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June 30, 2005 - Podcast #14 Our email address is hdtvpodcast@mac.com Thank You and Welcome! First off we would like to thank those of you who have donated to the HDTV Podcast through our Paypal Button! Now that iTunes has added support for podcasting our bandwidth costs have gone up substantially. Every bit helps us continue to bring this podcast to you. For all you new listeners that have found us by way of iTunes, welcome. We are glad you are here. There are a lot of great shows in our archives so go ahead and download them if you already haven't. We have some great shows coming up this summer. We are in the process of reviewing some cool Home Theater gear and we can't wait to talk about them. We hope all of you will stay subscribed! This weeks show Today we have some news from the HDTV and Home Theater world, we have a Plasma Shootout, and explain some Home Theater terms you have all heard but some may not know what they mean. This week we reviewed three Plasma Televisions: SONY 50" Plasma WEGA™ HDTV KDE-50XS955 – $6999.99 MSRP, $5400 Street Price Fujitsu 50-Inch HDTV Plasmavision® Display - $6999 MSRP after $500 rebate, $6500 Street Price LG 50PX1D 50" HD PLASMA - $5499.95 MSRP, $4900 Street Price SONY 50” Plasma WEGA Features:
What we liked:
What we disliked
Fujitsu 52 Plasmavision Display Features:
What we liked:
What we disliked:
LG 50 inch HD Plasma Features:
What we liked:
What we disliked
Conclusion: Braden - I chose the Sony because it had the best picture hands down. While I'm a big fan of Fujitsu plasma, pricey as they may be, the Sony edged it out in this contest. The LG did not look as good either of the other two, but its price helps even out the playing field tremendously. Both the Sony and the LG have a CableCARD, for whatever that's worth - it would be a plus for a secondary TV, but who's using a 50" HD plasma for a secondary TV? Overall, it would be Sony #1, Fujitsu #2, LG #3. Ara - My choice is the LG. I agree with Braden that the Fujitsu is pricey. The SONY does have a better picture but I do not find it enough to warrant a $500 street price difference. All three screens display HD wonderfully. The SONY does a good job with SD as well. If you want a large plasma the LG will save you some money and won't disappoint on the performance. We will review the Panasonic and Pioneer plasmas in a future podcast. Terms Color space: In general, the set of colors that a monitor or TV can display. It actually describes a three dimensional space representing all possible color values based on the components of a given value in each dimension. But since that doesn't make any sense to you or me, we can just think of it as the total number of colors our TVs can display. Hue: Basically, hue = color. Scientifically, it's the property of a color identifying a named wavelength of light, such as red, yellow, green, etc. For example, light with a dominant wavelength of 560 to 590 nanometers is yellow. Again, let's just stick with hue = color. Intensity: A fancy term for brightness. Wikipedia defines intensity as "a measure of the time-averaged energy flux. To find the intensity, take the energy density (that is, the energy per unit volume) and multiply it by the velocity at which the energy is moving. The resulting vector has the units of power divided by area." We'll simplify intensity as a measure of the brightness or dullness of a color. Saturation: The intensity of a specific hue, or how bright a color is. It describes how much gray there is in a certain color. A very saturated hue will appear pure, vivid and bright, a less saturated hue will appear dull and gray. Pink is a less saturated for of red, which is highly saturated. Gamma: A measure of contrast, gamma is technically the difference between the voltage input and the brightness of a monitor where full voltage produces white and no voltage produces black. But the relationship is not linear, it is represented by an exponential curve called the gamma curve. Essentially the gamma response of a monitor effects the middle or gray scale tones of the display, thus effecting saturation. RGB: Stands for Red, Green Blue. It is a colorspace in which each color can be described by the strength of its red, green and blue components. The color space maps directly to the red, green and blue phosphors used to create color in any TV. YUV: Not technically a standard it describes the conversion of the RGB color space to what is typically known as component video or YPbPr. In YUV, colors are represented by luminance (Y), blue minus luminance (U or Pb) and red minus luminance (V or Pr). YPbPr is mathematically equivalent to YCbCr, but is used to describe analog signals while YCbCr is used for digital video. YUV is used because it saves transmission bandwidth compared to RGB. Chroma channels (Pb and Pr) carry only half the resolution of the luminance channel. YUV is not compressed RGB but rather, the two are equivalent. Click here for more info on YUV – RGB conversion formulas. Contrast Ratio: the measure of the difference between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks that a display can show. A monitor with a large contrast ratio will have a greater the ability to show subtle color details even in a bright room. 3:2 pulldown: is the process of transferring film to video. Film is actually 24 still pictures or frames displayed in one second. NTSC Video is displayed at 30 frames a second and it is interlaced. Interlaced means that a TV draws the odd lines in one pass and then the even lines in the next pass. 3:2 pull down basically stretches 24 frames a second into 30 frames a second. 3:2 pulldown processing eliminates video artifacts from stretching 24 frames a second into 30. For a real detailed explanation DVDFile.com has a very technical but good explanation. De-interlace: We talked about de-interlace in podcast number 9 when we talked about video scalers. Basically it is the process of combining odd and even scan lines so that they can be drawn on the screen in one pass. But it is more complicated than that. If the scene has fast motion it is not as simple as just combining the odd and even scan lines. There are a lot of real complicated algorithms that process the video. Here are some helpful links on de-interlacing: A very very technical explanation by G. de Haan and E.B. Bellers of Philips Research Laboratories can be found here Up-convert: To convert one set of values to a higher set of values. For example, video scalers up-convert Standard Definition TV signals to High Definition. If your TV is native 1080i and you are watching a DVD your TV (or DVD player) will up-convert the signal to 1080i. Down Convert is just the opposite of up convert. Cross convert is the process of going from 720p to 1080i or vise versa
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