Sharp's 1,000,000:1 Mega-Contrast Premium LCD vs regular LCD

Don't get us wrong, we love our high contrast HDTVs -- especially those among us lucky enough to have a 10,000:1 Sharp set and the like -- but if you've never experienced a 1,000,000:1 picture, you've never seen truly black black-levels. At CES 2007 Sharp was showing off their reference grade 37-inch Mega-Contrast Premium LCD, which had even deeper blacks than most SED sets we've seen to date (but not Sony's OLED set). Granted, this side by side comparison was with a mere 1,200:1 set that didn't exactly put up much of a fight -- we might have liked to have seen it alongside one of their 10,000:1 or 12,000:1 sets,

New Xbox 360 due for late '07 to handle IPTV?

According to a pre-CES briefing that Windows expert Paul Thurrott received from his Microsoft pals, the big M will be coming out with a new version of the Xbox 360 (Zephyer?) at the end of 2007, which will feature a larger HDD and some new hardware to enable that IPTV functionality Robbie Bach was talking about during the Microsoft CES keynote. It also stands to reason that such a Xbox 360 might be sporting a fancy new HDMI port and perhaps run just a wee bit cooler -- meaning HDCP and less fan noise, natural fits for home theater use. It still seems a bit unreasonable for Microsoft, which has been bragging about its 10 million strong installed base, to leave those early adopters out in the cold, but if that's the way it goes down we can't say we won't welcome the excuse to ditch the fan and disc drive hullabaloo of our current gen box.

[Via Digg; thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Apple Accessories

Apple accessories are big business, and the Apple TV is no different. Apple has teamed up with XtremeMac to help you get your Apple TV connected, and they seem to have every option covered: HDMI, Component, HDMI>DVI, Toslink -- even analog audio, (no ATV doesn't support composite or S-Video). This takes care of most sets, but many TVs only have one HDMI input, so XtremeMac is also offering a HDMI 4-port switch. You can use the supplied remote or the button on the front, but there's no auto switching, which would have been nice. The surprisingly delightful part is the price; while many major retailers charge as much as $150 for a HDMI cable, this one is only $19.99. No word on the price of the switcher, but all will be available by the ATV's launch in February.

LG is about to get it right...

So LG has announced their dual-format HD DVD/Blu-ray player? Fantastic. Time Warner goes so far as to create dual-format discs? Pop open the bubbly. But you know something? It didn't take long for my initial feeling of elation to give way to 100% certified organic bile.

Absolutely none of this was necessary. Remember DVD, the little media format that could (and turns ten in a few months)? It seems like ancient history now, but it took some time for the various companies to agree on a single format back then. While it's something of a cliché to mention the Betamax/VHS videocassette format war these days, in the mid-1990s Sony had only just closed up the Betamax shop. I'd like to think that, with Sony still smarting, retailers unhappily clearing out excess Betamax stock and Betamax owners angrily trying to figure out what to do with their machines and tapes, the companies realized things go a lot smoother when everyone agrees at the outset.

It's hard to argue with the result. The DVD format was adopted pretty quickly and has gone on to remake the movie and home video industries; and we've now gotten to the point where DVD utterly dominates the home video landscape.

Then, just in case anyone though that was DVD's uptake was a fluke, there came the DVD+R/DVD-R debacle, where consumers had to decide which format they'd commit their data or video archives to. When Sony came out with the first multi-format burners, consumers breathed a collective sigh of relief.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that the entertainment and tech industries had plenty of evidence to show that just agreeing on a single format is best for everyone involved, saving a lot of time, energy and money. But no, they had to go off into their separate rooms, and the results of that intransigence -- including the eventual appearance of dual-format players -- were predictable.

Years ago, Simpsons creator Matt Groening related his frustration with trying to make a Simpsons movie in the nineties. As he related it, during one of the meetings with all the%

Is HDMI 1.3 Worth waiting for?

The HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) connector is currently the state of the art in home theater technology. It allows high-def digital video and multichannel digital audio to be sent over a single cable from an A/V source, through an A/V receiver, then onto an HDTV. Utilizing HDMI often results in a better picture on many HDTVs (vs. component video), and it's the preferred connection method for the latest generation of Blu-ray, HD-DVD, and upscaling DVD players.

Unfortunately, HDMI has been plagued by compatibility problems, especially when using cable and satellite boxes as sources. Moreover, there have been multiple iterations of the standard: HDMI 1.0 hit in December 2002, followed by 1.1 in May 2004, 1.2 in August 2005, and even 1.2a in December of 2005--each of which has added a smattering of features, some important, some obscure.

Enter HDMI version 1.3. The latest iteration of the standard is said to be the update that home theater enthusiasts have been waiting for. Among the highlights of HDMI 1.3 are increased bandwidth (10.2Gbps, more than enough to handle superhigh video and audio resolutions), "deep color" support (higher color bitdepth could result in a smoother HD image), and the ability to pass HD lossless audio formats (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio).

In theory, that means devices that support HDMI 1.3 could deliver better HD images and more convenient use of surround sound. Whether or not that will translate to the real world remains to be seen. To date, the PlayStation 3 is the only device with HDMI 1.3 compatibility; other products--TVs, video players, and A/V receivers--are expected to begin shipping in 2007. Another big caveat: you'll likely need a "pure" HDMI 1.3 path from source to destination in order to fully enjoy any of the supposed benefits.

So, does that mean you should hold off on buying any new HDTV, video player, or A/V receiver until the HDMI 1.3-equipped models are available? Having not yet seen demos of HDMI 1.3, it's hard for us to say. But our gut feeling is that the difference between a 24-bit HDMI 1.1 high-def image and a 48-bit HDMI 1.3 image will be pretty hard for the average viewer to appreciate--or, at least, not nearly as noticeable a jump in quality as upgrading from standard-def to high-def. And if your primary high-def viewing source is cable or satellite TV, you'll need to wait until your provider can equip you with an HDMI 1.3-enabled set-top box before you could even enjoy the theoretical picture quality improvement anyway. In other words, we wouldn't put off the purchase of an HDTV just to wait for HDMI 1.3.

On the audio front, the question is a little more vague. The HDMI implementation on current A/V receivers leaves a lot to be desired, especially if you're trying to get the best possible audio from the latest crop of HD-DVD and Blu-ray players. The idea of an HDMI 1.3-enabled receiver with onboard Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding would--again, theoretically--help simplify the situation. But the improvement in sound quality is likely to be appreciated only by discriminating audiophiles, and it will, presumably, require an HDMI 1.3-enabled player as well. Moreover, current Blu-ray/HD-DVD players and receivers can already access these better-sounding soundtracks--you just need to dive into the menus and toggle the correct settings on the player and the receiver (linear PCM output over HDMI).