Tech tips -
I was just thinking that it is probably time for another topic on one of my favorite subjects, LCD televisions. Since my last column there have been a host of new innovations and buzzwords surrounding big flat screen TVs. A person could write for days about the technology involved here, but I have to keep it short so here goes.
Probably one of the more popular stickers you have been seeing on the front of those gorgeous big screens for a while now is the 120 Hz notification. 120 Hz refers to the refresh rate that has evolved from the previous 60 Hz.
The idea behind increasing the refresh rate was to reduce fast motion blur. The technology behind this is the cool part for me. As you know, most of the things you are watching on TV were not recorded at such a high level which means television manufactures have to take a source recorded at 24 or 30 frames per second and make it display at 60 Hz at first, and now 120 Hz. To do this, you have to fill in the missing pieces that just weren't in the original recording. Originally manufactures just copied the original frame or added totally black frames to get to the faster speed.
Eventually, manufactures began interpolation ("motion estimation-motion compensation" or MEMC), which means they began creating the missing frames based on the previous real frame. Basically, your TV is thinking to itself, if there was a next frame, it should look like this and then it creates it and flashes it on the screen.
Sort of like you went out with your 1 megapixel digital camera and took a picture and then decided you wanted to blow it up to make a poster. Now, you know when you try to blow it up you are going to have a lot of missing pieces or a very grainy blurry picture simply because at 1 megapixel there just isn't enough detail to get a really clear big picture. If you want to take that poor source and make an outstanding big poster then you got to find a way to fill in all the missing detail. Roughly, that is kind of what interpolation is trying to accomplish.
This year, you will see even more TVs offering 240 Hz refresh rates which will supposedly improve motion blur even more. To go to 240 obviously there will have to be even more MEMC although some manufactures don't double the MEMC but use backlighting tricks to give the 240 effect instead. You should also know that a "smoothing effect" is being used to reduce another problem called judder (also known as stuttering when the camera pans or fast motion or sports). For example, Samsung calls their smoothing technology Auto Motion Plus. Most manufactures allow you to turn smoothing off because the net effect isn't to everyone's taste.
The introduction of LED is very interesting. All LCD screens need backlighting. Most were backlit with fluorescent lights (CCFL). Recently, manufactures have been using LED instead. LED gives more control over the light and offers the opportunity to have a "thinner" TV and maybe even some reduced power consumption. As with everything else in this column, all LED delivery is not created equal.
Other innovation worth mentioning, addition of USB ports making movie and picture transfer really easy, Ethernet ports to get your TV directly on the internet to take advantage of services like YouTube, and wireless DLNA which lets your other DLNA compliant devices (like a media server) share multi-media with each other. Watch and see; this is going to be big in the future!.
toddmusseau@gmail.com
.jpg)
.jpg)
