new, so called "big 3" haven't got any. How much content do I watch each week from the "dead men walking"? About 30 hours. How much from your trio? Zero.

Why do you think the big whoop-de-do launch of Google TV fell flat on it's face? And the hardware products got withdrawn or flushed at fire-sale prices? No content. Sure, I can see that your trio is making the very first tentative steps in that direction (developing their own content). ...

Ed's View: TV Wins Again at CES 2012

Having attended consumer electronics shows in various capacities since 1965, I have witnessed the growth and evolution of the CE industry from many different perspectives. Some shows announce revolutionary, even disruptive, technologies; others reflect evolutionary trends.

Although CES is primarily a near-market hardware show, increasingly dominant themes are based on enabling technologies. For example, wireless broadband networking of virtually all classes of devices has been a growing theme in all product categories for the past few years. Possibly the most significant example of this trend is the combination of two enabling technologies – those of ubiquitous wireless interconnectivity and reliable miniature sensors – creating the maturing category of cost-effective consumer health monitoring services and devices.

As an increasing number of consumer electronics services and features are software based and less dependent on industry standards, it is becoming obvious that there is virtually no profitable business model for CE hardware. The “hardware” is becoming simply necessary enabling devices in a growing number of competing service “ecosystems” (think Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon et al). Even in these business models, both hardware and software implementation tasks are commoditized by “the cloud.” The money is in the proprietary code. How unexciting. It’s hard to show innovative code at an international CES display booth.

But in the final analysis the success of a consumer electronics product rests in the ability of that product to “wow” the senses. (The complete scientific and quantitative analysis of “wow” will not be a subject of any of my future articles.)

The winner of the wow factor at CES12 was, hands down, 50” HDTV OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays as exhibited by LG and Samsung. When displaying 3D, that wow factor went up several notched.

Next on the wow scale was UHDTV (or UHTV) i.e. Ultra High Definition TV. Some call it (incorrectly) 4K, which is the cinematographic definition of essentially the same thing but with a different aspect ratio. Basically, UHTV refers to TV images that are essentially four times the resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels) of present HDTV. Nobody combined both UHTV and OLED. Now, that would be a double wow. Add 3D – a triple wow. Add glasses-free 3D (that works) – a quadruple wow. But, that’s next year. Maybe there is a business case for CE hardware (at least for awhile). TV wins again.

Ed

Posted by Ed Milbourn, February 15, 2012 7:45 AM

After graduating from Purdue University with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Industrial Education in 1961 and 1963 respectively, Ed Milbourn joined the RCA Home Entertainment Division in 1963. During his thirty-eight year career with RCA (later GE and Thomson multimedia), Mr. Milbourn held the positions of Field Service Engineer, Manager of Technical Training and Manager of Sales Training. In 1987, he joined Thomson's Product Management group as Manager of Advanced Television Systems Planning, with responsibilities including Digital Television and High Definition Television Product Management. Mr. Milbourn retired from Thomson multimedia in December 2001, and is now a Consumer Electronics Industry consultant.

Blu-ray Review: The Debt

The Debt [Blu-ray]

Studio: Miramax Films
List Price: $34.98
Street Price: $19.99
Amazon.com: $13.07
Release Date: Dec 6, 2011
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Running Time: 113 minutes

Synopsis

The espionage thriller begins in 1997, as shocking news reaches retired Mossad secret agents Rachel (Helen Mirren) and Stephan (Tom Wilkinson) about their former colleague David (Ciarán Hinds). All three have been venerated for decades by their country because of the mission that they undertook back in 1966, when the trio (portrayed, respectively, by Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, and Sam Worthington tracked down Nazi war criminal Vogel (Jesper Christensen) in East Berlin. At great risk, and at considerable personal cost, the team's mission was accomplished - or was it? The suspense builds in and across two different time periods, with startling action and surprising revelations. -- (C) Focus

Review

Interesting concept to tell a little history about a lesser villain. Based just after the war the threesome of Rachel, Stephan and David plot to bring “The Butcher” to justice. As the story unfolds you become more involved in the personal aspects of the people themselves not just the mission.  It is very much a blockbuster with brains, one that neatly examines the psychological toll of living with a long-standing lie and, less successfully, explores how the power of unrequited love can reach through the decades. The Debt is definitely worth a watch or two.

Posted by Ryan Gibbs, February 15, 2012 7:50 AM

HDTV Expert - The Flood of USB-powered Monitors is Coming, by Ken Werner

At the ShowStoppers show-within-a-show at CES last month, HP was showing what its European distributors call a ”hot desktop” monitor.  (This was new to the company, HP’s Jim Christensen told me, but it is apparently an already-defined category in Europe.)  The targeted applications of what HP calls the HP Compaq L2311C Docking Monitor are hotel rooms and business desks.  Plug the USB cable from the monitor into your laptop and you’re automatically connected to the monitor and the Internet.

A more typical application was shown by Toshiba at the PEPCOM show-within-a-show.  (There are three of these events for media and analysts at CES, each run by a different company.  We go to the events because it is easier to talk to personnel from the exhibiting companies, and the reps are more likely to be knowledgeable than those you meet on the show floor.  There is also free food and drink, a time-honored way to make sure the press shows up.)

Toshiba showed 14- and 15.6-inch USB 3.0-powered monitors.  They will also work with a USB 2.0 cable, but require two USB 2.0 ports to supply the needed power.  The monitors have 1368×768 pixels.  Both models will ship in March, the 14-inch at $199, the 15.6-inch at a price to be determined.  Each unit comes with a leatherette combination stand/case.  These units were only a few of the USB-powered monitors to be found at CES.

DisplayLink supplies the technology that drives these USB-powered monitors, with the USB display controller contained on a chip embedded in the monitor itself.  The controller is also available in free-standing adaptors for supplying video signals to AC-powered monitors via USB connections.

In their booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center South Hall, DisplayLink was featuring their USB 3.0 chips, which can drive monitors up to 2560×1600 pixels.  There were several USB 3.0-powered monitors from DisplayLink customers in the booth.  An interesting one was an  AOC 15-inch, available for only $130 at Best Buy, a newly aggressive price point for USB-powered monitors of this size.  The AOC unit has no switches or controls.  The USB receptacle is protected by a fold-out kickstand.  Plug the USB 3.0 cable into the monitor and it turns on, with the controller contained in the embedded DisplayLink adaptor.

Also in the booth was a more elegant model from Lenovo for $199, and  AOC has a 22-inch for $199.  DisplayLink was also showing a variety of docking stations and monitor/audio adaptors available from various vendors.

Why the explosion of USB-powered monitors now?  On the technical side, the sharp recent reductions in power consumption of LCD-monitors, combined with the greater power available from the USB 3.0 socket (compared with USB 2.), has solved the power problem.  In addition to that, said DisplayLink Product Manager Theo Goguely, USB monitors are inherently global products, independent of AC power and plug differences in different markets.  You don’t have to include a different power brick or outlet wart for each market, which makes for a multiplicity of SKUs.  In fact, you don’t include a power brick or outlet wart at all, which results in a significant saving of hardware, packaging, and shipping costs.  USB-powered monitors are on the verge of becoming standard, reasonably priced notebook accessories.

CEA Launches Working Group to Unite Content and CE

CEA Launches Working Group to Unite Content and CE

Arlington, Va., February 15, 2012 – The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)® today announced the formation of the Device, Apps and Content working group (DAC). The working group will create a forum for collaboration among device manufacturers, content creators, aggregators and app developers to increase and enhance consumer availability of content and apps on CE devices.

The convergence of content, apps and technology is driving the evolving consumer electronics industry as evidenced by the 2012 International CES, where a large number of the more than 20,000 new product introductions were designed to unite CE and content.

"As the nation's largest technology trade association, CEA is the hub of innovation, and our new Device, Apps and Content working group will foster new business opportunities for manufacturers and content companies," said Jason Oxman, senior vice president, industry affairs, CEA. "Our aim is to transform content convergence so that consumers have better access to what they want directly from their electronic devices."

Chaired by Bryan Burns, vice president of strategic business planning, ESPN, the working group will be geared toward existing and prospective CEA members with an interest in content distribution and app development.

The first DAC working group meeting will take place as a teleconference on Wednesday, February 29, 2012. For more information, or to join the DAC working group, please contact Kinsey Fabrizio at kfabrizio@CE.org.

About CEA:

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $195 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. More than 2,000 companies enjoy the benefits of CEA membership, including legislative advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. CEA also owns and produces the International CES – The Global Stage for Innovation. All profits from CES are reinvested into CEA's industry services. Find CEA online at www.CE.org, www.DeclareInnovation.com and through social media.

Posted by Shane Sturgeon, February 15, 2012 7:12 PM

Shane Sturgeon is the Co-Publisher and Chief Technologist of HDTV Magazine, an industry publication with HDTV roots going back to 1984, when Dale Cripps founded The HDTV Newsletter. Today, HDTV Magazine is a leading online resource for HDTV news and information and captures the eyes and imaginations of over 3 million visitors annually. Mr. Sturgeon has a background in information technology and has served in various consulting capacities for Fortune 500 companies such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Verizon Communications, Proctor & Gamble and Nationwide Insurance. He has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Wright State University.

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Asbestos death rates are on the rise, learn what you need to lookout for when it comes to asbestos and mesothelioma.

HDTV Almanac - Why TV Subscribers Change

A new report from Centris indicates that more than one out of five pay-TV subscribers intend to change providers, change their level of service, or cancel entirely in the next three months. About half of these will change the program package that they have, which means that the other half will switch to a new service entirely or get rid of pay-TV altogether.

For those in this second group who are not moving, the main reason for making the change is simple: money. More than a third of them indicate that the price of the subscription is the reason for their decision. And I can’t say that I’m surprised.

Satellite and cable fees continue to rise (driven at least in part by more expensive retransmission licensing fees), and consumers feel that they are paying more for nothing. The pundits forecast continued subscriber losses; in an Associated Press story, Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet predicts that Comcast will announce a net loss of another 125,000 basic cable subscribers for the fourth quarter of last year.

As I’ve said before, the pay-TV services are getting squeezed and I expect that we’ll see some significant changes in the business before this year is over.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 14, 2012 5:00 AM

Alfred Poor is a well-known display industry expert, who writes the daily HDTV Almanac. He wrote for PC Magazine for more than 20 years, and now is focusing on the home entertainment and home networking markets.

Retransmission Fees: Who Is Winning?

As I have mentioned recently, one of the big topics for 2012 will be the dispute over retransmission fees. Cable and satellite service providers complain that the content producers are holding their customers hostage in order to extort larger fees for the rights to rebroadcast their copyrighted programming. The result has been blackouts of channels — sometimes for extended periods of time — when the previous retransmission contracts expire.

On the content producer side, they are seeing their revenues dwindle from other sources, so they see retransmission fees as a way to recoup their losses. The subscription television services are the ones who draw angry reactions from consumers, however, as their television service bills keep rising year after year. The increased fees are forcing cable and satellite to consider unpalatable options such as lower-priced channel bundles. They could even be forced to offer a la carte pricing.

While the situation is not clearcut, the recent earning news from News Corporation indicates that the retransmission wars may be providing a big windfall for the content providers. The company reported that it experienced “a greater than 100% increase in retransmission consent revenues.”

With the economy the way it is, it seems strange that the rules let a company double its revenues just for providing the same content as before. It appears that part of the problem is that there is no competition permitted in the current rules, and there may be too much leverage given to the content providers.

With numbers like these from News Corp and continuing problems with extended blackouts, it looks like something is broken in the system and this may be the year that it’s bad enough that the FCC or Congress will decide to fix it.

HDTV Almanac - Retransmission Fees: Who Is Winning?

As I have mentioned recently, one of the big topics for 2012 will be the dispute over retransmission fees. Cable and satellite service providers complain that the content producers are holding their customers hostage in order to extort larger fees for the rights to rebroadcast their copyrighted programming. The result has been blackouts of channels — sometimes for extended periods of time — when the previous retransmission contracts expire.

On the content producer side, they are seeing their revenues dwindle from other sources, so they see retransmission fees as a way to recoup their losses. The subscription television services are the ones who draw angry reactions from consumers, however, as their television service bills keep rising year after year. The increased fees are forcing cable and satellite to consider unpalatable options such as lower-priced channel bundles. They could even be forced to offer a la carte pricing.

While the situation is not clearcut, the recent earning news from News Corporation indicates that the retransmission wars may be providing a big windfall for the content providers. The company reported that it experienced “a greater than 100% increase in retransmission consent revenues.”

With the economy the way it is, it seems strange that the rules let a company double its revenues just for providing the same content as before. It appears that part of the problem is that there is no competition permitted in the current rules, and there may be too much leverage given to the content providers.

With numbers like these from News Corp and continuing problems with extended blackouts, it looks like something is broken in the system and this may be the year that it’s bad enough that the FCC or Congress will decide to fix it.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 13, 2012 5:00 AM

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One Installer's Opinion: CES, by the Numbers.....

The following article originally appeared in Wide Screen Review (WSR) magazine and is being republished courtesy of the author, Terry Paullin.

..... and other matter's

On the odd chance your TV was disabled during the second week of January and you missed the evening news during that half-fortnight, C.E.S. is the Consumer Electronics Show held annually in the city of conspicuous power consumption, Las Vegas, Nevada.

3 - the number of times in December I said "I'm not going this year".

350 - My best guess at the $ amount of the ticket I got proving, once again, the Mini Cooper and I can cross the Mojave desert in less than four hours.

153,000+ - the record number of attendees who made the trek.

3,000+ - the number of Press taking notes.

11 - the number of Hollywood Stars in attendance, including Justin Bieber, 50 cent, Ludacris and Ryan Seacrest. Imagine our pride ...

20,000 - the number of new products introduced at the show.

3,100 - the number of companies represented at the show.

1.85 - the number (in millions) of sq. ft. of C.E.S. floor space.

190,000,000,000 - the number of dollars we spend in the U.S. on electronic products, annually.

8 - the version of Windows debuted at the show.

84 - diagonal size, in inches, of the LG panel that constantly drew the largest crowd.

20 - diagonal size of the best image at the show (more later)

4 - the number of times, in as many minutes, that I saw the poor soul in the Toshiba "3D without glasses (auto-stereoscopic)" booth have to field the question, "Isn't there something wrong with that TV?"

1 - the number of excess sub-pixels within a pixel in a current Sharp LCD panel - (Quattron is Latin for "too many colors").

4,000 - aka 4K (actually 3,840) - horizontal resolution of a few panels at the show and our new biggest problem since HD was introduced more than 15 years ago..... keep readin'

8,000 - aka 8K or UHDTV if you like (actually 7,680, but who's counting anymore?) - highest resolution shown at the show (65" Sharp). Don't even think about bit-rates and download speeds.

5 - the number of first place votes (out of 5 in our walk-around group) cast for best demo at the show - "The Art of Flight", Dolby Theatre

6 - the number of 5-star dinners we had throughout the week. Thanks Joel, Josh, Craig! I love you, man!

50,000 - approximate number of nerds who will go into withdrawal when they learn Microsoft has pulled out of next year's show.

352 - as of this writing, the number of days before the next one!

Now for some numbers that really matter. They describe a problem we'll be dealing with for at least a couple years. We've seen it before, but we zipped through it quickly and without much hand wringing. This time it could be real trouble. It's called up-conversion. Here's the thing.

Consider the case of the first kid on the block to bring home the new Holy Grail, an 8 million pixel display (be cool and call it 4K) ... could happen in the second half of this year. He pops in his favorite reference Blu-Ray disc, looking for nirvana. By review of a couple other numbers, here's what's going to happen.

The BD player is going to spit out data for 2,073,600 pixels (1080x1920) like it always does, to a panel that is obliged to light up 8,294,400 pixels (2160x3840). What happens now?

The panel manufacturer will tell you, "Due to our proprietary algorithm for spatial and temporal smoothing, everything will image properly.

If given sodium pentothal he would have said "One pixel in four will be correct. The other three will just be guesses".

On a 42" PDP, the quality of the "guesses" might not be such a big deal, but on the 84" LG at the show, you could see the artifacts from 15 feet. Now add fast motion ... whoa!

Now let's watch a standard DVD ... remember those? (480x720). This time, one pixel in 24 is original and 23 are hocus-pocus. Standard definition on an 8K display? One pixel in 96 will be accurate. I'm sure you can see what's happening here.

Let's be clear about resolution ... O.K., pun intended. 4K is waaay better than old fashion HD. Four times better to be precise - but ONLY if fed with a native resolution source.

In an effort to demonstrate that 4K wasn't just for large screens, Panasonic demo'ed a 4K, 20" screen at the show ... but they cheated ... sort of. The content was uncompressed from a 4k camera. Absolutely gorgeous. Best image I saw at the show, bar none. Sadly, we can't do that. We're stuck with 1080 feeds for awhile.

Moral is, when the day comes when we have ample 4K content, we are going to LOVE our 4K displays. Until then, we'll just have to pray for good guesses.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

"Making movies is the art of turning money into light .... and then reversing the process"

............. George Lucas

Posted by Terry Paullin, February 13, 2012 7:43 AM

After 25+ years as a Silicon Valley Executive, most recently as President and C.O.O. of Crosscheck, Mr. Paullin decided to follow his passion to the emerging Home Theatre industry. In 1994 he formed Front Row Cinema to design, build and calibrate Home Theaters for private residences. Nearly 600 theaters later, he remains engaged in the Industry in the following ways.

Builds dedicated (single purpose) Home Theaters and "Theatre Environments" (rooms used for other purposes as well).

Teaches Imaging Science and other courses for the Imaging Science Foundation. Mr. Paullin has taught CEDIA accredited classes to the installation community at both AVAD and ADI.

Consults to Industry on the topic of Imaging Science (Pioneer, Optima, In-Focus and several others under non-disclosure). Mr. Paullin has served on the Board of two companies and the Advisory committee of two others.

Has written articles/product reviews for major industry publications, including Widescreen Review, The Perfect Vision, The Ultimate Guide to A/V, WIRED magazine and CEPro and has maintained a monthly column (One Installer's Opinion) in Widescreen Review for the past eight years.

Mr. Paullin has a B.S.E.E. degree from Long Beach State University and performs ISF monitor calibrations for private individuals.

Mr. Paullin also maintains 3 theaters in his home for testing, comparison, performance verification, and reference viewing.

Blu-ray Review: Killer Elite

Killer Elite [Blu-ray]

Studio: Universal Studios
List Price: $34.98
Street Price: $19.99
Amazon.com: $19.50
Release Date: Jan 10, 2012
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Running Time: 116 minutes

Synopsis

A match-up made in tough-guy heaven -- Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro star in Killer Elite. Based on a shocking true story, Killer Elite pits two of the world's most elite operatives - Danny, an ex-special ops agent (Jason Statham) and Hunter, his longtime mentor (Robert De Niro) - against the cunning leader of a secret military society (Clive Owen). Covering the globe from Australia to Paris, London and the Middle East, Danny and Hunter are plunged into a highly dangerous game of cat and mouse - where the predators become the prey. -- (C) Open Road Films

Review

This film is billed as "Action Thriller"...lies.  This film is billed as "Keep you guessing", maybe if you make it through the entire movie.  It's not really the story that keeps you guessing, it’s more along the will this ever go anywhere, or maybe why am I still watching this. Of course, you have Jason Statham, who does what he always does in movies. Drives fast cars, gets the beautiful woman and beats a lot of guys up. Sorry DeNiro fans but this is one of his worst films in a long while. Not only is he not on screen much, he doesn’t portray an older special ops type agent to well. Then there’s Clive Owen. He’s actually not too bad but it’s his 1970’s-style porn mustache that stills the show. I can't say if it was a bad script or bad directing but it was definitely a bad movie.  My opinion, don't bother.

Posted by Ryan Gibbs, February 13, 2012 7:49 AM

Dates Announced for IntertechPira's OLEDs World Summit 2012

Dates Announced for IntertechPira's OLEDs World Summit 2012

14th annual conference to be held Sept. 26-28, 2012, in San Francisco, California

PORTLAND, Maine--(BUSINESS WIRE)--IntertechPira and the OLED Association are pleased to announce that the OLEDs World Summit 2012 will take place Sept. 26-28, 2012, at the Parc 55 Wyndham in San Francisco, Calif. This year will mark the 14th edition of this event, making it one of the longest-running and preeminent conferences in the OLEDs sector.

In 2011, OLED technology reached new levels of maturity and advancement indicated by unprecedented AMOLED shipment and revenue growth, the demonstration of 55" 3D TVs, and a range of new lighting products. OLEDs World Summit 2012 will feature speakers addressing these achievements, as well as the material, equipment and market challenges this fast-paced industry must face if it is to continue to make progress. The conference will feature talks on the challenges to using IGZO in backplanes, new approaches to deposition and patterning, the next generation of printing and roll-to-roll technology, and timelines for OLED lighting to become competitive with LEDs in both performance and cost.

"OLEDs World Summit 2012 will not just be a series of technical talks, but also a forum for the display and lighting sectors to congregate, design and communicate an industry-wide strategy for driving new markets," said Andrew Smaha, the new Conference Director with IntertechPira. "Some of the questions addressed at the conference for the OLEDs community to discuss and resolve include: What role does the consumer play in developing a market? How are companies responding to the demand for reduced power consumption? How do manufacturers plan to become cost-efficient, and how serious is their commitment? And how can we break down traditional barriers of competition to further the industry?

It is our goal to use OLEDs World Summit 2012 to separate fact from fiction, deliver valuable competitive intelligence, develop strategies, and unite attendees behind a cohesive commercialization plan."

Attendees will be able to network with more than 100 of their industry peers from all facets of the supply chain, including suppliers, manufacturers, researchers and end users. The 2011 edition featured presentation from several industry-leading companies, including Acuity Brands Lighting, Cambridge Display Technologies, DuPont Displays, GE Global Research LG Display, Novaled AG, Sony Electronics and Universal Display Corporation.

IntertechPira is currently recruiting speakers for OLEDs World Summit 2012. To submit a topic for consideration or to request more details about the conference, please contact Andrew Smaha, Conference Director at IntertechPira, at +1 207 781 9635 or andrew.smaha@pira-international.com. Sponsorship and exhibition opportunities will be available, including hosted luncheons, breaks and receptions, which will be held throughout the duration of the conference. Please contact Brian Santos at +1 207 781 9618 or brian.santos@pira-international.com if you are interesting in learning more about becoming a sponsor or exhibitor.

IntertechPira is also seeking media partners for OLEDs World Summit 2012. If you are interested in participating as a media partner or attending the conference as a member of the press, please contact Rebecca Kotsimpulos at +1 207 781 9616 or rebecca.kotsimpulos@pira-international.com.

For more information about the 2012 event, please visit www.oledsworldsummit.com.

About IntertechPira

IntertechPira provides events, market research, publications, strategic and technical consulting to niche, emerging and high growth industries. Market coverage includes lighting and displays, alternative energy, home and personal care, industrial biotechnology, performance materials and chemicals. IntertechPira is a division of Pira International.

About the OLED Association

OLED-A provides a forum for the interchange of technical and market information. Our membership includes companies involved in small-molecule OLED technology and polymer technology (PLED or light-emitting polymers). OLED-A serves its membership by fostering the more rapid development of OLED technology and OLED products; serving as a resource on OLED markets and products for media and investors; functioning as a catalyst in the development of standards for OLEDs; and providing a forum to promote and market OLED technology products.

Posted by Shane Sturgeon, February 13, 2012 2:38 PM

Shane Sturgeon is the Co-Publisher and Chief Technologist of HDTV Magazine, an industry publication with HDTV roots going back to 1984, when Dale Cripps founded The HDTV Newsletter. Today, HDTV Magazine is a leading online resource for HDTV news and information and captures the eyes and imaginations of over 3 million visitors annually. Mr. Sturgeon has a background in information technology and has served in various consulting capacities for Fortune 500 companies such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Verizon Communications, Proctor & Gamble and Nationwide Insurance. He has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Wright State University.

Shed Some Light on Sports Blackouts

Last Thanksgiving weekend, the NFL Cleveland Browns travelled in-state to play the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was not a sell-out, and under FCC rules, the Bengals exercised their option to blackout the over-the-air broadcast of the game on local television stations in Cincinnati, Dayton, and Lexington. This decision raised the ire of thousands of Bengal fans, which in turn prompted Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown to ask the FCC to revisit its blackout rules.

Personally, I find that this is an interesting issue. I certainly understand that consumers want to be able to watch their local sports teams for “free” on their home televisions. And I also understand that many of those communities have provide all sorts of tax breaks and other financial incentives to build local stadiums for those teams. (The Bengals’ stadium reportedly cost the taxpayers more than $450 million.)

On the other hand, those same teams generate a lot of money in terms of wages, taxes, and tourism which often repays the taxpayer investment many times over. And I’m a bit puzzled that consumers somehow feel entitled to view an event for which admission is charged. I view it as a generous gift to the community that the teams give the broadcast to hometown viewers, and it makes sense that they only do this when the game has sold out. To force them to give away the coverage when they have not sold enough tickets is much like exacting a tax on the teams because the broadcasts make it even less likely that fans will buy tickets. We don’t expect concert promoters to provide free covereage of all concerts that are put on in that same taxpayer-subsidized stadium; why should football be treated differently?

And if the local community thinks that free local coverage is important, then there is no reason why a “no-blackout” clause could not be included in the contract with the team the next time they want taxpayer money to help build a stadium. Again, the choice to black-out local coverage is an option, and the decision to do so lies with the team.

But as fascinating as my view might be, it doesn’t matter what I think. The FCC is asking for consumer feedback on the issue. The bad news is that few people have taken advantage of this opportunity, and the deadline for input is next Monday, February 13.

So here’s your chance to weigh in on the discussion. You can file a comment online at the FCC website at http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs2/. Let your voice be heard in D.C. about whether the sport blackout rules should be changed.

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #517: What is OLED and why do we care?

What is OLED and why do we care?

One of the big hits at CES this year were the Samsung and LG OLED displays. Sure we’ve seen OLED TVs in the past, but they were 55” screens this year, and they looked great. But why all the hype? Why do we even see references to AMOLED in cell phone commercials? Is OLED really that big of a deal?

What is it?

We’ve talked about this before, but a quick refresher might be in order. OLED stands for Organic Light-Emitting Diode. It is an emissive display technology meaning that, like plasma and CRT, it doesn’t require a light source. Instead the organic compound itself is actually a semiconductor that will emit light in response to an electric current.

We talk about OLED so much that we tend to forget that it is a variety of LED, the same acronym/technology used to light the latest and greatest generation of LCD displays. So what makes the organic variety so much better than the ones used in LCD TVs? It’s the fact that the OLED combines the functions of the LED and the LCD into one. It is both the light source and the pixel itself (color, intensity, etc.).

Each OLED is actually a sandwich of several different layers of materials. The color of light produced by an OLED depends on the material used in the emissive layer. By arranging the organic films when the screen is being produced, manufacturers can create OLED groupings to form pixels for color displays. The intensity of each pixel is determined by the amount of electrical current passed into it.

Advantages and Disadvantages over LCD

The main advantage of OLED over LCD it that in an OLED display, each pixel produces its own light. If a pixel should go completely dark, or totally black, the display can achieve that by not applying any electrical current to it. With LCD the best you can do is dim a portion of the screen to make some areas darker (local dimming), but you can’t turn off the light source for an individual pixel. As far as contrast goes, OLED is much better.

One often quoted advantage that OLED has over LCD is thickness, or perhaps thinness in this case. Because the OLED combines the function of the LCD and the light source, it can be much thinner. Until the TV can be rolled up, it’s going to be mounted on a wall somewhere. Whether it comes off the wall one inch or one centimeter probably won’t make too much difference in your overall home theater viewing experience. This “advantage” probably won’t change your life too much.

The biggest debate about OLED and its viability in the market is cost. Right now OLED TVs cost much more to manufacture that LCD for two reasons. First, the fabrication of the substrate itself is costlier right now. And secondly, LCD has a tremendous head start in economies of scale. There are many LCD plants around the world cranking out thousands of LCD screens. It will take quite an investment to match that capacity for OLED displays. On the other hand, in theory OLED TVs will be able to be manufactured with a technology as simple as an inkjet printer. If that can scale, the TVs could be quite cheap.

Advantages and Disadvantages over Plasma

If the biggest advantage OLED has over LCD is the fact that it is emissive and can produce dramatically better contrast ratios, what advantage does OLED have over plasma, which is also an emissive technology? Theoretically, OLED will offer advantages in color reproduction and contrast and brightness because the organic (carbon based) materials are easier to manipulate that the noble gasses used in plasmas. Both technologies will be somewhat matched in terms of refresh rates and viewing angles.

The real killer for plasma will be energy efficiency. Although plasma manufacturers have been hard at work to optimize their screens and make them much more energy conscious, it is believed OLED displays might be the most energy efficient of all display technologies when they finally make it to store shelves. They’ll need to be much more efficient, we’re talking thousands of dollars a year, to justify the early price premium, though.

Other Considerations

There main factor really hindering the mass release of OLED TVs into the market is the color blue. You could say that the continued success of LCD and Plasma has been brought to you by the color blue and the number 14,000. That’s the number of hours a blue OLED has before it drops to half brightness. That is well below the 25,000-40,000 hours you expect to get from and LCD or Plasma. The blue material also degrades more rapidly, impacting color balance as much as brightness.

Conclusion

From what we’ve seen, OLED looks amazing. From what we can gather, it could be the best looking display technology, slightly edging out plasma in color and contrast, and also the most energy efficient, slightly edging out LED LCD. If the theory that they can be made by inkjet printers becomes reality, they could be the cheapest display as well. Who knows, in the future you might be able to go to your local printer and have them crank out a new screen for you that’s just the exact right size to fit in that niche or cabinet you’ve got.

Download Episode #517

Posted by The HT Guys, February 9, 2012 11:23 PM

HDTV Almanac - Shed Some Light on Sports Blackouts

Last Thanksgiving weekend, the NFL Cleveland Browns travelled in-state to play the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was not a sell-out, and under FCC rules, the Bengals exercised their option to blackout the over-the-air broadcast of the game on local television stations in Cincinnati, Dayton, and Lexington. This decision raised the ire of thousands of Bengal fans, which in turn prompted Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown to ask the FCC to revisit its blackout rules.

Personally, I find that this is an interesting issue. I certainly understand that consumers want to be able to watch their local sports teams for “free” on their home televisions. And I also understand that many of those communities have provide all sorts of tax breaks and other financial incentives to build local stadiums for those teams. (The Bengals’ stadium reportedly cost the taxpayers more than $450 million.)

On the other hand, those same teams generate a lot of money in terms of wages, taxes, and tourism which often repays the taxpayer investment many times over. And I’m a bit puzzled that consumers somehow feel entitled to view an event for which admission is charged. I view it as a generous gift to the community that the teams give the broadcast to hometown viewers, and it makes sense that they only do this when the game has sold out. To force them to give away the coverage when they have not sold enough tickets is much like exacting a tax on the teams because the broadcasts make it even less likely that fans will buy tickets. We don’t expect concert promoters to provide free covereage of all concerts that are put on in that same taxpayer-subsidized stadium; why should football be treated differently?

And if the local community thinks that free local coverage is important, then there is no reason why a “no-blackout” clause could not be included in the contract with the team the next time they want taxpayer money to help build a stadium. Again, the choice to black-out local coverage is an option, and the decision to do so lies with the team.

But as fascinating as my view might be, it doesn’t matter what I think. The FCC is asking for consumer feedback on the issue. The bad news is that few people have taken advantage of this opportunity, and the deadline for input is next Monday, February 13.

So here’s your chance to weigh in on the discussion. You can file a comment online at the FCC website at http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs2/. Let your voice be heard in D.C. about whether the sport blackout rules should be changed.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 10, 2012 5:00 AM

Blu-ray Review: Real Steel

Real Steel (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

Studio: Touchstone / Disney
List Price: $39.99
Street Price:
Amazon.com: $21.99
Release Date: Jan 24, 2012
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Running Time: 0 minutes

4.7 Stars (out of 5)

Synopsis

In a future world where flesh-and-blood boxers have been replaced by towering mechanized fighters, pugilist-turned-promoter Charlie Kenton reconnects with his estranged son, Max, to convert a discarded machine into a World Robot Boxing contender.

Starring:

Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, Kevin Durand, Anthony Mackie, Hope Davis, Dakota Goyo, James Rebhorn, Karl Yune, Olga Fonda, Marco Ruggeri

Director:

Shawn Levy

Blu-ray Release Date:

January 24, 2012

Subtitles:

English SDH, French, Spanish

Rating

Overall rating weighted as follows:

Audio 40%, Video 40%, Special Features 20%, Movie - its just our opinion so take it with a grain of salt

Audio 4.9 Stars (out of 5)

Dolby and DTS Demo Discs used as basis for comparison

● Subwoofer – 5.0 Stars

● Dialog – 4.5 Stars

● Surround Effects – 5.0 Stars

● Dynamic Range – 5.0 Stars

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, French: DTS-HD HR 7.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1

If robots the size of cars fought in your living room, this is what it would sound like. Each hydraulic powered punch lands with crushing heavy thuds. The booming thumps of robot footsteps are reason enough to earn a 5 on subwoofer performance. This film is filled with tight deep rumbles, if your couch doesn’t move watching this consider getting new speakers. Rear channels also get into the action ranging from soft ambient sounds of rain, crickets, and thunder to louder effects like roaring crowds, ring announcers, and of course robot on robot action. Every once in a while a line or two is hard to hear during the fights, but that’s my only gripe in this otherwise great audio presentation.

Video 4.9 Stars (out of 5)

Spears & Munsil Benchmark Blu-ray Edition used as basis for comparison

● Color Accuracy - 5.0 Stars

● Shadow detail – 4.5 Stars

● Clarity – 5.0 Stars

● Skin tones – 5.0 Stars

● Compression – 5.0 Stars

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC, Resolution: 1080p, Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1, Original Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

This movie looks gorgeous on Blu-ray. Colors are vivid and warm and help show off the paint jobs of the brawling robots. There are even a few beautiful landscapes of golden wheat fields, mountain ranges, and green forests that visually show contrast between the robots and nature. The video has very little film grain and is clean and smooth. Beard stubble, chipped robot paint, bricks, pebbles in mud, and Evangeline Lilly’s freckles all look stunning due to this Blu-ray’s clarity. Dark colors look great but at times are a little too dark for the shadows, but show no signs of compression issues.

Bonus Features 4.0 Stars (out of 5)

● Real Steel Second Screen: Ringside with Director Shawn Levy.

● Countdown to the Fight -- The Charlie Kenton Story (1080p, 13:51): A short video with in-character cast members discussing the story of Charlie, Max, and Atom leading up to the fight with Zeus.

● Making of Metal Valley (1080p, 14:14): In depth look at making a key scene in the film.

● Building the Bots (1080p, 5:38): A look at designing original robots.

● Sugar Ray Leonard: Cornerman's Champ (1080p, 6:19): Discusses some of the contributions Sugar Ray Leonard added to the film.

● Deleted & Extended Scenes (1080p, 17:49): One extended scene and an entire storyline that was deleted.

● Bloopers (1080p, 2:36).

● DVD Copy (includes audio commentary track).

● Digital Copy.

Movie – 4.0 Stars (out of 5)

Review

When I first saw previews for this film, I chucked thinking that it was just a glorified version of Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots. Boy was I wrong. I’ve seen it three times now, and I like it more every time. It’s a fun futuristic boxing movie that I can watch with my family. At its heart the film is about the touching relationship between a father and son. It also has a great message about seeing potential and value in discarded or forgotten things. The action scenes are exciting and somehow make you care about the robots in the ring. All the robot’s boxing movements in the ring are fluid due to motion capture and coaching from Sugar Ray Leonard himself. The actor’s performances are solid and charismatic. Hugh Jackman did a great job of transforming his character from a jerk into a caring father believable. Considering that this film almost received a perfect score on audio and video, this Blu-ray can be considered a great choice to show off any home theater system.

Posted by The HT Guys, February 10, 2012 7:43 AM