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  • Album Of The Year

    • 10 out of 10
    • Brother Love
    • Killer grooves, catchy riffs, edgy vocals with oh-so-just-right layered harmonies, and a drive that will move even YOU out of your chair, Brother Love's initial release is what rock and roll should be
  • With Teeth

    • 4 out of 10
    • Nine Inch Nails
    • In the sprawling post-A&R rock and roll world, there are two camps: the Beatles and the Stones. The Beatles are the artists that like to explore, evolve, and change styles. The Stones are the artis

  • Rift

    • 8 out of 10
    • Phish
    • This quasi-concept album (the only of its kind) from these Vermonters finally showcased their ability to convey a message with a studio album, whereas previously they only succeeded in doing so live.
  • Bowie at Beeb: Best of BBC Radio 68-72

    • 10 out of 10
    • David Bowie
    • The companion CD to a BBC television concert, BBC Radio Theatre has some of the best renditions of many of Bowie's best songs throughout his career. "I'm Afraid of Americans" is substantial

  • Supernature

    • 10 out of 10
    • Goldfrapp
    • On their latest CD, Supernature, Goldfrapp has put together a successful mix of 1980-era New Romanticism, German cabaret, and T. Rex glam that leaves you riveted even through the album's lulls. It's a great amalgam that sounds current without sounding at all dated.

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CEDIA 2007 Showcases Maturing HDTV Technology

DENVER, CO -- CEDIA 2007, at the Denver Convention Center, was held September 5-9. This reporter was able to stop by for a few hours on Saturday and get an overview of the show from the perspective of HDTV.

Sony. Not much has changed on the LCoS/SXRD technology from Sony. These are the Liquid Crystal on Silicon rear projection HDTVs. The -2020 series is not significantly different than the -2000 series. The -3000 series was described as having a faster video processor, but the Sony rep couldnit really translate that into quantifiable video advantages. Sony will retain the lamp in these rear projection TVs and, while some research has been done with lasers and LEDs, nothing will change right now for the holiday buying season.


Samsung. Samsung has two new technologies for its LCD flat panel HDTVs. The first is 120 Hz frame interpolation to smooth out fast motion and the second is LED backlighting. Theyive set up split screen demos so the viewer can see the improvements side by side.

I watched a college football game on both demos. In the case of 120 Hz compared to 60 Hz, it was very hard to see any difference. My take is that there would have to be a lot of fast motion, say games, to really exploit this improvement. On the other hand, the movement to LED backlighting on a large 46-inch screen is astounding.

With CCFL, the lamps are along the edges, shine inwards and are always on. With LED backlighting, there are 64 sectors on the screen. When a sector is back according to the video source, that whole sector is turned off. Because one problem with LCDs is bleed through due to the LCD being unable to completely block the back light, the enhancement is dramatic because there is no light to bleed through. Blacks are really black, not just a dark gray.

Also, Samsung said that the glass that looks like a glossy finish is just clear glass, and unlike our modern glossy computer displays. The traditional glass has a filter treatment that diffuses the image a little in order to stop room reflections. The clear glass brightens up the image dramatically.

Texas Instruments, DLP. The TI people described the difference between a color wheel and the new LED driven DLP HDTVs. In a color wheel, each color is repeated about six times in 1/60th of a second. However, with the LEDs, which can be switched on and off very rapidly, each color, R,G,B is repeated 48 times each 1/60th of a second. This reduces color artifacts.

TI is staying with the the 960 x 1080 Digital Mirror Device (DMD) that wobbles at 120 Hz. So each half of the screen is displayed every 60th of a second to achieve a full 1920 x 1080. The advantage of keeping the die size small is that, combined with maturity in the process, if thereis a single bad pixel during manufacture, the cost factor to just throw it away is minimized. Also, the wobble process naturally leads to the technical ability to display 3-D video with a special electronic shutter system and goggles.

The most notable application right now is in the Samsung DLP/LED rear projection TVs which are also getting quit thin, roughly 12 inches deep.

Sharp. The Sharp Aquos LCD line has been well respected and considered a leader in the past. However, most manufacturers are converging on the new technologies to deal with legacy LCD issues, it appears that branding and customer service many now be the key themes according to a Sharp rep in the booth. He also mentioned that Sharp will not be going to LED backlighting until the summer of 2008, but that they have included just about every other advanced technology in their LCD displays, including the 120 Hz interpolation.

Panasonic. Panasonic is the U.S. arm of Matsushita in Japan. Their focus has been Plasma displays. Plasmas displays are now in their 10th generation of manufacture and are very mature. New technologies, such as (slow) pixel shifting to avoid burn in and anti-reflective glass have eliminated many of the problems Plasma has had in the past.

In addition, Panasonic has a new breed of 1080 x 1920 pixel, 1080p, 42 and 50-inch Plasma displays that are simply stunning. After six hours looking at HDTVs, this reporter believes that the best video seen all day was the Pansonic 1080p Plasmas driven with Blu-ray. While the LCD displays are jumping through hoops trying to eliminate technical problems, Plasmas with their 1 ms response time, wide viewing angle, 100,000 hrs to 50 % brightnes and perfect blacks, may have reached a point where they can no longer be dismisssed based on the problems of the past.

Part II will wrap this up with A/V receivers and some other cool, new video toys.

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