Al Griffin

Test Report: Sony Bravia XBR-55HX929 3D LCD HDTV

The best-looking picture I’ve seen from an LCD TV in a long time.

By Al Griffin
Posted October 19, 2011
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When they first arrived a few years back, LED-driven LCD TVs with a full array backlight made a big splash. Why? Because the backlight, a grid of LED lamp modules spanning the rear of the display panel, can be modulated via local dimming — a process that enables the set to track specific areas in the image, turning select modules on, off, or somewhere in between.

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Zombie Blu-ray Apocalypse

Blu-ray Players: Tales of the Undead

How to battle the hordes of zombie electronics

By Al Griffin
Posted November 2, 2011

It’s that time of year again when the undead walk the earth. But along with ghosts, vampires, and zombies, another partially animated entity haunts us: Blu-ray players in need of a firmware update.

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Test Report: Toshiba 47TL515U 3D LCD HDTV

Passive 3D and edge-lit LED come together in Toshiba's affordable entry-level 3D set

By Al Griffin
Posted November 30, 2011
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Passive 3D and edge-lit- LED come together in Toshiba’s affordable TV. While other manufacturers of 3D TVs make the case for which is better — sets that use active- or passive-glasses technology — Toshiba’s long-term 3D strategy is to dump glasses altogether.

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Review: Panasonic TC-L42D30 LCD HDTV

An affordable LCD from the company that champions plasma.

By Al Griffin
Posted December 28, 2011

Much of the R&D effort for Panasonic’s TVs gets funneled into plasma technology — with excellent results. (Check out the TC-P55VT30 in our Editors’ Choice Awards here.) But as we found out this time last year upon reviewing the company’s TC-L42D2, it also makes sets of the LCD persuasion. Quite a few of them, in fact.

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LG Cinema Design 3D TV

CES Day One: LG Press Conference

Korean giant rolls out Google, Smart, real-word OLED, and, well, giant sets on Press Day

By Al Griffin
Posted January 9, 2012

LG packed info about lots of new stuff into its CES press conference: refrigerators, phones, washer/dryer combos — you name it, they announced it. But the appliances I came to hear about were the TVs.

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Dish kangaroo mascot

CES 2012 Press Day: Dish Network

Everything's new at Dish. And there was a baby kangaroo on hand to prove it.

By Al Griffin
Posted January 10, 2012

Dish Network would like you to know that most everything about the company is now new: new CEO, new DVR, even a new mascot (see video). To be sure, watching a CES press conference that kicked off with an executive cuddling a live baby kangaroo qualified for me as new.

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Sharp 70 inch AQUOS TV

CES 2012 Press Day: Sharp

Bigger is what Sharp was all about during today's event

By Al Griffin
Posted January 10, 2012

Sharp kicked off the company’s 100th year with a slew of impressive CES product announcements. What you need to know is that the company is now all about really big screens — 60 inch or larger LED models to be exact.

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Sony Crystal LED

CES 2012 Press Day: Sony

Sony bucks the OLED trend with Crystal LED, plus revamped Google TV and more

By Al Griffin
Posted January 10, 2012

Sony’s sprawling CES press event was about. . . OK, it was about a lot of things. I took notes! According to the company’s overview release, it is “giving consumers more access to more content whenever and however they want it.”

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LG Cinema display

Gallery: TV at CES 2012

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The state of the screen as we saw it in Vegas last week

1 comment

LG Cinema display

CES 2012: The TV Report

The state of the screen as we saw it in Vegas last week

By Al Griffin
Posted January 19, 2012
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There was no shortage of cool stuff being pitched by TV makers at this year’s CES. While 55-inch OLED sets around 4 millimeters thick nabbed the spotlight (rightly so, since they weren’t prototypes but actual products scheduled to come out in 2012), we were also surprised by the number of 4K models — some of which were also real products on target for a 2012 release.

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