Gesture and Voice control of Electronic Devices–This seems to be a wave (ahem) of the future.  Samsung showed off a gorgeous TV that used gesture and voice control rather than the conventional remote.  Microsoft Kinect for Windows seems to be gaining some traction as well.  Apple is rumored to be developing a television with a “Siri-like” interface.  All of this actually makes sense.  If we can talk to our cars and our smartphones, it’s just a matter of time before this technology is commoditized to other devices as well.  I will give my personal “tech editor” award to the first company that makes a voice command driven remote that will translate to IR/RF and with older home theatre components.  Now that would be a “universal” remote!  And you wouldn’t have to search for the “light” button!

OLED Televisions–”Organic Light Emitting Diode” sets debuted in several booths this year.  This display technology is very power efficient and allows the design of very thin displays.  This technology has been used in smartphones and tablets for a number of years, and has found its way into the design of large displays.  In theory, display panels could be manufactured less than 1/4″ thick-certainly a conversation piece in anyone’s living room.  I question the practical advantages of such a thin display, in terms of shipping, set up, connectorization, etc.  There are no inherent quality advantages of OLED over currently available technologies, but that said, my sense is that we will see more of this technology in larger displays as manufacturing/logistical challenges are conquered.

Thunderbolt–The Intel “Thunderbolt” connectivity standard appears to be gaining mainstream acceptance.  Thunderbolt boasts incredibly fast data transfer rates, as well as the ability to connect multiple devices with different functions; i.e. an external disc drive and a display monitor in the same I/O port, for example.  Throughput is over 20 times faster than USB 2.0.  Apple’s new laptop line has had Thunderbolt connectivity for a while now, but peripherals and Wintel computers hosting the standard were pretty scarce.  Acer has embraced the standard with its new Aspire Ultrabook computer and both Seagate and Western Digital showed new external drives with the standard embedded. This particular technology becoming more ubiquitous  is a good thing IMHO as this is  a really, really good technology–very user friendly and highly capable.

A couple of notable points–3DTV was not generating the buzz that it did last year, although Samsung and LG, among others, still seem to be committed to the technology.  Most set companies appear to be pushing internet apps into their more mainstream (read: “cheaper”) televisions.  The show was again awash in tablets, just as it was last year.  But market penetration numbers have not changed much.

A great time to be alive, if you’re a gadget guy!

Until next time…

Just this past week, Sony and Samsung announced a joint initiative to develop common standards for active shutter glasses that would allow interchangeability between televisions made by different manufacturers.  Implicit in this idea would be the potential availability of glasses manufactured by third parties, potentially driving the cost of 3D technology down over time.  In a jointly prepared statement, the companies revealed:

“Panasonic Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation and X6D Limited (XPAND 3D) today announced their intent to collaborate on the development of a new technology standard for consumer 3D active glasses, under the name, “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative.”

“With this new agreement, the companies intend to work together on the development and licensing of radio frequency (RF) system 3D active glasses technology, including RF system protocols between consumer 3D active glasses and 3D displays such as televisions, personal computers, projectors and 3D theaters with XPAND active shutter glasses.

“The standardization will also include multiple types of infrared (IR) system protocols between 3D active glasses and 3D displays, ranging from the protocols jointly developed by Panasonic and XPAND 3D*, to the proprietary protocols of Samsung and Sony, respectively.”

In my opinion, this is good news for 3D fans.  Certainly anything that standardizes 3D technologies is a positive development, primarily because this standardization potentially lowers the cost of entry.

From a non-technical perspective however, 3D remains a wild card.  Sales rates for 3D televisions this past year have been 1% for the United Kingdom, 2% in Canada, and 5% in the United States.  This is not very encouraging from an industry perspective.  There is some question as to whether these low numbers are the result of “early adopters” holding off for price decreases similar to what happened with HDTV sets, or whether there is just a general lack of enthusiasm for the technology.

A recent study of 400 filmgoers by L Mark Carrier of California State University suggests that 3D technology does not allow viewers to experience more intense emotional reactions, more immersion, or any other potential advantages over their 2D counterparts.  Neither did viewers experience an enhanced ability to recall a film’s details.  Carrier’s study also suggested that watching films in 3D increased the risk of eyestrain, headache, or other vision trouble by a factor of 3.

“All other things being equal, I would say you’re increasing your chances of having some discomfort,” said Carrier at the America Psychological Association’s annual meeting on August 7th, 2011. “There aren’t going to be any benefits in terms of understanding the movie better or making the movie more meaningful, as far as we can tell,” he added.

This research potentially sheds light on why adoption rates for 3D have been so glacial.  I personally believe that another reason is simply that 3D should be an artistic tool for a gifted filmmaker to use with a light touch.  Implicit in that statement is the idea that not all films should use the technology–2D is the best choice for most of the quality content produced these days.  Simply shooting in 3D to get a short term financial hit from a theater release is a bad idea, and will backfire big time if the practice continues.  In fact, with one or two exceptions, 3D releases have not offered the box office boost producers were hoping for over the past 18 months or so.  It would be a shame if a potentially legitimate artistic tool would fall prey to misuse and overuse, souring a public already saturated in empty spectacle.

Until next time….

In an announcement made this afternoon, CableVision (another large cable player who had introduced a “TV Everywhere” service) and Viacom announced that they had settled this dispute to their mutual satisfaction.  In a joint statement, the companies said: “Viacom and Cablevision have agreed to resolve their pending litigation, and the Viacom programming will continue to appear on Cablevision’s Optimum Apps for iPad and other IP devices. In reaching the settlement agreement, Cablevision and Viacom were able to resolve the iPad matter and an unrelated business matter to their mutual satisfaction. Neither side is conceding its original legal position or will have further comment.”

Hmmm….wonder what that means.  At least one on line source opined that Viacom had indeed bowed to the legal opinion of Cablevision, but I’ve been unable to find any other corroboration of that possibility.

As I indicated in a previous post, the cat is out of the proverbial (technical) bag IMHO.  I do not believe that the content providers’ desire for more revenue based on screen size or portability is a sustainable model.

Case in point:

Several weeks ago I replaced one of my televisions with a Samsung 7000 series LED HDTV. Samsung calls it a “Smart TV”, and indeed, carries with it a full series of apps as well as a QWERTY remote and the ability to surf the net via its built in wifi.  Guess what else is part of the technology?  Yup…streaming all channels from the TV set to a second screen, the Samsung Galaxy tablet!  Now at present, there are some limitations on this paradigm if you are not using the built in digital QAM or ATSC tuners, but I suspect that it is only a matter of time before enterprising manufacturers increase the functionality of the app and extend the option to iOS devices as well as other screens using the Android OS.

The point is that this idea has consumer inertia that will push continued development of multiple screen access to content.  Try as they might, content providers have historically had little control over the consumer electronics industry generally, and I don’t believe that they will bear sway here either.

These developments in the industry should help the content providers realize that forcing distributors of content to pay additional freight for implementing elegant solutions to “TV Everywhere” makes little sense, and is not a sustainable business model.

Until next time…

I admit that I’m a selective TV viewer–part of this selectivity is that I seldom watch a program that isn’t in Hi-Def anymore.  Just can’t hardly bring myself to do it.  I relax that standard, obviously, as I enjoy some older content that didn’t have the benefit of HD technology when it was filmed, but even here, there are some pretty amazing HD transfers of older, film-based content.  The stuff that can’t be helped much is that which was shot  with analog standard-def video production techniques in the 70’s and 80’s.

Interestingly, video took a significant uptick in quality in the 90’s, driven by improvements in professional video gear that supported upwards of 540 scan lines.  Most of the video produced in the 20 years previous to that was between 240 and 300 scan lines–read: “not that great”.  These aforementioned production upgrades may have been as a result of anticipated demand for analog “Laserdisc” recordings that were offered to consumers in the 90’s.

Considered obsolete in this digital age, Laserdiscs looked pretty amazing on “enhanced definition” sets of the time.  Based on optical disc technology, the Laserdisc was, nonetheless, an analog format that had been refined to a “fare-thee-well”, and it still looks pretty good on present day HD sets, for that matter.  It was the pinnacle of analog-based consumer media.  I still have, though do not use, a Sony player and about 20 discs–big 12 inch diameter numbers that could be used as lethal weapons if thrown like a frisbee at an unsuspecting target.  DVD’s and Blu-ray are much more convenient–and safer

So as WOW! officially retires its analog lineup with the completion of the digital transition, I may put my LaserDisc collection up on ebay to celebrate.  I hope that you find a way to celebrate the new HD content and viewing options this transition enables.

Until next time….

All that said, it is a fact that sales of 3D equipment (and televisions specifically) have been lackluster and disappointing to those who are pushing this technology.  It is also a fact that the majority of theatre releases using this technology have not sold well in 3D (within the theatre releases), and were probably not particularly well suited to the technology anyway from the standpoint of production artistry.  But in Sam’s Club?

Some things have become more clear in the last six months.  “Active glasses” designs have become more user friendly; the glasses are now lighter and use wireless technology to activate the shutters.  Manufacturers are lining up behind essentially three different technologies and their variants: 1) active shutter glasses w/ 120Hz plus displays; 2) Passive polarization glasses w/ displays using polarizing filters on the monitor; and 3)  3D displays which use no glasses at all, and rely on relatively new monitor technologies to produce a 3D image for the viewer.  Let’s take each of these in turn:

1) Active shutter/rapid image display–This technology is, at this point, probably the front runner in terms of quality of the experience, but carries with it its own set of baggage.  This technology displays different images at least 120 times a second, and the glasses only allow the viewer to see an image in one eye at a time, in a synchronized manner rapidly alternating between eyes and images perceived.  The brain then uses that different image information and creates a 3D image from what is presented.  In early versions, this would tether the user via a wire to the television, and the glasses were big and bulky.  The good news is that the glasses are now much lighter and use wireless technology (bluetooth, infrared, or wifi direct) to control the shutter action.  Advantages to this technology are a bright, clear picture in both 3D and 2D mode, and virtually no penalties on 2D material.  Samsung, as well as a number of other manufacturers are fully embracing this technology.

2)  Passive glasses/polarization panel monitor–At the recent CES show in Las Vegas, LG and Vizio demonstrated passive 3D models that will be released at retail later this year.  The huge advantage of this technology is that the glasses are light and “throwaway cheap”–certainly an advantage if one is prone to sit down on the couch before looking in the shadows  The disadvantages of this technology are several:  Due to the polarization panel in the monitor itself, pictures generally are dimmer in both 3D and 2D, and the 3D experience does not carry the effective resolution of the active shutter technology.  The polarizer effectively shows only alternating scan lines to each eye, effectively reducing the available resolution in 3D to 540 vertical pixels/scan lines.  Further, the viewing angle for the full 3D experience is quite narrow; the 3D effect falls off drastically as the viewer moves to the side of the monitor.  In short, if your viewing environment is quite dim and your household environment favors the “cheap glasses” approach, this may be the technology to purchase.

3)  “Glasses Free” (auto-stereoscopic) monitor technology–Toshiba and a number of other manufacturers are working on display technologies that would do away with glasses altogether.  The immediate reaction of most people interested in 3D is “THAT’s what I want!”  And that’s understandable.  Toshiba actually demonstrated an auto-stereoscopic monitor at the CES show to mixed reviews.  “Reduced resolution”, “compromised 3D and 2D image”, “very narrow viewing angle” were some of the comments proffered.  It’s pretty clear that this design has as some technological hurdles to overcome, although Toshiba claims that these sets will be on dealer’s floors by the end of 2011.  This will be a technology to watch, but “ready for prime time” is probably several years away at best.

Add to this confusion a number of technologies out there that are in the lab, or that have commercial application only at this point.  Check out this interesting technology from Samsung and Real D that may find its way eventually into consumer 3D imaging.  Currently, Samsung says that this is being developed primarily for medical imaging applications in their business division.  We’ll see…

Until next time….

Whereas 2009 was the year of the Blu-Ray player, certainly 2010 was the year that on-line media delivery has come of age.  There are dozens of pieces of hardware (other than computers) that now allow access to on-line content from Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, and other providers.  Internet capable televisions currently outsell 3-D capable sets by a huge margin.  Blu-ray players, Apple TV, Roku, TiVo and other devices all allow access to on line content–whether for sale, rent, or for free.  One of the Great Debates raging is whether on-line delivery will replace “hard” media (DVD’s, Blu-ray, etc) all together. Another debate that bears watching is whether internet video streaming (so-called, “over the top) will supplant conventional linear broadcasts.  My sense is that on-line media will continue to grow in popularity, but will likely not replace either “hard” media or linear broadcasts for the foreseeable future.  Content will continue to be delivered to consumers in various ways that suit their budget and lifestyle.

2010 will also go down as the “big push” for 3D.  Since I last wrote about this, 3D has gained some momentum.  Studios continue to release titles in 3D (whether there is a need for this as a matter of artistic perspective or not), and retail outlets are pushing 3D capable sets as though they were the Next Big Thing.  The actual numbers of sets sold though reflect a public that may be reluctant to fully embrace this technology.  Full adoption of 3-D at the consumer electronics level, if it happens at all, will be in the future, perhaps two to three years away.

Tablet and notebook computing took giant steps forward, driven primarily by the success of Apple’s iPad and new MacBook Air.  Other manufacturers also “upped the ante” with new features and generally robust operating systems.

Microsoft replaced the trouble prone Vista operating system with Windows 7– a much better, more stable OS than any version of Vista, and arguably better than any previous MS OS release with the possible exception of XP.  It has been said around the industry that the release of Vista did more for Mac sales than any other single factor! One hopes that Redmond finally has an OS out there in the consumer sector that won’t frustrate users to death.

Televisions have continued to improve with the release of high refresh rate, low latency LED panels.  Home theaters have never had it so good, and prices continue to moderate in this space such that really, really good viewing is available to all with one of these sets and WOW! digital cable service.  High end flat panel technologies, once the exclusive space of the well-off, have clearly gone mainstream.

Next week, maybe a few predictions for 2011.

Until next time…

Lark Rise to Candleford–For want of a better way to describe it, this is British “Little House on the Prairie”.  This television series is set around two villages in late 18th-early 19th century England–one prosperous, one not.  Set around Candleford’s center of social and business activity (the Post Office), this is a wonderful set of characters with equal measure of comedy and drama. Casting, direction, script, and production are all top notch–typical of the BBC.  Most of the family will enjoy this, with the possible exception of very young children.

Au Revoir Les Enfants–Certainly the darkest film on this list, this is the story of friendship in a French boarding school between two young boys, one a French Catholic and the other a Jew during the tumultuous time of the Nazi occupation of France.  Subtitled, but very engaging for all but young children.  This film is based on true events that occurred in the life of the director.

The Greatest Game Ever Played–Based on a true events, this is the story of golfer Francis Quimet’s upset victory over the defending champion in the 1913 US Open golf tournament.  Depicts a different era of sportsmanship and tolerance, with the positive and negative implications there.  A great story of friendship and coming-of-age.

Joyeux Noel–This is the (true) story of the Christmas Eve cease-fire of 1914 in World War I, set somewhere in Belgium.  Accompanied by an exquisite musical score by Phillipe Rombi, this film is a masterpiece on any level other than technical production.  The story is so good, you hardly notice.  Subtitled, again suitable for all that are old enough to understand the implications of sworn enemies reaching across a “no-man’s land” to celebrate Christmas.

I wish you peace, love, and joy for you and your loved ones this special season.

Until next time….

Here goes:

Multi-tools–Any true geek loves the ability to fix something on-the-spot.  This “MacGuyver” like ability requires either hauling around a toolkit, or an effective “multitool” which can be carried in your pocket or small belt pouch.  Here are my favorites:

Leatherman tool–comes in all kinds of sizes, capabilities and price ranges.  Shop at Amazon or direct from Leatherman

Swiss Army–Been around forever–still build quality tools.  Generally lighter and less robust than Leatherman, they have the advantage of (generally) being small enough that you really can carry them in your pocket.  Comes in all sizes, styles and price ranges–One actually has well over 100 functions and costs around $1400!  Other than the $1400 model (which I would not recommend regardless of your budget), these are widely distributed from a number of retail outlets. My favorites are these:

Victorinox Swiss Army Champion–about $40

Victorinox Swiss Army Trekker–about $30

Pens–Geeks like pens and mechanical pencils to fill up all those pocket protectors.  Preferably Japanese or German, and the more industrial looking, the better.

Portable Hard Drives–Pocket drives that use the USB port on a laptop for the power source are terrific for moving data around from computer to computer.  Flash drives generally don’t have the capacity to satisfy any self respecting geek’s data needs.  Look for a size of at least 500 Gb or greater and stick with a well known brand–Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, and Maxtor.  Expect to pay between $60~$100.

Killer Remotes–managing all the remote controls in a typical geek’s life can be truly daunting.  Universal programmable remotes can consolidate all that remote clutter into a single device–one that will operate the TV, sound system, Blu-Ray, and WOW! DVR, as well as any other device in the home theatre.  The Logitech “Harmony” series gets great reviews generally.  Be sure to purchase one that will “learn” codes from existing remotes.  It will save lots of time in set up.

Until next time…

The upside we’ve already covered a bit in last week’s post.  Moving video to a dynamic range that more closely resembles what the eye is capable of perceiving is a good thing.  In the case of TV, it would resemble more “looking out the window” rather than at a TV screen.

The short video sample I posted last week was produced literally as a series of still HDR photographs (processed as I described last week), resembling more time lapse photography (which it truly was) rather than actual video.  If the same technique were to be used to produce video, the camera would need to take at least 3 pictures 24 times a second, or 72 frames per second to equal the current cinema standard of 24 fps.  (See discussion on this frame rate in this previous post.)  Then, that data stream would have to be processed in real time combining the over and under exposures of the same frame into one and sending it down the wire 24 times a second.  That’s alot of processing horsepower, and because of the complexity of the process, I do not think that this technique will ever be used for serious video production.

There are, however, those out there who are experimenting with High Dynamic Range capable CMOS sensors and associated A/D codecs.  There are some prototype sensors out there that are flirting with the 12 f-stop dynamic range specification, which is very close to the dynamic range of the eye.  But even with this vastly simpler technology, because of the additional digital information required, changes will have to be made.

One such camera is in the hands of Professor Alan Chalmers of the University of Warrick, UK.  With a 1080p resolution, his camera produces 24 meg of digital information per frame.  By my calculations, that would mean that a minute of footage would require 36 gig of storage space, and the superfast network architecture to support that storage/transmission.  This is 27 gig more per minute than standard uncompressed 1080p HD video.  Transmission and storage over existing infrastructure would require compression algorithms of nearly 100:1.  (See discussion of video codecs here.) That kind of compression, while theoretically possible, is certain to come with its own artifacts and compromises.

Production would also have to change.  As we all know, some actors and actresses have not benefited from the increased resolution of HD video.  This problem would be exacerbated in HDR.  More care (read money) would also have to be exercised in production of HDR; the guy behind the Rockefeller Center studio window making hand signals will be seen.

I personally hope that some of these technologies do take hold.  Increasing picture resolution through HD technology over the last few years has made a vast difference in the viewing experience for most of us.  I suspect that these next iterations of ultra high fidelity video have the potential to be at least as significant as hi-def has been in the last decade.  Present examples of this technology actually compress the tone-maps to make them viewable within present media constraints.  When/if genuine HDR television comes of age, we will see that HD was just the beginning.

More examples to view

Until next time….

Here’s the thing.  If we are to consider the action of the pupil in the eye adjusting to varying light, the eye has almost 24 f-stops of dynamic range–said another way, we can see a starlit sky in the dead of the arctic night all the way to sun blazing off of a placid lake on the equator at noon-an increase of one f-stop essentially doubling the brightness perceived.  But even at a static pupil aperture, the eye can still detect between 11 and 14 f-stops of dynamic range, and we use the dynamic range of that wonderful instrument daily to see detail that no past or present camera (including film) technology can capture.

The state of the art dynamic range available from the sensors on high end digital cameras or video cameras today is about 8.5 f-stops–material outside of that shows up as either straight black or straight white.  So while an eye can look at a scene and see 11-14 f-stops of dynamic range, a digital camera/video camera will only detect slightly more than 8 f-stops, and because this is a logarithmic scale, this is a significant difference in performance.

The technique I presently use in my digital photography is to bracket three quick exposures, one under exposed, one properly exposed, and the final over exposed.  Both my cameras can be set to do this automatically, and both support “rapid fire” exposures–up to 8 frames per second.  So this can be done quickly as one is shooting the picture(s), but (and here’s the rub) these three negatives must then be combined digitally using computer processing techniques to create a single high dynamic range image.  In other words, almost 64 megabits of data from multiple negatives must be processed to create a single 20 megapixel image in HDR.  The results are stunning–detail that looks realistic to the eye when properly done.  Like anything else, this technique can be taken to the extreme and not all HDR pictures are particularly life-like.

So what does this have to do with my TV?  Most current video displays have the raw ability (if not the actual circuitry) to display dynamic range that simply isn’t available in most video content.  It is possible that the “next big thing” in video will be getting the content, storage, transmission streams, etc. to move to true high fidelity video (not just high definition) by increasing the dynamic range to something closer to what the human eye can perceive.  My sense is that this element may be more important to video cognoscenti than 3D in terms of actually enhancing the video experience.

Next week, I’ll discuss the fine points of this future technology and the ramifications to the industry should it be adopted.  In the meantime, take a look at this sample of HDR video–understand it’s highly compressed and just a rough approximation of what is possible, but very intriguing nonetheless.

HDR video sample

Until next week….