If your living room is spacious and you plan to add the best HDTV to enjoy action movies and sports with your family and friends, Sony’s models are a good choice as the manufacturer takes care not only of the quality of the image reproduced but also of the design line and price.

One example of HDTV from Sony is the Bravia W series of flat panel LCDs with full 1080p native image resolution, over 2 million pixels and a wide view. This way you can enjoy cool content with multi-channel digital audio directly from a HD Blu-ray disc player.
Bravia W series is characterized also by the advanced image processing engines such as the BRAVIA Engine EX, 10-bit display panel and processing, x.v.Color for more colors, Deep Color, 1080/24p input cable to match the Blu-ray’s content frame rate, PhotoTV HD and other technologies.

All these are encased in a 4.8-inch thin panel with a brushed metal frame design.
Sony’s HD TV not only supports the 10-bit processing but it delivers it via the specially developed 10-bit display panel, while the Bravia Engine EX full digital video processing system upgrades 480i standard definition signals from DVDs and TV broadcasts into images with 4 times the density of the original for higher detail, using the Digital Reality Creation Multi Function v1.0 technology. On the other hand, the colors are enhanced by the Live Color Creation System with WCG-CCFL backlight, which works based on advanced chroma signal processing algorithms, resulting in more natural images with deeper reds, greens and blues.

To reach 1,800:1 contrast ratio and 16,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, Sony’s HD TV counts on another high-end technology called the Advanced Contrast Enhancer, which uses real-time image processing to match the contrast with the appropriate backlight levels.
Now let’s take a look at the sound system built-in. The Sony Bravia W series comes with the S-Front Surround technology to make sounds more realistic as they are generated through the 2 speakers. This enhancement allows you to hear the same sound quality with the same volume level from any position. The TV does not require having free sides.

As we are talking about a large and impressive HD TV in your living room, we should consider the 46-inch Sony KDL-46W3000 model one possible solution. It measures 12 x 30.6 x 44.7 inches at 71.1 lbs with the pedestal, and in addition to all the technologies mentioned previously, it features Dolby Digital sound, Sound Booster, Voice Zoom, less than 0.4W power consumption in standby mode, 178 degree viewing angle, Game Mode, noise reduction, one-button Home Theater Control, LightSensor technology, Parental Control, picture freeze, power save mode, remote control with backlit, 3 HDMI connections, Component Video, Composite Video Input, Digital Audio Output, headphone out, PC Audio input, PC Video Input, and S-Video input.
It has a price of $2,499.99 and it started shipping today.

“The NP41 and NP61 projectors provide the powerful features required by mobile users while remaining lightweight and cost-effective,” said Rich McPherson, Product Manager at NEC Display Solutions. “Their automatic features deliver the technological innovation expected of NEC products, delivering bright and brilliant images.”

The BrilliantColor technology has 6-segment color wheel and increases the brightness and color saturation significantly, while the AutoSense synchronizes the projectors with the computer signals intuitively, featuring one-touch optimization.
With the ECO Mode technology the lamp life increases up to 40% reaching 3500 hours of operation.

The Digital Light Processing technology used by NEC DLP projectors is a technology using reflective surface made up of thousands of tiny mirrors representing pixels, instead of the 3 LCD glass panels for red, green and blue image components used by LCD projectors. Benefits of DLP projector technology include small construction for mobile use, higher contrast video with deeper black levels, higher contrast ratio, reduced pixels visibility from a specific distance.

NEC NP61 and NEC NP41 will come out next month and in September respectively, with a 2-year warranty, and will be available at $1,399 and $999.

<-125x125 Button - right->A few days ago BenQ announced 3 new LCD displays featuring full High Definition technology and 16:9 aspect ratio, for September, on the European market.

E2200HD is a 21.5-inch display coming in glossy black finish featuring 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 2ms response time, HDMI, DVI, headphone jack, stereo speaker and Windows Vista Premium certification.

The other BenQ LCD monitors are: 24-inch E2400HD with the same glossy black design and M2400HD in glossy white encasing. They deliver full 1080p native resolution, HDMI, DVI, 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, headphone jack, stereo speaker, just 2ms response time and the certification for the same operating system.

The M BenQ LCD monitors family has a 2MP web camera on top so the user to initiate video conferences over the Internet without bothering to search for a camera and spend time with the installation.

The 0.71-inch WUXGA is the world’s first LCOS panel of its size to achieve such a level of resolution and the technology is based on the company’s Aspectual Illumination System optical engine meant to maximize the panels’ performance achieving high brightness and high contrast while maintaining a compact design. It even supports HDTV projection.
These panels will be used in design, simulation, medicine and other similar sectors where users need high performance imaging.

Liquid Crystal on Silicon technology uses liquid crystals on the surface of a silicon chip coated with an aluminized layer with a highly reflective coating, while LCD projectors work based on transmissive liquid crystal display chips letting the light to pass through the liquid crystal.
The technology produces higher resolution than LCD and Plasma and is more cost effective.

<-250x250 Square - right->I have to mention that I was one of those kids that grew up with the television shows. Now I prefer to spend my free time watching TV rather than reading a good book. A good book gives my subconscious time to create a world based on my brain’s imaginative capabilities, so I can visualize the characters and actions in the book, but television provides these visual interpretations of thoughts directly, saving a significant amount of my time. The thoughts are not mine, but who cares? As long as I receive the information I need, when I need, with images, and in the shortest time, I can interpret and remember it easier.
In the following lines I will give more attention to television as technology, and some details about the first TV displays, those devices found in everyone’s homes, that make the link between the broadcasted information and viewers.
According to Wikipedia, the word “television” means “far sight”, and is a combination of the Greek word “tele” and the Latin “vision”.

In this picture you are seeing what’s behind the display you are watching movies on, or better said, you used to watch, because this is a Cathode Ray Tube model and now you are probably using an LCD display. Anyway, the base technology is the same in both cases.
In order to produce images, the cathode, which is negatively charged, is heated to provide enough energy in order to emit electrons. The electrons are accelerated towards the anode, which is positively charged. Next, these electrons pass through the anode and spread randomly until they get through the cathode and the anode. An electric force is produced between the two plates and the generated beam reaches the back of your TV display, which has a phosphor layer. As this material glows when hit by electrons, the display lights up.
Now the interesting part: The beam of electrons, which looks like a line, is set to hit the screen in different parts and at different times, so after the lines for one picture are scanned in, the lines for the next picture are scanned in. Our brain can’t see this succession of dots coming so fast, but what we see is the whole image reassembled from dots. As the images come in rapid succession, we see them reassembled into a moving scene, because the brain can’t perceive the moment when dots for the next image arrive.

The first television, called mechanical television, used the Nipkow disk, which was an image scanning device invented in 1884 and consisting of a spinning disk featuring a series of equally distanced circular holes of equal diameter drilled in it, forming a single-turn spiral, starting from an external radial point of the disk and proceeding to the center of the disk. The holes take pieces of the image projected by a lens, and a sensor picks them in the form of light and dark patterns.

(Sources The University of Colorado ; howstuffworks)

This is a subject we could talk about for hours and that involves large physics knowledge, so in short words, the following are the steps made until the first live transmission took place:
1925 - John Logie Baird from Scottland demonstrated televised silhouette images in motion.
1927 - John Logie Baird transmitted a signal over 438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow.
1928 - John Logie Baird broadcasted the first transatlantic television signal, between London and New York, and the first shore-to-ship transmission.
1929 - John Logie Baird participated in the development of the first experimental electromechanical television service in Germany, and together with Bernard Natan of Pathe, created the first TV company in France, called Télévision-Baird-Natan.
…and in 1931 took place the first live transmission of the Epsom Derby.

The answer is quite simple:
The patent for the first electromechanical television system was published in 1884 by Nipkow, when he revealed the spinning disk.
Who invented the color TV? - Later in 1938, the first color TV technology was patented by Werner Flechsig from Germany, and the principle behind this project was the shadow mask. This technology adopted for CRTs to produce color images, consists of a metal plate with very small holes in it, which separate the colored phosphors in the layer behind the front glass of the screen, and which are drilled in the right places so that the electrons from each of the tube’s 3 cathode guns reach only the right-colored phosphors on the display. These 3 beams pass through the same holes but in different angles.

The first time television broadcast was in 1928 in the United States and the system was, of course, mechanical. In the United Kingdom and Germany it took place a year later, in 1929. After that, the following 7 countries welcomed the first TV transmissions: France and Russia in 1931, Poland in 1937, Japan and Italy in 1939, and Canada in 1946.

The invention of television lead at the existent display technologies including CRT, which is still used in some places, LCD, Plasma, DLP and OLED.

<-250x250 Square - right->N-trig is a company from Israel focused on developing new technologies meant to allow users to interact with computers and two of their innovative products are the first dual-mode pen and touch input device.
At SID Display Week 2008 in Las Vegas, N-trig showcased a new standard for multi-touch input on large format displays, based on its DuoSense technology with full multi-touch capabilities optimized for large displays.

“N-trig is again raising the bar on the meaning and application of full multi-touch capabilities for large format displays, which will enable OEMs and ODMs to create a user experience that is so immersive that the line between the digital and the physical blurs,” said Amihai Ben-David, CEO of N-trig. “By enabling an unlimited number of other people to use their hands to naturally manipulate digital on screen objects, images and more, DuoSense’s full multi-touch technology brings the user-computer interaction into a new realm, further breaking down the barriers between man and machine.”

A full multi-touch display measuring 22 inches in diagonal can now recognize all the simultaneous touch points from the users. On it you can manage documents like on a desktop computer monitor, moving and pushing these aside with your own hands, and even make sketches or write notes with a pen.

Another capability is of shuffling pictures with both hands. You can also play games in multiplayer mode on the same display, simultaneously.
Such a display, when it will be available on the market, would be useful in the following sectors: gaming, multimedia portable consoles, information kiosks, collaborative design, entertainment, broadcasting, and education.

“We’re provoking the imaginations of our customers, setting the stage for OEMs, ODMs, and ISVs to develop a huge range of new applications,” added Ben-David. “True multi-touch offers an unprecedented experience which takes people to new levels of what they’re able to do with computing devices.”
N-trig published this cool video on YouTube showing what this display can do:

<-250x250 Square - right->A new impressive display model stands out from the crowd, after it was exhibited at MacWorld, CES 2008 and SID 2008.

It is called a CRVD and comes from Ostendo Technologies. A CRVD is an ultra-wide curved display having a diagonal of 42.4 inches and backlighting provided by OSRAM Opto Semiconductors’ OSTAR-Projection high-performance LED light sources. These projection modules have 6 RGB LED chips generating outstanding brilliance and vibrant colors with pure surface emission and extreme brightness, based on OSRAM’s Thinfilm and ThinGaN chip architecture.
It features a high native resolution of 2880 x 900 pixels, meaning double WXGA+, and is designed for desktop computers.

It has a curved computer monitor design to wrap around the user and impress with billions of colors, 300 nits brightness, and incredible high contrast ratio of 10,000:1.
Main applications for which DLP-based CRVDs would be a great monitor include gaming, simulation, financial analysis, digital imaging, and web content creation.

“It’s an incredible display,” said Tom Shottes, president and CEO of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. “This is the first display that provides such a wide field of view with such dynamic range and wide color gamut. We’ve worked with Ostendo since they began developing the technology. The high luminance and design flexibility of our OSTAR-Projection technology was a perfect fit.”

The curved computer monitor provides an extremely short response time of almost 0.02 ms, having 12-bit dynamic range, viewing angles of 90 degrees on horizontal/30 degrees on vertical, 0.36mm pixel pitch, 71 dpi, 3.2:1 aspect ratio, weighting 25 lbs.
It will be available on the market in quarter 4, 2008.

<-125x125 Button - right->These superb xelo Italian design Flat Panel Display Stands available at Activate The Space in the United States will be showcased at infoComm08 between June 18 and 20 in Las Vegas. Activate The Space is a company specialized in display systems for broadcast control rooms, post production facilities, showrooms, hotel lobbies, restaurants, trade show booths, special events, museums, universities, corporate lobbies, public spaces, and as point of sale display stand.

Xelo stands are designed for plasma and LCD displays located in lobbies, showrooms, retail stores and trade show booths where the Italian models can change the environment completely. They can hold feature 40 and 50 inches flat panel displays and come in standard in glossy white finish with 200 x 200 mm VESA mount, but the customers can choose other color options too.

The tilting device can be set to +/-12 degrees and the stands made of sturdy and safe steel are easy to mount, providing a cable management system with the possibility to conceal cables and wires inside the stem and exited through the small removable cover at the bottom.
Accessories for these stands include shelves, mounting frames, and sliding devices, which can be mounted at any time.

xelo Flat Panel Stands have a starting price of $1,199.

<-125x125 Button - left->Fine Art for FlatScreens is a new and cool room decor idea consisting of 40 jacquard woven tapestries created by Fine Art Tapestries with designs reproductions of original works of art. These are display accessories used for concealing flat screen displays measuring up to 50-inch in diagonal.
It is a cool solution for room decoration when no one watches TV, and can be painted to match the room environment.

Draper has launched this collection adding the latest technology for wireless remote control so the user can simply touch a button or switch to reveal the high-end TV on the wall.
The custom woven PictureWeave tapestries are made by digital photographers and can be painted with companies’ logos.

In this article you can see several models that I chose from the total of 40 available.

<-250x250 Square - right->At InfoComm 2008 between June 18 and June 20, largest displays manufacturers and designers will showcase their latest technologies and upcoming TV/monitor models. Philips will present a 52-inch 3D display destined for digital signage industry, pro-AV and entertainment. It uses the WOWvx technology based on the 2D-plus-Depth format including Declipse, providing outstanding 3D imaging with no need for wearing special glasses.

2D+Depth refers at the regular 2D representation of the images with a depth-map which indicates the distance between each pixel and the viewer. The user gets a 3D imaging impression.

“With our new 52-inch 3D display in the portfolio, we can offer the pro-AV and digital signage market an even higher degree of immersion and a more exciting 3D viewing experience,” said Jos Swillens, CEO of Philips 3D Solutions . “Our broad range of 3D display product – in combination with our full range of content creation tools and our licensing program – makes us a true end-to-end 3D system solution provider”.

The Philips 3D display is an auto-stereoscopic model with 1920 x 1080 full High Definition LCD technology, high 700 cd/m2 brightness, 2000:1 contrast ratio, and 8 ms response time. Auto-stereoscopic 3D displays with support for the Declipse image format enhance the 3D viewing providing the look-around effect and background details.

Philips 3D display will be available on the market starting quarter 4 this year, when we’ll find out the pricing details.