Buying guide LCD TV

We are living in a crazy world: When having to decide which LCD TV to choose, many customers just compare some technical parameters like

• brightness
• contrast
• response time
• viewing angle

For some, size and design also play a role – or good test results in magazines.

My point of view: It is wrong to judge a TV set onyl using above four parameters.

Why is this wrong? Let me give one example: When having to decide next car, you never only have a look at the engine's performance. It is important, but overall performance, comfort, security and other things also count.

What does this mean for LCD TV? Above values characterize the LCD panel used in the TV set. Lets compare it to the car's engine. It does not respect one more important part in the TV set: The video driver chipset.

A LCD TV set has two main components who are responsible for the picture quality you can see: The panel and the driving chipset. In my opinion, this chipset has more influence to the quality you can see than the panel. If you only compare the four mentioned parameters, you just compare the LCD panels.

How to find out which product fits my needs? Well, basically this is an easy task: Analyze, which signal sources are most important for you. Is it TV signal generated from TV itself? Is it SCART interface? Or HDMI? Compare the picture quality of the TV sets which are in your scope already using the signal inputs most important for you. Do not look at color saturation, contrast or other things. These can be adjusted (maybe you can do when comparing at your dealer). Some things cannot be adjusted, because they show technical limitations of the TV set:

- look at color transitions, e.g. when there is transition from bright blue to dark blue in picture (good to see in still image)
- look at diagonal lines or round shapes. Are they really round (or a diagonal line) or do you see more steps than in other LCD TV?
- look at scrolling text as it is shown on cnn news
- look at small details in moving image: Is it sharp, or is it getting blurry during motion?

Doing this, you have a much better way doing the right decision for yourself than just comparing brightness etc. or just relying on magazine test results. The criteria of the editorials staff may be significantly different from the things important to yourself.

In case I find the time, I will try to explain some more technical details on LCD TV in other posts later.

HD DVD and Blue Ray – when will they really hit mass market?

(updated June 24th) 

Today, HD DVD and Blueray players are very expensive (and not available in all regions).

Why are they so expensive? What will be next stages of development?

Today, the HD DVD players and Blueray players basically are a PC using Windows XP embedded while normal DVD players use a highly integrated IC (e.g. Zoran 888, MTK 1389) which is all in one: loader driver, video decoder, audio decoder, DAC etc. For this reason, it will be a long way for HD DVD and Blueray technology to put all the required functions needed for high definition in one IC. This is why it will be a long way towards mass market. Today's first generation players cost around 1000 USD. To bring it down means getting SOC (system on chip) to a new level of performance.

A short High Definition DVD Player roadmap (as I expect):

Todays generation (2006): PC technology using Win XP embedded OS. Retail prices far above 500 USD
Next generation  (2007/2008): Win CE embedded compatible hardware. Prices below 500 USD
3rd generation (I expect 2008/2009): SoC (System on chip), similar architecture as todays DVD player. Prices below 200 USD

Robocup 2006 Bremen from a Sponsor’s point of view

(updated version of post)

Due to my position as product manager, I had the chance to visit official part of robocup as well as the sponsor's gala dinner. My employer had provided some LCD TV screens for displaying score and schedule for the games. In the result, we got some VIP tickets, and event better, an invitation to the sponsor's dinner.

At the time I arrived, the semi final round was ongoing. Unfortunately I am not so familiar with robocub mach rules. Therefore it looked a bit funny to see all robots stop on whistle command of the (human) referee. Then, the ball was repositioned, followed by whistle command and the match continued. Anyway, the portugese team managed to proceed to final match next day in "small size robot league:

 

Another interesting group of robos was famous Sony AIBO robots. These are available to anyone. I owned an older version for a short period of time, and I never have seen AIBO to move so smooth, fast and controlled. Unfortunately the ERS-7 is the last product in this range as Sony decided to stop production and development of this robot. From this perspective, AIBO is intersting example for a product which is beyond time.

 

The event not only was robocup, there also was some space for presentations of the companies involved and the sponsor. Most impressive to me were two products:

The robots of some manufacturers, e.g. GRAUPNER (you can see the robot in action here). They have reached a level which gives them basic human structure (means it has 2 legs, 2 arms, hands and a head).

Most impressive to me was a presentation system called point screen developed by Frauenhofer Institute. It enables touchless screen navigation, moving around objects on screen or activate objects just using your hands. The video image is projected on a semi transparent screen. The full szenery looks very similar to the system used in the movie "minority report". Unfortunately I did not take photos of this, but you can browse to some impressions on above link.

After the official part of robocup, the dinner started in "Sponsors lounge". Some representatives of the sponsors have been invited by Messe Brehmen to say "thank you for supporting us" to the several companies. We have been in small area, which just was divided by a glass wall to the area where the robocup teams had their dinner (which of course was not as exclusive than ours). I felt a bit like in a zoo, not sure who is the visitor and who's the animal….. By accident I was on same table as the Graupner guys and so we had chance for some interesting discussion.

Later that evening, the party started with music and bands. I am sure some robocup team members already were a bit nervous as the next day decided who will be the world champion in robotic football this year.