Geoffrey Morrison

Google has finally invaded consumer electronics, and by extension, your living room. For most of us, Google had already taken a firm hold of our Internet and cell phones. Now, with Google TV, Google has created a hardware and software platform that brings its searching awesomeness (and big-brother creepiness) to television.

The coolest demo I saw at CEDIA 2007 was a demo I saw at CEDIA 2006. The original demo was at the Planar suite. Dolby now owns the company that was working with Planar, BrightSide Technologies, and the technology shown in these demos has a name—Dolby Vision. The short version is this: Using LEDs, you can dim specific areas of the backlight to go along with what is happening with the video. In other words, you can dim certain areas of the screen, while keeping other areas bright. In the simplest form, picture a split screen with black on one side and white on the other. Local dimming would allow the LEDs on the black side to be off and the LEDs on the white side to be lit. The result is a fantastic, legitimate contrast ratio, along with possible energy savings and a host of other potential benefits. But first, we have to understand the problem before we can talk about this solution.

There are two questions you could—maybe should—be asking right now. The first, "Didn't y'all just review some PSB speakers a few months ago?" And two: "Aren't you the video editor?" Well, yes. That either question should come to mind should say something about these speakers.

I have to say this TV surprised me, although, to be honest, it really shouldn't have. At first glance, there is nothing to set it apart from the innumerable other LCDs on the market. It has a narrow black bezel, it's thin, it's bright, has a remote, turns on; you know, all that stuff that LCDs usually do. Then I started throwing test material at it, and it started doing things that LCDs typically don't but JVC TVs typically do. And I mean that in a good way.