That’s right, you procrastinators, get your act in gear, start putting away a couple of schkels for the 3D HDTV this holiday season. Some say it will be the next big thing in home entertainment or just the next opportunity to be the first on your block to have it. Either way, it’s pretty cool technology. The big players are lining up, LG announced last week it’s tossing in free 3D glasses when you buy the bundled TV and 3D Blu-Ray player.
This holiday season will be critical for 3D HDTV sales. Author of the article on the LG announcement, Matthew DeCarlo, and commenters to his post believe the industry is getting behind a big push for 3D HDTV. They do express some concern about the Catch-22 relationship with hardware and content for 3D to catch on. Will there be programming to make it worthwhile? Meanwhile programmers want to see if there is a market to invest in making the programming. What it comes down to at this early stage of the game are those early adopters of technology and whether there are enough big players to make 3D viable.
An impressive list of manufacturers and programmers are willing to try. Content providers are starting to push programming, first with movies, Avatar,Up, Alice in Wonderland and several others. Television programming is also getting a boost with ESPN and Discovery. You can just imagine how some shows and events will be enhanced by 3D. Golf for example, is such a game of depth and detail. Whether it’s the camera angle from behind the golfer looking into a 170 yard approach slightly up hill, or the side view of a 25 foot putt on an undulating green, 3D in HD would be a clearly better viewing experience. HDGuru.com has more examples of 3D HDTV content.
On the manufacturing side in addition to LG, Sony, Panasonic, and Samsung are pushing new products into the last half of 2010. Most manufacturers will include 3D glasses that work with their sets, but likely those glasses will not work with sets from other manufacturers. Fear not, there are plenty of options for universal 3D glasses. Just like the universal remote gives you power throughout your house and beyond, so too will you be able to purchase 3D glasses that work in your house and when you crash your neighbor’s Super Bowl Party.
The more complicated technology gets the greater the importance of the community. Samsung HDTV is among the leading brands of HDTVs on the market. TV was once the focal entertainment part of the home, but started to lose its dominant spot as the Internet and mobile devices captured the imagination of consumers. Time is finite and these devices and their content are taking time away from TV. Smart companies evaluate their unique strengths compared to the changes going on around them and make adjustments.
Samsung is making those adjustment and building on its core strength of great picture quality and screen size. Well, size is just a function of the space you have in your home and the money in your bank account (or credit limit, speaking to Americans here ) Taking those two data points, content that is no longer distributed through the traditional television channels and the unique quality and size of picture, Samsung has been a pioneer in funneling the content people are using online through its dynamic, high definition and clear screens, which include plasma, LED, LCD and now some with 3D.
In this video from Samsung you’ll see how they are incorporating social networking, and other content available through your PC that can be channeled to your big, beautiful screen.
This is a terrific site with a discussion on types of technology and videos. Then there is this brand new section on Samsung apps It’s so new they don’t have the FAQ section up, but do have a navigation link to it with a Coming Soon description. “Life moves pretty fast, as Ferris Beuller says, “if you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.” These sites will keep you plugged in to a world of social networks and on-demand content that loves to be connected.
Did you go to see the movies Avatar or Up in the theater and wonder how it would ever translate to DVD? Wonder no more.
Sharp is the latest to join the 3D home theater craze. Later this year, they will be launching their own 3D LCD television set. Sharp claims the colors will be brighter and more vivid than those of existing models, which include TVs made by LG, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony.
When most people think of subwoofers, they think of teenagers blasting music from the basement or their cars at stomach churning levels. Bass has a number of negative connotations, so it’s no surprise that many home theater system buyers consider it an afterthought.
But there is more to the sub-woofer than loud music and Jerry Bruckheimer movies. They perform a crucial role in any home stereo system, picking up any sound element that hits the lower register. This can include film scores, percussion, doors slamming, and even dialogue.
A good subwoofer will invariably enhance any home theater experience. The Audiophiliac (CNET’s resident high-end audio expert) has some great recommendations on where to place your subwoofer.
Classic film buffs are buzzing about Turner Classic Movies finally becoming available in High Definition (HD). Ted Turner, of course, is known for loving restorations (and a few controversial ones ) but most agree that the films shown on TCM represent the rich history of American cinema.
Who would have thought, decades ago, that we would one day have the opportunity to watch Billy Wilder classics in our own home, with even more clarity than the original print? There was a time in history when we thought many of these films would be lost to the ages (a fate which has met only a small handful of films ).
Of course, if you want to enjoy Turner Classic Movies in High Definition, you have to have HD ready electronic equipment. If you were waiting to upgrade to a home theater system, thinking that HDTV was only for football games and pay per view, now might be the time to make the move.
One more thing, letterbox viewing can be fun, especially since it’s the way the director intended and you have a really big HDTV screen in a really dark room. You get that movie theater like experience that makes you smell buttered popcorn. Anyway, there are some who don’t like the letterbox view or believe if you watch plenty of letterbox style movies your HDTV screen will wear unevenly. CNET has an interesting piece on whether to configure your HDTV screen to remove the black bars in the letterbox and stretch the moving image to fill the screen.
Oh, Mike Miller, you are such a kidder. Michael J. Miller is senior vice president for technology strategy at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm and author of the blog Forward Thinking on PCMag.com. He is also quite the kidder. He conducted a little unscientific HDTV resolution experiment to determine whether people can tell the difference between the state of the art technology in television displays with a resolution of 1080p and 720p. Miller gives an easy to understand definition so I’ll quote him,
“The difference is the number of horizontal lines on the display; the “p” stands for progressive, meaning the display refreshes the lines one after the other.”
He put to similar LG TVs side by side and set the resolution on one of them at 720p and the other at 1080p. He then played the recent Star Trek movie and watched the reaction of his 64 guests. Well he didn’t tell them which was which either.
Fifty-nine percent thought the 1080p was a better, sharper picture. Twenty-nine percent selected the 720p picture as best, and 16 percent thought the picture looked the same on both. Miller did not provide the age or visual acuity of his friends.
Look, part of this technology progress is just because we can, part of it is demand creation (we all have to work you know), and part of it, at least for 59% of Miller’s friend, is because you can really tell the difference.
Most everything in TV, camera, and entertainment land is moving to 1080p so jump on board. Now there is a slight price difference for those extra 360 lines on the screen.
The difference in dollars may be worth it to you, and more than half of your friends. Hey look at it this way, if you get the 720p screen, you’ll probably need to buy less food for next year’s Super Bowl party. Ha, more savings.
Six weeks from now the Final Four teams of the NCAA March Madness tournament will play for the men’s basketball championship in Indianapolis. Unless you have an HDTV delivered and installed an hour before tip-off you will succumb to the temptation to make that picture just a little bit more perfect than it already is. This temptation usually coincides with misplacing the manual (or for men, not caring where it is). Before you start fiddling with the remote, commit the following to memory and you’ll have the foundation for getting a solid picture for all occasions. The three keys according the the website How Stuff Works are:
Black Level - Use a letterboxed scene that has light and dark areas. Pause the movie on a frame to use as a test image. Slowly decrease black level until the bars are black and you can still see the details on the screen. Too much black will will hide black colors in a darker scene.
Contrast – This is basically the opposite of the black level. Choose a scene that has lots of detail on a white background. Slowly decrease the contrast until the intensity of the white surface doesn’t hurt your eyes but you can still see the details clearly.
Color Saturation – In this area of adjust you use skins tones of a person with a fair complexion. Reduce the saturation until the person appears to have a healthy glow rather than a sunburn with reddish hues.
For some people bigger is better, in fact it’s HUGE – For you, take a look at the LG 60″ Plasma from Beach Camera That’s under $2,000 including White Glove delivery
Panasonic makes some excellent plasma screens, this 58″ has Neo PDP technology delivers sharp, detailed images, deep blacks and remarkable brightness, with lower power consumption / Up to 2,000,000:1 High Contrast, A big HDTV for under $1,500 at JR
Wendy Sheehan Donnell wrote a nice piece in PC Mag called “HDTVs for the Big Game” highlighting how there are great, and I mean great buys on HDTVs. If you act fast in certain markets and destinations you can get that beautiful picture in your home in time for the game. Every brand is priced competitively, but now is the time to go for that quality brand that may have been once out of your range, but now may well be affordable.
For example the Sony Bravia Series is always highly rated, the PC Mag piece lists the KDL 46XBR8 that was list priced at $3999, can be found for $1,999 – but you can do better yet, J&R has this Sony Bravia KDL46XBR9 for under $1,700 . Look I know prices are always in motion, which is why it’s good to follow websites like Roominations www.roominations.net and the Twitter profile @bigscreendeals for great deals in big screen HDTVs. We will bring you highlights of some great deals. This year will be particularly good for HDTV enthusiasts because of the introduction of 3D HDTV. That will be the bleeding edge of the market for 2010, but those kind of year always have good value pricing on current mainstream technology, which is more suited to my budget with five kids to still help get through college.
Here are some more deals to consider with hundreds of dollars of savings, once you finish your Super Bowl office pool.
J & R has several Sony Bravia series and a huge Toshiba at great prices
Hi, I’m Linda Meehan of Manna Distribution. Our company is full of people that approach their work differently. They are straight talkers, admit mistakes, believe in fairness and respect it when people take responsibility.
We believe the only way for Manna to do well is for our customers to do well. These customers include some of the largest online retailers on the web who are constantly offering great products at competitive prices. That means consumers win too. We will be using the @bigscreendeals account on Twitter to showcase deals from these Manna customers on big screen televisions. If you are in the market for a big screen TV follow us and re-tweet those deals you think are among the best. We will also provide links to comparison sites as well as write ups on our own blog Roominations in the electronics section.
Any ideas on how we can provide worthwhile information related big screens or HDTVs, pass them along in this comment section.
Gals, you may have never looked at HDTV this way, but it is, especially during high profile sporting events season, just that: a guy magnet. This is also the season for getting great HDTV deals. It’s pre-Super Bowl season and if you are really planning ahead, get ready for March Madness. Guys, you know what I’m talking about.
There are some fantastic deals from now ‘til Super Bowl across a variety of screen technologies and brands. This is the best
time to be looking because with shipping guaranteed before the big game, you get to choose between brick and mortar and online deals.
Here are some that I found attractive TVs to consider.
One of the Samsung deals at B&H Photo and Video
Samsung – LN52B630 52″ LCD TV save $500 offer good through 1/16 but keep checking the www.B&H.com site for other models with similar savings.
Sony Bravia 52” XBR9 Series HDTV from www.Datavis.com – DataVision Computer Video. This model has great reviews and worth a look if you are on the higher end of the price range
Black Friday sales have turned out better than expected according to retailers. Between the earlier store opening hours in the wee hours of the morning, to the online payment system Pay Pal reporting a 25% increase in the amount of money being exchanged on Thanksgiving morning, black is making retailers green with happiness.
Hamster toys are for girls and boys
The big sellers are TVs, (deals on these home staples are through the roof), laptops, and the Zhu-Zhu pets. OK I’ll save the Zhu Zhu for the kids, big boy and girl toys are TVs, now is not the time to go small. The deals are big and the screen sizes should be BIG.
Searching on the web, this caught my eye from Electonics Expo
– A raffle for a 55” Samsung LED, now that’s worth some cyber window shopping at the very least. These folks are on top of the social media technology thing as well, you can follow Electronics-Expo on Twitter for up to the Tweet deals.
Enter Electronics-Expo raffle
Not to be out done, Cyber Monday buyers are tracking with their own website, no seriously a website called what else www.cybermonday.com It tracks a bunch of store and online deals. Shippers, including Manna Distribution who sponsor this www.Roominations.net site, are geared up (pardon the pun) for 25 days of hauling and installing.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, pretty soon the whole weekend following Thanksgiving will be given its rightful name, “Consumer’s Weekend” I suggest. Have at it gift givers, this is your time. Happy consuming, it is better to give than receive.
NEW - follow the best deals in Big Screen HDTVs on Twitter @BigScreenDeals.
On this blog you'll find fun articles on consumer trends, super deals, and the creative world of things in your home. From HDTVs to high tech exercise equipment, from stylish furniture, to energy efficient appliances, if it goes in a room, we'll have it here.
It's sponsored by Manna Distribution Services, one of the premier providers of delivery and installation services in the country.
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Electronics | Albert Maruggi | 
July 19, 2010 3:01 pm | 
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) Taking those two data points, content that is no longer distributed through the traditional television channels and the unique quality and size of picture, Samsung has been a pioneer in funneling the content people are using online through its dynamic, high definition and clear screens, which include plasma, LED, LCD and now some with 3D. 
