Nobody realized the potential of digital TV. Sure, 15 years ago, tech pundits raved about the possibilities of multicasting, and A/V buffs salivated over the thought of high-definition images. But digital technology has affected the world of television in many more important ways besides those.

Once video is in digital form, doing whatever you want with it is just a matter of math. You can blow it up. Shrink it down. Twist it all around. Shoot it down a wire and get the same exact image halfway around the world.

Dumping those old analog cathode-ray tubes for new digital display technologies opened up even more possibilities. Video displays are taking on new dimensions and going places never thought possible. Thanks to digital, HDTV has never stopped improving. This year promises just as many advances as we've seen every year of this decade -- and maybe more.

I'M 2K, YOU'RE 4K

In the early days of HDTV, everyone thought 1080p video displays were some futuristic dream that might not happen until decades into the 21st century. But here we are, just 10 years after HDTV broadcasting began, and 1080p seems like yesterday's technology. The buzzword now is 4K, which refers to a display resolving roughly 4,000 pixels horizontally and 2,000 pixels vertically. Today's 1080p TVs are considered 2K devices, resolving 1,920 pixels across and 1,080 pixels down -- a mere quarter of the resolution 4K offers.

Video sources with 4K resolution exist only in professional video facilities and digital cinemas. But you don't need a 4K video source to enjoy its benefits. Because the pixel density of a 4K display is so much greater than that of a 2K display, it allows even 100-inch pictures to be shown without visible pixels.

Meridian made a splash last August when it introduced the 810 Reference Video Projector, a $185,000 4K home theater model based on a commercial projector design from JVC. On the 14-foot Stewart screen that Meridian used, it was impossible to see individual pixels even with your eyes just a few inches from the screen.

Of course, few people other than Bill Gates and 50 Cent have the space for a 14-foot screen. Whether or not 4K delivers a real benefit with smaller screens remains debatable. Bill Whalen, director of product development for the Hitachi Home Electronics Consumer Group, is bullish. "Certainly in the 46- or 47-inch range and above -- I think that's where the consumer will recognize the benefit of 4K," he says. "You can sit closer to the set, or get a larger set, without seeing the pixels."

But 4K doesn't necessarily look better than 2K, says Bob Perry, senior vice president of Panasonic's Display Group. "Mapping 1080p content to a 1080p display delivers amazing picture quality, but if you start mapping to higher-resolution displays, you might have the opposite result. Cer- tainly it makes an improvement in very large screen sizes -- say, 100 inches or more. But that's about making a display that doesn't have visible grain [pixels]." So then why would anyone want to own, say, a 60-inch 4K LCD TV? "It'll give them something to boast about."

So, is 4K going to become a living-room reality in 2009? "I think you'll probably see prototypes of 4K flat-panel TVs, maybe at the Consumer Electronics Show [in January], maybe later in the year," said Paul Meyhoefer, vice president of marketing and product planning for Pioneer. "But is it something for the consumer in 2009? I don't think so."

THE BULB IS OUT

We love the big picture that front projectors deliver, but we hate paying hundreds of dollars for a new bulb every 2,000 to 4,000 hours of use. And we hate seeing the picture dim as the bulb ages. But a fix is in the works: LED-driven projectors.

LEDs have already found use in rear-projection TVs (remember those?), where they're often rated to last through more than 20 years of 8-hour-a-day viewing. But LEDs haven't been bright enough for front projection, except in a few palm-size business projectors designed to throw diminutive pictures.

At last September's CEDIA Expo in Denver, a Taiwanese manufacturer called Chi Lin Technologies demonstrated a prototype of an LED-driven DLP projector that it says could go into production as soon as the spring of 2009 (assuming Chi Lin finds a partner willing to take on distribution). The company claims its prototype delivers a 100,000:1 contrast ratio (almost double what today's best bulb-based projectors achieve) and a broader color gamut. And there's practically no warm-up time; you can be watching TV in a few seconds.

"I think you'll see several LED projector introductions in 2009," says Brian Carskadon, director of product management for high-end video specialist Runco. "The first ones won't be overly bright compared with their high-pressure mercury [bulb] counterparts. They won't be cheap. They won't be über-quiet because LEDs still generate a decent amount of heat. You can liquid-cool them [as Chi Lin does in its prototype], but that raises the cost.

"Toward the back half of '09, you'll see less-expensive models targeting casual users and gamers. Within 2 years, you'll have LED projectors that will do 1,000 lumens, which is where most projectors are today. Eventually, the bulk of front projection will go LED."

NEITHER SLEET NOR SNOW

For a video technology, the cathode-ray picture tube lived a long life: about 70 years. But the old fella was always too frail to last long outdoors. The slimmer, tougher physiques of today's flat-panel TVs have made possible an entirely new category of product: outdoor TVs.

A few small companies have been working the bugs -- literally and figuratively -- out of outdoor TV. They've come up with models that are water-resistant enough to tolerate rain, sprinklers, and garden hoses; practically impervious to dust, insects, and carelessly tossed dog toys; and indifferent to heat and cold. According to Joe Pantel, CEO of outdoor-TV specialist Pantel TV, the field is growing fast: "We project going from $3 million in sales in 2008 to $15 million in 2009."

Many outdoor TVs use wireless A/V transmission to make installation easier. "No one wants to rip up concrete in the backyard to install a TV," Pantel says. At the moment, wireless outdoor TV is stuck in standard definition, even though all of the displays are capable of more. Pantel tells me that his company has a wireless system in beta testing that can transmit HDTV as far as 300 to 500 feet and will be available sometime in 2009.

But that's hardly the end of the technological line for outdoor TV. "If you want to talk super-down-the-road," Pantel says, "solar energy is going to be huge. If we can ixnay this power cord, that will make installation as simple as just turning the TV on. I'm not talking about 2009, but it's something we could and would incorporate into our products."

CONNECTION CONUNDRUMS

Advances in connectivity and convenience won't be limited to the outdoors, however. Thanks to the difficulty of running HDMI cables over long distances, and to the growing desire of consumers for neater installations, there's a real need for new connectivity solutions.

"There are always going to be advances in display technology," says NuVision CEO Scott Deley. "But we hear more requests for improved connectivity." To this end, his company is planning to launch TVs with a proprietary feature he calls Networx -- a plug-in card that can accept a Cat-5 connection that carries component video and (eventually) HDMI and Internet video.

Some manufacturers will be introducing wireless HDTV technology built into TVs; Hitachi's Whalen says his company is already offering that technology in Japan. Several wireless HDMI products debuted at the CEDIA Expo, but the technology remains expensive -- and it's just another way to get the same content to your HDTV.

What may be more exciting is incorporating Internet video into the next generation of TVs. Pioneer's Meyhoefer confirms: "I think Internet connectivity will become more mainstream in TVs in the next year or two,"

Internet video capability opens up the potential for a nearly infinite variety of programming that TV viewers aren't getting now. In fact, Internet connectivity is already fairly common in TVs; Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and others have included it in select models.

But the video services these TVs can access have mostly been limited to a small number of channels with content repackaged for display on TVs. "You have to make sure that the consumer's experience is consistently good," Whalen says.

Ideally, though, consumers would like to access any Internet video site through the TV, the same way they can on their computers. Dan Schinasi, senior manager of HDTV product planning for Samsung, explains that while such functionality will be possible in coming years, today's TVs lack the internal digital-processing horsepower to run a browser as well as the onboard digital storage to hold browser updates.

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We haven't even discussed some of the advances you'll see in TV technology this year. What's next? TVs with slimmer chassis and even thinner bezels. And the faster refresh rates of the latest LCD and plasma TVs may make high-quality 3-D a reality toward the end of 2009 or sometime in 2010 (see "3-D: It's Back!" on page 57).

With so much going on in HDTV, it seems as if this decade-old technology has only just launched. But thanks to the power of digital technology, even all this might just be the start of what's to come.

GOING ORGANIC

Sony XEL-1 OLED TV

If you listen to some of the pundits, you'll think that OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) technology will take over the entire TV market in the next couple of years. But remember -- they said the same thing about the Segway.

OLED does offer undeniable advantages. Most important is that it makes super-thin TVs possible. Sony's XEL-1, the only OLED TV actually for sale at press time, measures a mere 3mm thick. And it delivers incredibly high contrast and saturated color.

But OLED is still a nascent technology -- a fact confirmed by the XEL-1's tiny 11-inch screen and colossal $2,500 price tag. As of late 2008, only Sony possessed a functioning OLED-TV production line.

Sony has been dropping enough hints to lead pundits to predict the Christmas '08 or early '09 launch of a 27-inch model, to be followed by a 40-incher. At press time, Sony had slipped not one word about the pricing or availability of these sets. Samsung has demonstrated 14- and 31-inch models of its own, but neither it nor the other manufacturers planning to enter the OLED market -- including Panasonic, Sharp, and Toshiba -- have announced specific plans.

Few seasoned observers of the TV industry doubt that OLED will become an important video-display technology, let alone the dominant technology. For 2009, though, it will remain a curiosity -- a very, very cool and coveted curiosity. -- B.B.

FLASH FORWARD

Sony KDL-52XBR7 240-Hz HDTV

It seemed almost too predictable.

Flat-panel LCDs with 120-Hz refresh rates had just hit the market only a few months before, and already all the talk at last September's CEDIA Expo was about even faster rates. Industry observers could be forgiven for feeling as if someone was trying to sell them a seven-blade razor or a five-wheel car.But faster refresh rates are sure to be part of the HDTV picture in 2009. "At the standard frame rates -- particularly with LCD -- as the image starts moving, the resolution drops," Panasonic's Bob Perry explains. "The faster frame rates help you maintain resolution during fast action." Hitachi's Bill Whalen agrees: "Some consumers are still bothered by motion blur on LCD sets even at 120 Hz."

At press time, TVs with refresh rates greater than 120 Hz had just begun to roll out. In Europe, Sony was shipping the Bravia Z4500, a 200-Hz model. Hitachi and Sony had both begun selling 180-Hz LCD TVs in Japan. And Sony's first 240-Hz TV, the KDL-52XBR7, was slated to ship in December 2008 at a price to be determined. Only some hands-on evaluations will tell us for sure if this higher-refresh-rate technology will pay off. -- B.B.