OTHER TECH

LEDs, Lasers, and Lightning-Fast LCDs

Picture quality isn't the main reason LCD caught up to plasma in the bigscreen flat-panel game, but judging from demos at CES, set-makers are getting serious about elevating its performance. Nearly every LCD company at the show - including Sony, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, Philips, Panasonic, and JVC - demonstrated some kind of tweak. In most cases, the panel's refresh rate is doubled to 120 Hz (the TV's processing performs motion-vector interpolation to fill out the extra frames derived from the incoming 60-Hz video signal) to reduce blur in fast-motion sequences.

But some companies are taking their LCD tweaks even further. JVC's "Clear Motion Drive" demo showed how interpolation in both the horizontal and vertical planes can help reduce motion blur even more. And Samsung demo'd sets that use a technique called "local dimming," which divides the backlight into quadrants and dynamically modulates it according to picture content.

LED-lit TVs made a token appearance at last year's CES, but they were a force to be reckoned with this year. Samsung, for example, plans to follow up its HL-S5679W DLP rear-projection TV with new 50-, 56-, and 61-inch models (the HL-T5076S, HL-T5676S, and HL-T6176S). The company announced no pricing but is shooting for an April ship date.

Sony, meanwhile, showed its new LED-backlit LCD, the 70-inch Bravia KDL-70XBR3. This $33,000 model (shown above) has a host of high-tech enhancements, including HDMI 1.3 inputs and the ability to display images in xvYCC - or "Deep Color" - color space. On the science-project front, Sony showed a prototype 55-inch SXRD RPTV with a laser-driven light engine. No word on when we'll be seeing this tech in real TVs, but with its 10-inch deep cabinet, the model on display outslimmed even JVC's skinny new HD-DiLA rear-projection sets. - Al Griffin