Tom Norton

CES 2013
Samsung's 4K Round-up
Tom Norton  |  Jan 09, 2013
A gathering of the 4K clans was held at the Samsung booth.
CES 2013
Samsung's 4K Does Local Dimming
Tom Norton  |  Jan 09, 2013
Samsung's upcoming Ultra HD 4K sets will feature full array backlighting with zone local dimming, The 85-inch set shown here can be set up with its floor stand or the stands legs removed and the set mounted to the wall. It can then be moved down within the outer frame, as needed, to adjust to the desired height. The speakers are located in the outer frame. In addition, a switch box is included that can accept multiple sources and connect then to the set via a single thin (non HDMI) cable.
CES 2013
LG Has Your 21:9 Monitor
Tom Norton  |  Jan 09, 2013
This 21:9, 29-inch may not be just the ticket for that big screen home theater, although it can display 2.35:1 films without black bars. But its primary application will be for a computer monitor, where it can display multiple images at once, including a 4-screen split for multitasking.
CES 2013
Sharp Does IGZO
Tom Norton  |  Jan 09, 2013
As mentioned in our early CES entries, Sharp is working on a new variation on LCD display technology, called IGZO for Indium, Gallium, Zinc, and Oxygen. It is said to offer ultra low power consumption, improved touch screen capabilities, and twice the potential resolution of conventional LCD. The limited range of products produced to date include a 4K, 32-inch monitor said to be useful for medical imaging, financial analysis, and other possible applications.

Screen shots are notoriously bad at showing the quality of a display, but even on your computer screen you can see the potential. This shot is only a portion of the entire screen image.

CES 2013
Sharp Does 4K IGZO - 2
Tom Norton  |  Jan 09, 2013
As with the picture above, even computer resolution can give a hint of the image quality Sharp has achieved in its 32-inch IGZO display.
CES 2013
Sharp Hops on the Ultra HD 4K Express
Tom Norton  |  Jan 09, 2013
Sharp may be working on new technologies like its IGZO low power consumption LCDs for portable devices or upping the pixel count beyond the current industry goals in its gee-whiz 8K demos (see below), but it doesn't plan to be left behind in the race to 4K. It showed prototypes of its own that looked as impressive as the best versions seen elsewhere. They're expected to ship in the spring (of this year!), in both 60- and 70-inch sizes. The "Moth Eye" feature is a Sharp proprietary glare reduction technology.
CES 2013
If 4K is Better, How About Sharp's 8K
Tom Norton  |  Jan 09, 2013
Sharp showed its 8K HDTV at last year's CES, and it was here again for 2013. It remains a technological tour de force, but is unlikely to be a real product any time soon. One doubling of resolution at a time, please!
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CES 2013
LG Moves You
Tom Norton  |  Jan 08, 2013
The major HDTV manufacturers fell all over themselves, as usual, trying to produce the most spectacular, eye-catching booth theme. But the grand prize goes to LG, which built on the 3D video wall first shown last year with some of the most eye-catching imagery seen at the show. The wall appeared to be made up of 140 sets, if my count is right (I counted them on site; a few sets re cropped off here) and each set appeared to be 55-inches. That's about 90 feet wide.

The images had to be viewed through passive 3D glasses provided to the attendees (the glasses were also needed inside the booth, where many displays were 3D). How, you may wonder, did I capture these images in 2D to show here without the double image effect? Simple: I held one lens of the 3D glasses in front of the camera lens, so only one eye-image came through to the camera's imager.

CES 2013
LG Moves You
Tom Norton  |  Jan 08, 2013
This is just one of the images that the LG video wall morphed into. The moving 3D images ranged from the surreal to the fantastic. It was the standout booth entrance at the show. LG provided the passive polarized lens of the 3D glasses over the camera lens.
CES 2013
Samsung Throws its New OLED TV a Curve
Tom Norton  |  Jan 08, 2013
Samsung claims to be showing the world's first curved OLED, but there seems to be some dispute about that (see below). Nevertheless, you'll see flat OLEDs in Vin's Video Barn before you see curved ones. Exactly when we'll see the flat versions remains a question mark. LG has starting to sell them in Korea either now or claims it will do so shortly, but the US availability date will be later. Samsung claims in June of this year or later. Expect prices between $10,000 and $12,000 for the only size anticipated for now: 55-inches (the 56-inch Sony shown below does not have a delivery date). How that will stand up in the market against the increasingly cheaper big-screen designs remains to be seen.

One thing is certain: OLED can trump any current display technology in a wide range of important performance parameters. The off-axis performance and black level quality comes through in this photo, even on a your computer screen, which itself will certainly have a far poorer black level.

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