So what about 3d?

I am a great lover of technology. I am quick to embrace any possible improvement. I am what is commonly known as "an early adopter". The second HDTV seemed even remotely good, I dived into the pool head-first. For the record, this was late 2006 when the XBox360 got it's HD-DVD attachment and the PS3 was about to be released (signifying the arrival of Blu-Ray).

The arrival of true 1080p disks signified to me that this market was about to mature.

So what about 3d? Have I adopted that? Nope. Do I have plans to adopt it soon. Nope. Do I have any plans to adopt it? Not really. Why? Because every demo I have seen, save one, sucks hard. This is not at all unlike the 3d effects we see in the movie theater: They suck hard.

I'm going to be perfectly frank with you good folks: 3d leave me cold. I am not excited. The major reason is that the movie produces don't do anything with the media. An occasional shot which pops out at you is not worth the annoyance of the glasses. Even the most advanced 3d movie ever made, which is Avatar, still made relatively limited use of 3d.

Even when the true 1080p 3d Blu-Rays begin to arrive, which they have not, I still doubt that there is much power in the media itself.

Of course, this does not prevent marketing forces from attempted to persuade you to 'upgrade' to a 3d set. Mark ye well the following example of marking hype:

If you check out an in-store demo, you'll likely be impressed by 3D. We recently spent some quality time with Panasonic's VT25 3D plasma watching Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and it was a blast. After all, 3D adds depth and, when it's done right, can make you feel like you're inside the picture. -PC Magazine

All I can say to that is "bullshit" and "thank you for regurgitating the predigested marking hype from the advertising companies... oh wait! I forgot! PC Magazine is a marking/advertising company." In sooth, they always have been.

The quote above is proceeds from a false premise, uses fallacious logic and reaches and erroneous conclusion. Almost no one has a VT25 HDTV on display, must less equipped with the several-hundred dollars worth of glasses necessary to do 3d. Worst of all, if you have seen it, and I have, there is no there there. There's nothing special going on. The demo left me flat. I didn't want it.

Inevitably, sooner or later, I will want to buy a new HDTV. Moore's law guarantees progress in all of the basic areas of HDTV quality. I will want that increase in core-competency at some point in the future. Upgrade day may not come for two years, but sooner or later, it will come.

No doubt, this will bring 3d along with it. 3d is being rolled into all HDTVs as we speak. This will become a default feature of all HDTVs soon. You won't be able to buy a current model year without it. However, my reason for buying will not be 3d. The shit just doesn't do anything for me.

To you folks in the industry: I have to say that I really believe you are wasting your time with this 3d jazz. It is much more difficult to interpolate a 3d layer from 2d sources than it is to upscale 1080p to the so-called 4K standard. It is much more difficult for the creative film maker to shoot a movie in 3d than it is to shoot the movie in 4K with a simple RedCam.

I believe the difference between 1080p and so-called 4k is far more dramatic, far more stunning and far more desirable than the anything 3d has ever thrown at me. Every photographer and graphic artist will tell you that more pixels are better. Higher resolution is better resolution. Every gamer will tell you a higher res screen is a better screen. Every computer user will tell you that more screen real estate is better.

If I were you, I would toss the 3d thing on the back burner and work hard on the 4K thing. I will upgrade immediately for a reasonably priced 4K screen. 3d holds no interest for me.

So California just banned power hungry HDTVs?

It would appear that our famous California Energy Commission has placed new & sharp limits on HDTV power consumption. These rules go into effect in 2011, so the change is not eminent. The rules govern power consumption for all HDTVs 58 inches and smaller. The new rules specify hard caps for how much wattage an HDTV at any given size can consume. For instance, in the year 2011, 42 inch HDTVs cannot exceed 183 watts. In 2013, 42s will be cut down lower to 116 watts.

What is the impact of this supra-legislative action? About 75% of all HDTVs currently on the market will meet the 2011 requirements. That is an easy jump. Only about 21% of the 1,400 known HDTV models will be vendible in 2013. About 300 of our current HDTVs will be able to remain on the market about 4 years from now.

The industry's response was to scream. They declared that this action would force the industry to cut image quality and features. Oh really? Some of your best quality models actually meet the current spec. For instance, my 55inch Luxia 7000 meets the spec. My intended, the LaserVue, would not be impacted at all by this spec. Even the power-hog 60 inch Panasonic Kuro would be vendible in 2013. By all accounts, these three HDTVs belong at the top of the heap in terms of quality.

So what in the devil are the HDTV vendors crying about? Let us do a more logical and rational assessment of the situation.

1. If you want to make a smaller HDTV (smaller than 58 inches) you better make sure that it is based on the very latest efficient technology.
2. This will raise the price.
3. You better make sure it is not bloated with stupid features, such as an integrated DVD player.
4. This will lower the price, and produce more focused products.
5. Both facts will enhance the quality of the HDTV, not reduce it.
6. Old stock will have to liquidated at any price necessary to clear it.
7. This would put smaller and worse quality technology in the hands of precisely the people who can least afford to foot the power bill: The poor!
8. The poor will gladly buy these liquidation units anyway, completely oblivious of the cost of ownership
9. You can make the case that this is rational policy, as it has several coherent effects. It forces bad stock off the market. It makes future stock better. This helps both the poor and the middle class. It prevents Cali from needing to build more power infrastructure. It will allow the rich to continue doing anything they like.
10. That is how you define a rational policy in governmental terms.

So why are HDTV companies crying? Nobody likes supra-legislative bodies. Nobody likes it when an unelected group steps hard on your neck. There are a lot of lame and crappy HDTVs that will be flat-cold killed by this action. Low-power features such as LED back-lighting will have to become the norm. Older and inferior tech will be killed outright.

Basically, the industry doesn't like the fact that they will have to kill (early in their minds) a series of low cost HDTVs that they think are perfectly fine machines. They don't like the fact that they will have to clear them from the market during 2010, and probably at painfully low prices. They don't like the fact that they won't be allowed to bilk old architecture for a bit more profit in the low-end market. All of this adds up to lower margins or higher prices or both for the next several years.

One technology is going to get hit hard by these changes: Plasma. One company in particular has much to loose: Panasonic. Although Panasonic has made strides in reducing Plasma power consumption over the past two years, Plasma still consumes a lot more wattage than LaserVue or LED LCD.

So here is how we would expect this legislation to play out.

1. LCD vendors will have to complete the transition to LED back lighting, and limit stupid features. Old stock will have to be purged soon. Expect fire sales soon.
2. DLP & Laser vendors can keep on doing whatever the hell they want, as long as it is bigger than 58 inches. Since both are pretty power efficient, I would not expect 56 inch models to be harmed by this move.
3. Plasma is going to get hammered. Expect small plasmas to disappear from the market. Expect plasma to get larger than 58 inches.

If I were to evaluate this as a partisan fan of DLP and LaserVue, I would be pleased. This move will place the two competitor technologies under great stress. It will leave DLP and LaserVue alone. Eventually, it will flush Plasma in our direction (really big screens), but this will not be soon.

Why thin-flat HDTVs are rubbish: Wall mounting never happens.

Sadly, the world is crazy for thin-flat screens. The world is crazy for thin flats because everyone seems to have bought into a bullshit ideology. Yep, that's right, I said the ideology surrounding thin-flat screens is absolute bullshit, Worse, the poppycock vendors who advance this theory know full-well they are advocating bullshit. They are fully self-conscious bullshit vendors. The bullshit they argue goes a little like this:

You shouldn't buy a DLP screen because:

1. They are about 13 to 17 inches deep.
2. We all live in cramp spaces these days. Most of us are urban apartment renters, and living space is precious in an 800sqft apartment. The lucky ones get to live in a nice townhome.
3. If you wall mount a thin flat screen you will conserve living space, and you will have the most fashionable living-room presentation possible.

I have witnessed a number of friends and family members buy thin-flat LCDs for precisely this set of reasons, and not one of them has yet successfully mounted the unit upon the wall.

But... how can this be? Don't act shocked. My friends and family members are absolutely typical thin-flat buyers. They are statistically average. It turns out something like 87% of all people who buy thin-flats do so with the explicit intension of mounting the unit on the wall... and then they never follow through.

Why don't they follow through? When you witness family and friends go through this ordeal, the reasons become obvious.

• If you buy an HDTV, you are going to need a surround receiver, a Cable or Satellite box, and Blu-Ray player {no, not a DVD player}. You might want an HD TIVO if your company doesn't provide you with a good DVR. All of these components have to live somewhere. The best and most natural place inside media-center furniture, which is naturally equipped with shelf space to house these items. This unit will take 20 inches of space. Try to find something thinner. If you don't buy into the media center, and if you don't rack your video components here, you are opening a nasty can of worms.
• If you try to put your components in a closet, you are going to need a very good closet. Not everybody has one readily available in the family room. It better be air conditioned, because a good surround-receiver will generate plenty of heat. That heat builds up quickly in a confined, non-ventilated space. Heat kills electronic equipment.
• You will need to run a 25 foot to 50 foot HDMI cable to carry the signal from your closet to your HDTV. Speaking of running that cable, most interior decorator, fashion designers don't like the notion of having a 50 foot cable running through the living room. I laugh at them. The alternative is to punch a hole in the wall and have a truly professional handyman run the HDMI cable to that hot closet that disables your remote controls. That is expensive. It is $3000 expensive. My friend Colin toyed with the idea of creating a false wall in front of his real wall in order to avoid this cost. The two costs turned out to be painfully similar. No free lunch folks.
• Once the components are locked in the closet, good luck in using your favorite remote controls. Most of them are Infrared. Infrared waves do not penetrate doors and walls. I guess you can't change the channels, or raise your volume anymore. Nice!
• Speaking of those poor urban apartment renters, good luck in getting the landlord to give you permission to punch holes in those rented walls and run HDMI cable to the closet. I have not seen one request granted yet. Owners don't like punching holes in the walls.
• If you capitulate, give up on wall mounting, and put that thin-flat on a component rack, you have a shelf which is 18 to 20 inches deep anyhow. Guess what? You didn't save any precious living space at all. Worse, you could have easily accommodated that much larger DLP which costs much less than your much more expensive and much smaller LCD. Nice! I bet you feel smart now. You could have had 73inches of DLP for less than those 52inches of LCD.

Bye Bye Pioneer

The HDTV illuminati are disconsolate and drowning in tears. They are going to lay down and cry for a hundred years.

This week, we confirmed that Pioneer is exiting the HDTV business entirely. They aren't just dropping their famous Kuro Plasma line. They are getting out of the business of HDTVs. No Lasers. No LCDs. No DLPs. Nothing. Pioneer is out.

This brought howls of dismay from the HDTV critics, who have routinely showered Kuro with every award and superlative they could muster. The basic line goes like this “It is sad that customers won't pay for the superior quality of Pioneer. This shows that there is a race to the bottom as vendors try to cut cost in this era of economic crisis.”

Well, that is pretty nice bullshit, but bullshit none the less. Let me set the record straight: Pioneer isn't quiting because people are too stupid to recognize quality when they see it, or too cheap to pay for it when they see it. Nope. That ain't the reason at all. Pioneer got run out of the plasma market by Panasonic. Panasonic beat the hell out of them. Panasonic simply made bigger, cheaper and better looking plasma screens that Pioneer. I am talking about better image quality and better styling at the same time. Pioneer could not compete with Panasonic, and they knew it, so they quit.

As long as Panasonic is around, there simply is no reason for any rational consumer to spend $6000 on a 60 inch Kuro 151FD. You could have a 65 inch PZ850U for about $4500 instead. Plasma consumers opted for the latter in 2008. Pioneer was awash in red ink.

As I have said several times in this blog: The Kuro isn't what it is cracked up to be. It is a strong performer, but quite overrated. Certainly not the best HDTV money can buy. There was certainly a cult of Kuro during its existence, but having a cult following does not prove superiority. Plan 9 From Outer Space has a cult following. It is far from the greatest film ever made.

I don't know why, but experts get locked in an Ivory Tower echo chamber sometimes. They seem to be lemmings with herding instincts. Each year in the NFL draft, the critics get hot for some prospect who surely turns into a bust. They overlook good kids who turn into all-pros. Joe Montana was drafted in the 3rd round. Kurt Warner wasn't drafted at all. So it is with movies and so it is with HDTVs. Tim Couch and David Carr were both selected #1 overall. The NFL (regretably) showed these two to be failures. Likewise, the market has rendered its verdict on Pioneer's Kuro: Kuro is a non-viable product. This means the evaluators were wrong in their initial assessments.

Some perfectly marvelous HDTVs get mediocre reviews—or no coverage at all—just because there isn't strong mind share behind them. I don't believe HDTV critics have a real scientific methodology, despite their attempts to cloak reviews in the shroud of Science. Speaking of the Pseudo Science of HDTV reviews, let's debunk that bullshit right here and now.

There is a standard called ITU BT.709. It is sometimes mistakenly called Rec.709 by the TV critics. BT.709 is an International Telecommunications Union standard. This standard defines the pixel count, pixel depth, frame rates, and color space of HDTV. The standard can be found here. It is a digital electronics standard just like any other digital electronics standard. It was formed in the same way that all standards are formed.

Now, I happen to know something about digital electronics standards. I am a programmer with more than 14 years of professional experience and about 27 years of total experience. I have to deal with ANSI, ECMA and ISO all the fucking time. I know how these standards get formed. A number of experts are drawn from major industry firms. These experts are gathered together somewhere in the world for a conference. They are sequestered in a room once or twice. You usually have just two physical meetings. The rest of the time, the experts collaborate online for about a year or two. They vote many times by email or webform. In the end, they publish a massive document which few people ever read. This document defines the industry.

What is important about this story is that it is a messy political process, dominated by industry titans with a commercial agenda. There may be one or two technology purists on the team, but any standard SIG is comprised mostly of pragmatic business-minded men... And they are always men.

BT.709 was formed by a number experts from the largest TV firms in the world. They negotiated a product which they felt they could manufacture and sell at a reasonable profit. That was the goal. Just as surely as the first ECMA standard for C# did not define a perfect or complete language, the ITU standard for HDTV did not define the philosophically perfect spec for HDTV. They are nowhere near the logical limit of visual quality in BT.709.

BT.709 is just one conclusion among many possibilities. It is just one compromise solution which got enough votes to pass out of the standards committee. It is the spec we have. It is the spec we work with, but it isn't perfect, I can assure you of this.

In the case of any standard, there are always weaknesses. There are always obvious points where you can go above and beyond the spec and achieve much better results. Exceeding the spec is no sin. Computer firms do it all the time, with delightful results. God, where in the world would we be if NVIDIA and ATI hadn't pushed way beyond the spec for VGA and SVGA?

Whenever I read reviews of the Kuro the critics always seem to propound the fidelity of the Kuro to the BT.709 standard. Repeatedly, they state that the Kuro is the only HDTV to nail the spec perfectly. Repeatedly, they chastise inferior HDTVs for failing to hit the spec. Repeatedly, they critique better HDTVs for exceeding the spec. Mitsubishi has been criticized many times for exceeding the spec.

I can understand why you chastise HDTVs which fail on the low side. This is justified. I do not agree with criticizing firms who exceed the spec on the high side. Unless you believe BT.709 is the perfect and logical limit of video quality, firms should try to exceed BT.709. This is no sin. To characterize it as a sin is just flat cold wrong. Rather, it is progressive improvement.

Ergo the cult of Kuro is simply predicated on bad ideology. That is all. Only this and nothing more. Kuro has been crowed the king by those who hold fast to this faulty ideology. There is no need to take them seriously. Their lamentations are a tale told by an idiot full or sound and fury signifying nothing.

If you happen to be one of these poor players, strutting and fretting upon the stage, only to be heard no more, I have some good news for you. It goes like this.

HDTV is a field strongly allied to the semiconductor industry. HDTV is an example of digital science and engineering. As such, it is subject to Alan Moore's law. Moore's law basically says that we double the density of transistors on any given dice size every 18 months. This means we basically double to power and sophistication of our digital electronics products every 18 months.

If you are upset that Kuro is gone, just wait 18 months. In 18 months Vizio and Phillips will be making flat pannels superior to the current Pioneer Elite Kuro Pro 151FD.

3d a smash at CES? LaserVue puts plasma to shame...?

Or so they say here. Supposedly, 3d ready HDTVs like Mitsubishi's DLPs and Panasonic's Plasmas are the rage right now at CES. What is a 3d ready HDTV? It basically an HDTV which can take any Blu-Ray {and perhaps any HDMI digital input} and transform the standard flat 2d picture into a stereoscopic picture. This means you can sit in front of the DiamondScan or the Viera and watch Dark City, or Apocalypto or No Country for Old Men in 3d. All you need are the customary glasses. The original authors and engineers of the film and disk do not need to do anything special to permit this stereoscopic feature to function. Its all done, post-process, with our marvelous silicone digital signal processing technology.

Although I have never been a particular fan of 3d movies, I must admit, this is cool feature. It would be fun and cool to try it out with my library. It would give me a reason to go back and watch all my favorites again. I am skeptical it will work well {this technology has never worked well in my estimation} but it would be fun to try it. Based on the enthusiasm for the tech, it must be working better than I would presume.

But then again...

We come to the issue of LaserVue. If you read my past blog entries, you know what I think about LaserVue: Its a fraud. The emperor has no cloths on. I say this is as a commited DLP fan who wishes it would work. I am more likely to buy a Mitsubishi DiamondScan 835 than a LaserVue right now, and not because of LaserVue's price. I would finance it, if I though it would work better. It does not.

Nevertheless, somehow, someway, the lovely Alix Steel [will you marry me babby?] is all bubbly about how LaserVue puts Plasma to shame. She even embedded a small res video in her post to prove it... not that such a proof can prove her point. I hope you are right, Alix, but I am highly skeptical. One thing I will say is this: You are girl after my own heart. Image quality is more important than skinny screens.

I vow that I will give LaserVue another look soon. It may be that Mitsubishi debugged their shtick in the past few months. I was expecting major improvement with the next gen. So far we have no generational landmark, but Mitsubishi may be making improvements to the LaserVue firmware. This process did wonders for my mighty PS3.

In my last survey of the market, Panasonic's marvelous Viera PZ850 series proved itself to be a serious contender for the championship. If the LaserVue can put such a screen 'to shame' it will be worth every penny of the $7,000 they are asking for it. It is no mean task to crush the PZ850 series or the Pioneer Kuro Elite Pro.