Today in LA I managed to take a look at HP's new plasmas. We (Microsoft) launched our new media initiatives (new version of Media Center, Media Player, etc.) there and HP was in our partner pavilion showing their (cool) media center PCs.
Anyway, they had one driving the new Plasmas (two sizes). First, let me say that the overall aesthetics of the set was far, far better than the pictures we saw a while back. The piano block finish was very well done and the speakers while not looking identical, did blend in rather well. Again, much better than they look in the picture. The metal stand likewise, had a nice contrast with the set. I would say the set (nearly?) holds its own against the Pioneer and definite step up against the industrial sets.
On the picture quality side, the MCE UI looked beautiful. But what was even more impressive, was the quality of analog SD TV. The over the air signal was very lousy to begin with, with ghosts and multipath distortions glore. So I expected to see a horrible image. To my surprise, the image looked very watchable, reminding of the old analog sets which is high praise indeed. Yes, you could see the flaws in the original signal but nothing added on top of it in the form of noise and digital artifacts. And I was standing just inches away from the set. Now, I did not spend hours in front of it but for the few minutes that we looked at the few channels, I thought the quality was most impressive for poor quality OTA NSTC.
I asked them to show us HD content and he played one of our WMV-HD Imax movies. Unfortunately, I only got a few seconds of this before being interrupted. But in the brief moments, I did not notice any contouring or video noise. The picture looked a bit soft but again, I did not have enough time to scrutinize it. The interruption btw, was my boss, Bill Gates being followed by a camera crew, wanting to check out the new media center (with a great swappable hard disk!)
.
Please note that this is not a proper review of any sort. Just wanted to give some quick impressions on this new set since I suspect few people have seen it. And most of us dismissed this as a lousy attempt by HP to build good product so I wanted to set the record straight as much as I can.
Now back to discussing Panny 7U units.
Anyway, they had one driving the new Plasmas (two sizes). First, let me say that the overall aesthetics of the set was far, far better than the pictures we saw a while back. The piano block finish was very well done and the speakers while not looking identical, did blend in rather well. Again, much better than they look in the picture. The metal stand likewise, had a nice contrast with the set. I would say the set (nearly?) holds its own against the Pioneer and definite step up against the industrial sets.
On the picture quality side, the MCE UI looked beautiful. But what was even more impressive, was the quality of analog SD TV. The over the air signal was very lousy to begin with, with ghosts and multipath distortions glore. So I expected to see a horrible image. To my surprise, the image looked very watchable, reminding of the old analog sets which is high praise indeed. Yes, you could see the flaws in the original signal but nothing added on top of it in the form of noise and digital artifacts. And I was standing just inches away from the set. Now, I did not spend hours in front of it but for the few minutes that we looked at the few channels, I thought the quality was most impressive for poor quality OTA NSTC.
I asked them to show us HD content and he played one of our WMV-HD Imax movies. Unfortunately, I only got a few seconds of this before being interrupted. But in the brief moments, I did not notice any contouring or video noise. The picture looked a bit soft but again, I did not have enough time to scrutinize it. The interruption btw, was my boss, Bill Gates being followed by a camera crew, wanting to check out the new media center (with a great swappable hard disk!)
.Please note that this is not a proper review of any sort. Just wanted to give some quick impressions on this new set since I suspect few people have seen it. And most of us dismissed this as a lousy attempt by HP to build good product so I wanted to set the record straight as much as I can.
Now back to discussing Panny 7U units
.
