I will be using this thread to report on HDTV related activities from CES. Please try to keep the discussion here limited.

(Mods, feel free to move this thread to another forum if you desire.)

Thanks.

LG's says their focus for Home Theater products in 2008 is on 3 factors: 1. Design, 2. Picture quality, 3. Audio quality.

They said all their new 1080P panels will be ISF ready.

They have a new line of displays that are TXH video certified.

They will have 8 new models of Plasma with 6 full 1080P.

They will have many new models of LCD with 26 (I think) of them 1080P.

They announced a 1.7" thick LCD line

They mentioned a new LCD line designed for bedrooms (saying research showed people don't expect their bedroom TV to look like their livingroom one.)

They introduced Mark Levinson who said he has been working with LG engineers in Seoul to get their products to have the best possible sound. During the show Mark will record some professional musicians and play back the audio on LG equipment to a small set of attendees.

They announced a deal with Netflix and a new device that will allow users to download and play Netflix movies without the use of a computer.

They said they had about 9% of Plasma marketshare in 2007 and expect 15% in 2008.

They said they had about 7% of LCD marketshare in 2007 and expect 10% in 2008.

They mentioned their BH200 combi BD/HD DVD player but no other BD products (unless I missed it).

No more time. More later.

Many thanks for taking the time to post CES news. -- John

Well as a HD-DVD player owner I'm saddened by this, but here is an article that states that Warner will drop support for HD-DVD:
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-0&fd=IG&url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141070-c,ces/article.html&cid=1125797387&ei=IPSAR82sGJC6ygSwodjGDA

Rudy

Pioneer says they are sticking with the high end and avoiding the race to the bottom on all their Home Theater products.

They are sticking with Plasma. No mention of LCD. Stressed the black blacks and the importance of them.

They actually put a picture up of an AVS forum post saying they appreciate the word of mouth their high quality products get. I couldn't see who the poster was from where I was sitting but I think this says a lot about the power of AVS.

They claimed to have elminated the need to discuss contract ratios of displays because they say their new technology is beyond measurement. They claim to have eliminated all idling luminance. Need to research that further.

Will have 2 prototypes in the booth that sound cool:
1. A 50" Plasma that is 9mm thick. That's right, less than 1 cm. Want to see that...
2. A protype showing the 0 idling luminance plasma.
Neither will be available in 2008.

Andy Parsons took the stage only for Q&A. When asked if the format war is now over he said (paraphrasing) we shouldn't assume it's over but now we can concentrate more on getting customers to shift from SD to HD. He said they can now tell customers BD will have 70% of studio titles which should help that.

They didn't announce any new BD players but said they will have a prototype Bonus View player domoed in their booth. They said they aren't formally announcing it because price and availability are not yet set.

When asked about the BD+ hacks, he said no claims have been substantiated to his knowledge.

[LG] announced a deal with Netflix and a new device that will allow users to download and play Netflix movies without the use of a computer.Have they said that this will support HD movies?

They actually put a picture up of an AVS forum post saying they appreciate the word of mouth their high quality products get. I couldn't see who the poster was from where I was sitting but I think this says a lot about the power of AVS.

You should post this in the Kuro forums :)

Brandon

I got the chance to try Samsung's prototype of a large (maybe 50"?) Plasma display in 3D. They claim they are the first to have Plasma capabilities (LCD has already been done). No price or availability yet, but supposed to be out this year.

For those not familiar with this technology, it requires special 3D glasses and custom PC software.

They had a couple displays playing 3D imax movies: Dragonwars and Meet the Robinsons. They had a couple more playing 3D videogames.

All in all, it was intruiguing, but I'm not sold on the technology. The images were not all that clear to me, although the 3D effect was very noticable.

Time will tell if it will really catch on.

Sony OLED

Well, last year I made a big deal about OLED TVs demoed at Sony’s booth. Well, this year they have essentially the same thing… several 11” units and one 27”. The 11” models are for sale now so that’s a big step up from last year, but the 27” is still a protype with no commitment to bring it to market.

At the Sharp press conference yesterday, Sharp downplayed OLED saying it was difficult to manufacture and had a 3-4 year life expectancy. The Sony rep agreed they are difficult to manufacture, but said their 11” models have 30,000 hours life expectancy (comparable to LCD).

Sony says they fully expect OLED to be their LCD follow-on technology.

I am very impressed with Hitachi’s HD camcorders. They showed a model with a built-in BD player capable of directly recording to write-once or write-many one-hour BD disks. Another model has both a BD drive and 30 GB HDD. They record HD in AVC and SD in MPEG-2

These camcorders look VERY sweet. They're available now so you should be able to find out more info online.

I attended a 1 hour presentation at Sony's booth demoing BD live. Leonard Malton (sp?) hosted and director Dean Devlin also touted the "exciting" applications of BD technology with his movies.

Folks from Lionsgate and Fox pictures showed some of their upcoming advanced technologies on movies they are planning. Don Eklund of Sony did a demo of BD-live.

My impressions were that this technology is cool, but doesn't demo well at all. Several times they pushed buttons and the chosen activity required a few second wait (which seems like hours in a presentation). I was quite impressed with Malton's ability to improvise to fill dead spots. It was obviously a live demo complete with the risks that involves.

I am anxious to try this out for myself.

I spoke to a Toshiba Vice President of marketing late yesterday and she said she had spent a good part of the day meeting with over a dozen retailers. She said not one of them currently carrying HD DVD players plans to drop carriage.

I asked her about the disks and she said she met with mostly hardware companies but she said she couldn't see retailers who typically sell both still selling the hardware without disks to go with it for their customers.

Please keep the format war discussion out of this thread. Thanks.

I was expecting Toshiba to make a big deal about 51GB disks to take away one of BD's big talking points, but there were no demos anywhere at the show. I asked a rep in the HD DVD promotion group booth and he said "Why should we demo it? Not one studio has asked for it".

I then found another rep in Toshiba's booth who seemed much more knowledgable about the current status. He said they still do not know the degree of compatibility because they haven't yet created actual disks on an actual production line they can test with. Everything else is theoretical or only done with prototypes. He guessed it would take a few more months before that testing can begin, and there is still a lot of process to go through which could affect that. He indicated there is a reason they are pursuing 51GB (despite what the other rep said.)

1. In displays, really thin is really in. It's not enough that flat panels are a few inches thick, there is a big push to make them thinner from several companies. I would say the winner is Hitachi simply because their 1.5" is supposed to be available in a couple months.

2. OLED is still amazing. IF they can manufacture it cheaply and it is reliable, I see a bright future.

3. Wireless HDMI seems big also. Lots of companies with solutions so you only need power to the display.

4. CES is an absolute zoo again. Yesterday I had thought the crowds looked thinner but not today.

5. BD is all over. Lots of players, camcorders, drives, editing software, etc. Even without the Warner announcement it seems it would have been tough for HD DVD to make an impression.

The 0.9 cm plasma prototype is very impressive.

Also, the blacks they are getting on their non-primary self emissive prototype display is truly amazing. If anyone reading this is at the show I urge you to check it out (really early might be best for shorter lines).

It seems Pioneer is working on ways to keep Plasma going. In my opinion we enthusiasts should appreciate the effort they put it for top quality.

I attended the launch party for Mitsubishi's new Laser TV. During the party they uncloaked their long-awaited Laser models. I am told they had kept them very hidden up to then. I suppose a detailed description is already posted here somewhere.

The project sets looked to me to be about 10" thick. The picture quality is quite impressive. They ran demo loops for quite some time and it looked like some pretty terrific video. But it's hard to see how they are going to be successful with a new projection TV line given that the world is thin.

The last couple of years, there has been glasses free 3D at the CES. No reports this year: or did I miss them?

They've all gone 4D. You didn't miss them, your brain just can't interpret anything in the 4th dimension. ;)

The last couple of years, there has been glasses free 3D at the CES. No reports this year: or did I miss them?
I haven't seen any. I've seen at least 5 3D demos but all require glasses.

They've all gone 4D. You didn't miss them, your brain just can't interpret anything in the 4th dimension. ;)

Thank you. Very helpful.

Danish tech company Bang & Olufsen had a small press reception yesterday evening at CES. I attended with a couple dozen others. In the question-answer session I asked about Blu-ray support since no HD DVD or BD players had been announced (although players from both sides had been used in their demos of their new displays).

Peter Petersen, B&O's Chief Technology Officer, said they had been planning on making a combo player but after Friday's Warner's announcement they have dropped plans to include HD DVD and now will develop only a BD player. He said it would be available in 2009.

Last year I remember reading (http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/24/mitsubishi-working-on-3d-blu-ray-players-displays/)that Blu-ray research was being done to convert 2D movies into 3D movies for that format if the viewer had a 120hz HDTV. 2008 was mentioned as the year it might be offered to the public... any word on that at CES?