Sound & Vision Magazine

2007 Consumer Electronics Show HDTV Wrap-up

Samsung HP-T5084 50-inch 1080p plasma HDTV

January 11, 2007 — Many aspects of the hi-def television biz on display at CES are downright predictable: Screens get bigger, prices go lower, and prototypes that may or may not ever see the light of day as a functioning products are on display in ample quantities. But one can also usually pick up on a number of trends that offer a window into what's going on behind the scenes. I'll briefly touch on a few that I observed while roaming the densely packed halls of America's largest trade show.

Wall-hugging RPTVs
Although the rest of the world never bought into the concept of rear-projection TVs, they've had a long run here in the U.S., where more people have the space to accommodate boxy bigscreen models. But to judge from the array of anemically thin RPTVs on display at this show, set-makers are desperate to shed bulk from the sets — a not too surprising development given the closing price gap between large flat-panel TVs and projection models. Two good examples of the trend toward RPTV anorexia on view at CES were JVC's 58-inch HD-58S998 and 65-inch HD-65S998, with cabinet depths of around 11 inches — about the same as a stand-mounted LCD or plasma TV. These models' level backsides also allow them to fit snugly against a wall where they can better pass themselves off as flat-panel TVs.

Plasma Panoply
LCD may have quickly caught up to plasma in the flat-panel wars, but the wide range of plasma models making their debut at CES — many of which provide full 1080p resolution — attests to ongoing strength in that category. Panasonic rolled out its new 58-inch TH-58PZ700U and 50-inch TH-50PZ700U 1080p plasmas, lining them up in an imposing row in their booth alongside the company's current 65- and 103-inch models. No prices were given, but Panasonic plans to ship both sets this summer. The company also displayed a 42-inch prototype 1080p model — the smallest plasma yet to offer that level of resolution. In other 1080p plasma news, Philips displayed a 63-inch model that it plans to sell for a jaw-dropping $3,500. That's not a typo; the company is apparently serious about selling the Ambilight-less 63PFP7422D at that astonishing price. Another affordable 1080p plasma option that we can look forward to is Samsung's 50-inch HP-T5084, which goes on sale in May for about $4,000. And come September the company plans to follow that with a 58-inch model, the HP-T5884 ($5,199).

LEDs, Lasers, and Lightning Fast LCDs
Now that LCD is a major player in the bigscreen flat-panel game, set-makers are getting serious about elevating picture performance. Nearly every LCD vendor at the show, including Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Philips, Panasonic, and JVC, was demonstrating some kind of serious tweak. In most of the cases, the panels' 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 the LCD tweaks even further. JVC's "clear motion drive" demo showed how interpolation in both the horizontal and vertical planes can help to reduce motion blur even further. And Samsung demo'd sets that use a technique called "local dimming," in which the backlight is divided into quadrants and dynamically modulated according to picture content.

LED-lit TVs made an appearance at last CES, but at this year's show a surprisingly broad range of products took this approach. Samsung, for example, plans to follow up its HL-S5679W DLP rear-projection TV (read the review) with new 50-, 56-, and 61-inch models (the HL-T5076S, HL-T5676S, and HL-T6176S, respectively). 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-XBR3. This $33,000 model is scheduled to ship in February and incorporates a host of high-tech enhancements, including HDMI 1.3 inputs and the ability to display images in xvYCC, or "Deep Color" color space (Sony's own moniker for it is X.V. Color). The company also displayed a prototype 55-inch SXRD rear-projection model with a laser-driven light engine. No word on when we'll be seeing this in real TVs, but with its 10-inch deep cabinet, the model on display looked appealingly slim.

New Tech vs. No Tech
OLED (organic light-emitting diode) made a very decent showing at this year's CES, with an array of prototype models in screen sizes ranging from a few inches across to 27-inches diagonal on display in the Sony booth. The remarkably slim profile and rich color of these sets makes me hungry to see more examples of OLED in the near future.

I'm probably not the only one who traveled to CES hoping to see a bigscreen SED prototype TV in the Toshiba or Canon booth. Unfortunately, the technology was a no-show — the result, I'm told, of some kind of patent dispute that's currently preventing either company from displaying SED TVs in the U.S. Meanwhile, Pioneer's new-generation plasma panel demo (no model or price information was being offered) looked startlingly great, with the prototype 60-inch TV displaying jet-black shadows and a contrast ratio that rivaled my now fading memory of the SED sets that Toshiba displayed at past CES shows.