Correct
08-01-2008, 12:06 PM
High-definition TVs that promise a big leap in image quality have been hot sellers lately. But many technology companies think they can make the picture look quite a bit better -- and hope to profit from doing it.
Flat-panel TVs based on liquid-crystal displays, or LCDs, have been the runaway sales leader lately. Nevertheless, they struggle to show rapidly moving objects without blurring. Color contrasts also aren't as sharp or lifelike as in competing technologies, such as plasma or projection.
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/394f07dd78.gif
There is another class of problems for all the new TVs: images may not fill the full viewing area, or color and brightness levels may be too high or low, often because users can't cope with a bewildering array of new settings for particular types of programming on their sets.
The picture problems don't seem to have slowed TV sales. But such image issues are emerging as one of the hottest topics at the huge Consumer Electronics Show, which runs through Thursday here, as TV makers and their technology suppliers believe there is big money to be made in developing components that make high-definition sets even better.
In the fierce battle among TV manufacturers to distinguish themselves at big retailers, companies that are first to boast of picture-quality improvements may win sales from competitors or command higher prices, or both. The image differences are now so slight, and so crucial to sales, that some call retail displays the wall of death because it is so hard for a model to stand out.
"It becomes very difficult as a manufacturer," says Bharath Rajagopalan, a Dolby Laboratories Inc. senior marketing manager. "People just can't tell the difference."
Companies focusing on improving LCD-TV images include the display unit of Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., which is working with Advanced Micro Devices Inc., a chip maker in Sunnyvale, Calif.; Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors; and Dolby, a San Francisco company better-known for audio technologies.
Another sound specialist now working on image quality is THX Ltd., which will use the CES show to introduce a technology to help automatically adjust settings on high-definition TVs and other components to display various forms of video content correctly. The San Rafael, Calif., company was founded by director George Lucas and is still partly owned by his film company.
High-definition signals offer a big jump in quality over the format that broadcasters used for decades. The first HDTVs used cathode-ray tubes, the technology found in older, boxy TVs. But many consumers have been opting for compact, flat-panel HDTVs that can be hung on the wall -- based on either LCD or plasma technology -- or projection-based models that offer the largest image sizes.
The Federal Communications Commission has mandated that broadcasters shift entirely to digital transmission by 2009; the change is expected to boost sales of high-definition sets, which are designed to handle digital images. But sales already are in a high gear, triggered by competition that is pushing down prices rapidly.
Big-name retailers are showing 15-inch LCD TVs for less than $300. There are 42-inch models featuring the highest standard resolution level that sell for less than $1,000, down from $1,800 or so a year earlier, estimates Paul Gagnon, director of North American TV-market research at DisplaySearch, an Austin, Texas firm that tracks the field.
With LCD TVs now affordable to many consumers, sales have exploded. In 2007, for example, the research firm IDC estimates that sales of those sets rose 76% to 72.4 million units worldwide. Sales of plasma sets, by contrast, rose 23% to 11.2 million units.
The various technologies come with trade-offs. Projection TVs have a smooth, film-like quality and come in large sizes, but the image becomes less sharp when viewed from an angle; they also take up a lot of space. Plasma TVs have great image contrast, but glare can reflect off the screen in a bright room.
One of the biggest problems with LCD TVs is motion blur. A rapid camera pan or a speeding hockey puck may appear more blurry than on other HDTVs or conventional tube TVs.
But the problem isn't necessarily a make-or-break for consumers. Greg Matty, a Harrisburg, Pa., medical consultant, weighed the trade-offs and still opted for a 46-inch Samsung LCD TV, mainly because he planned to use it in a bright room. The motion blur is a bit disconcerting, he says, particularly when a camera close up tries to follow some rapid sports action. "It would be nice not to have it," he says of the problem.
The blur can be traced to the fact that video signals are composed of the equivalent of individual still pictures, or frames, that are redrawn 60 times a second. That is too slow to keep up with some fast-moving images.
Makers of LCD panels are responding by coming up with ways to double what TV makers call the "refresh rate," which is akin to making a duplicate of each frame of video. But that technology -- operating at 120 hertz, or cycles per second -- can introduce another undesirable effect known as "jutter." A flying object, for example, may not move in the linear fashion the eye would expect, but in a more jagged fashion. "That is a very disturbing picture," says Jos Klippert, a senior marketing director at NXP.
So his company and others have come up with complex formulas that compensate for jutter, essentially projecting the direction and speed of a moving object as if the images weren't doubled. AMD, for example, has worked for two years with Samsung's LCD unit to offer TV makers a technology called McFI to reduce motion blur.
Because the market for LCD TVs is so competitive, the two companies and their competitors are trying to squeeze the new circuitry into multifunction chips that won't increase hardware prices. Cost "is very important to win over the market," says Sang Soo-kim, an executive vice president at Samsung's research-and-development center for LCDs. He predicts that 50% of LCD TVs will have 120-hertz technology by the end of 2008.
Another issue is color contrast. To illuminate the screen, LCDs typically use fluorescent tubes to provide what is called backlighting. Partly because those lights remain on all the time, such displays have difficulty rendering a deep shade of black. Conventional LCD backlighting also is a major contributor to the energy consumption of LCD TVs; those draw a lot more power than older tube sets.
So companies are racing to adapt another technology -- known as light-emitting diodes -- to provide backlighting. LEDs, as they are called, are easier to selectively switch on and off; by doing that, portions of the screen displaying black hues can appear blacker. The technology change also can reduce power consumption by about 30%, says Microsemi Corp., an Irvine, Calif., company that will demonstrate chips to control LED backlighting at the CES show.
James Peterson, Microsemi's chief executive, estimates that LEDs could add about $200 to the cost of components for making a 42-inch LCD TV but that those costs should come down rapidly. Dolby will discuss its own technology for enhancing LED backlighting, called Dolby Contrast, in Las Vegas.
Other problems come when users don't properly tweak an array of settings when they first get their HDTVs, or if they don't readjust them as they shift among options such as movies, TV shows and videogames. A common problem is failing to adjust the image size, also called the aspect ratio, causing high-definition broadcasts to appear stretched or too small.
THX, through a program called Media Director, hopes to address the problem by getting content providers to distribute small data files containing descriptive information about their offerings. That "metadata," as THX calls it, would prescribe settings for properties such as video aspect ratios, brightness and sound quality, says Patrick Dunn, THX's director of display technologies.
TVs and other audio-visual equipment would have to be adapted to recognize the metadata and adjust settings based on the recommendations. The company is announcing some initial hardware and software partners at the show; Mr. Dunn expects the first products that exploit Media Director to be delivered this year.
Story By Don Clark/WSJ
Flat-panel TVs based on liquid-crystal displays, or LCDs, have been the runaway sales leader lately. Nevertheless, they struggle to show rapidly moving objects without blurring. Color contrasts also aren't as sharp or lifelike as in competing technologies, such as plasma or projection.
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/394f07dd78.gif
There is another class of problems for all the new TVs: images may not fill the full viewing area, or color and brightness levels may be too high or low, often because users can't cope with a bewildering array of new settings for particular types of programming on their sets.
The picture problems don't seem to have slowed TV sales. But such image issues are emerging as one of the hottest topics at the huge Consumer Electronics Show, which runs through Thursday here, as TV makers and their technology suppliers believe there is big money to be made in developing components that make high-definition sets even better.
In the fierce battle among TV manufacturers to distinguish themselves at big retailers, companies that are first to boast of picture-quality improvements may win sales from competitors or command higher prices, or both. The image differences are now so slight, and so crucial to sales, that some call retail displays the wall of death because it is so hard for a model to stand out.
"It becomes very difficult as a manufacturer," says Bharath Rajagopalan, a Dolby Laboratories Inc. senior marketing manager. "People just can't tell the difference."
Companies focusing on improving LCD-TV images include the display unit of Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., which is working with Advanced Micro Devices Inc., a chip maker in Sunnyvale, Calif.; Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors; and Dolby, a San Francisco company better-known for audio technologies.
Another sound specialist now working on image quality is THX Ltd., which will use the CES show to introduce a technology to help automatically adjust settings on high-definition TVs and other components to display various forms of video content correctly. The San Rafael, Calif., company was founded by director George Lucas and is still partly owned by his film company.
High-definition signals offer a big jump in quality over the format that broadcasters used for decades. The first HDTVs used cathode-ray tubes, the technology found in older, boxy TVs. But many consumers have been opting for compact, flat-panel HDTVs that can be hung on the wall -- based on either LCD or plasma technology -- or projection-based models that offer the largest image sizes.
The Federal Communications Commission has mandated that broadcasters shift entirely to digital transmission by 2009; the change is expected to boost sales of high-definition sets, which are designed to handle digital images. But sales already are in a high gear, triggered by competition that is pushing down prices rapidly.
Big-name retailers are showing 15-inch LCD TVs for less than $300. There are 42-inch models featuring the highest standard resolution level that sell for less than $1,000, down from $1,800 or so a year earlier, estimates Paul Gagnon, director of North American TV-market research at DisplaySearch, an Austin, Texas firm that tracks the field.
With LCD TVs now affordable to many consumers, sales have exploded. In 2007, for example, the research firm IDC estimates that sales of those sets rose 76% to 72.4 million units worldwide. Sales of plasma sets, by contrast, rose 23% to 11.2 million units.
The various technologies come with trade-offs. Projection TVs have a smooth, film-like quality and come in large sizes, but the image becomes less sharp when viewed from an angle; they also take up a lot of space. Plasma TVs have great image contrast, but glare can reflect off the screen in a bright room.
One of the biggest problems with LCD TVs is motion blur. A rapid camera pan or a speeding hockey puck may appear more blurry than on other HDTVs or conventional tube TVs.
But the problem isn't necessarily a make-or-break for consumers. Greg Matty, a Harrisburg, Pa., medical consultant, weighed the trade-offs and still opted for a 46-inch Samsung LCD TV, mainly because he planned to use it in a bright room. The motion blur is a bit disconcerting, he says, particularly when a camera close up tries to follow some rapid sports action. "It would be nice not to have it," he says of the problem.
The blur can be traced to the fact that video signals are composed of the equivalent of individual still pictures, or frames, that are redrawn 60 times a second. That is too slow to keep up with some fast-moving images.
Makers of LCD panels are responding by coming up with ways to double what TV makers call the "refresh rate," which is akin to making a duplicate of each frame of video. But that technology -- operating at 120 hertz, or cycles per second -- can introduce another undesirable effect known as "jutter." A flying object, for example, may not move in the linear fashion the eye would expect, but in a more jagged fashion. "That is a very disturbing picture," says Jos Klippert, a senior marketing director at NXP.
So his company and others have come up with complex formulas that compensate for jutter, essentially projecting the direction and speed of a moving object as if the images weren't doubled. AMD, for example, has worked for two years with Samsung's LCD unit to offer TV makers a technology called McFI to reduce motion blur.
Because the market for LCD TVs is so competitive, the two companies and their competitors are trying to squeeze the new circuitry into multifunction chips that won't increase hardware prices. Cost "is very important to win over the market," says Sang Soo-kim, an executive vice president at Samsung's research-and-development center for LCDs. He predicts that 50% of LCD TVs will have 120-hertz technology by the end of 2008.
Another issue is color contrast. To illuminate the screen, LCDs typically use fluorescent tubes to provide what is called backlighting. Partly because those lights remain on all the time, such displays have difficulty rendering a deep shade of black. Conventional LCD backlighting also is a major contributor to the energy consumption of LCD TVs; those draw a lot more power than older tube sets.
So companies are racing to adapt another technology -- known as light-emitting diodes -- to provide backlighting. LEDs, as they are called, are easier to selectively switch on and off; by doing that, portions of the screen displaying black hues can appear blacker. The technology change also can reduce power consumption by about 30%, says Microsemi Corp., an Irvine, Calif., company that will demonstrate chips to control LED backlighting at the CES show.
James Peterson, Microsemi's chief executive, estimates that LEDs could add about $200 to the cost of components for making a 42-inch LCD TV but that those costs should come down rapidly. Dolby will discuss its own technology for enhancing LED backlighting, called Dolby Contrast, in Las Vegas.
Other problems come when users don't properly tweak an array of settings when they first get their HDTVs, or if they don't readjust them as they shift among options such as movies, TV shows and videogames. A common problem is failing to adjust the image size, also called the aspect ratio, causing high-definition broadcasts to appear stretched or too small.
THX, through a program called Media Director, hopes to address the problem by getting content providers to distribute small data files containing descriptive information about their offerings. That "metadata," as THX calls it, would prescribe settings for properties such as video aspect ratios, brightness and sound quality, says Patrick Dunn, THX's director of display technologies.
TVs and other audio-visual equipment would have to be adapted to recognize the metadata and adjust settings based on the recommendations. The company is announcing some initial hardware and software partners at the show; Mr. Dunn expects the first products that exploit Media Director to be delivered this year.
Story By Don Clark/WSJ