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Category: hdtv

  • Samsung Blu-ray Players First To Offer Netflix HD


    Blockbuster may be hinting at offering its download service on Blu-ray players – Netflix is actually doing it.

    From next week two Samsung Blu-ray players are to provide Netflix videos in high definition.

    With a firmware update, both the BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 models, which currently offer standard-def steaming, will be able to offer HD
    programs from Netflix’s online DVD rental service.

    The Netflix HD movies, of which there will initially be about 300 titles, will be in 720p video, a lower resolution than the 1080p resolution
    available on Blu-ray discs.

    That said, it will bethe first time that a Blu-ray player will be able to offer high def streaming from any service.

    Last week, Blockbuster launched a movie rental download service in the US via set-top boxes.

    Following the announcement, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes was reported as saying that its download services will be coming to undisclosed Blu-ray players "by the first quarter of next year".

  • Could Savings Ratios Give A Clue To Market Robustness?


    Black Friday has arrived in the US and many retailers are hoping fears of prolonged economic difficulties will not hamper consumers’ appetite for spending – not least for HDTVs.

    Paul Gray, Display Search’s director of European TV research, has added some intriguing analysis to the various predictions about how robust consumer demand is likely to be in key markets in the coming months.

    He examined the correlation between the TV penetration and savings and reckons there is some kind of a link.

    Based on his results, the US and UK markets are the most vulnerable whereas Italy and Germany appear well placed to ride out a recession.

    Describing himself as "stunned" by the findings he said the correlations appeared almost too good to be true.

    "But it does perhaps give a peek into where demand can be expected to be most robust," he said.

    "Clearly Germany and Italy have few sets. If the set fails, the choice is to replace it or read a book instead."

    Gray said that by comparison, the US and UK had enjoyed an Anglo-Saxon credit binge and much of the market is supported by second sets.

    "When times get tough, these will not be replaced, or the impulsive demand for another set will easily be extinguished by tight household budgets," he said.

    "These markets look most vulnerable, and indeed have so many sets in the home that in really tight times a bedroom set could be called into front-line duty if the main set fails."

    Just how accurate his methods are remain to be seen, but there is a certain logic to them – isn’t there?

  • Growth Towards 3D HDTV Gains Pace


    Panasonic has submitted a proposal for a 3D Blu-ray standard to the Blu-ray Disc Association.

    The standard would offer guidelines for creating "left/right-eye two-channel full HD images".

    Hiroshi Miyai, Panasonic’s director of AV developments, said that the changes should be quite simple, claiming that the discs would simply need some kind of flag to identify image data, equipment and other elements supporting 3D imagery.

    "We really don’t need any other major changes," he said.

    Panasonic’s submission comes as Korea’s LG announces its intentions to bring 3D TVs to some markets in 2009.

    Choon Lee, vice president director of LG’s Digital TV Research Lab, gave no specific information about the launch details other than that one or two unspecified markets will be getting the technology.

    He said the tech itself would undergo a slight change to existing Blu-ray technology and use the media to keep costs to buyers down.

    In Japan, viewers receive two hours of 3D programming daily over satellite broadcasts.

  • Blockbuster Launches On-Demand Service


    Blockbuster is rising to the challenge posed by cable companies and Netflix by launching a movie rental service via set-top boxes.

    It is offering a STB made by 2Wire that plays movies downloaded over a broadband line.

    Available only in the US, Blockbuster is offering the MediaPoint digital media player for "free" if you pre-pay for 25 movies at the cost of USD $99.

    It claims the movies available will be "hot new releases".

    After the initial 25 rentals, films will be available from USD $1.99 each.

    Able to use either Wi-Fi or Ethernet, Blockbuster says the set-top box delivers DVD quality to your screen.

    Since it’s a download rather than streaming, users will get full quality even if slower internet connections mean downloads will take longer.

    It will be interesting to see how Blockbusters’ decision to avoid a monthly subscription works, especially with regard to the timing of new movie releases.

    Netflix’s service is both streaming and by subscription.

  • Orange Brings Mobile HDTV to Hybrid Phones


    Orange is to offer high definition mobile TV to users of hybrid mobile/fixed Unik handsets.

    From next month, its customers in France will have access to more than 60 HD mobile TV channels, 20 of which will be with unlimited access.

    In September, Orange announced the world’s first 3G+ UMA platform, combining the two technologies to allow customers with hybrid phones to connect whether at home, near an Orange WiFi hotspot or on the move through the 3G network.

    Initially, the mobile HDTV service will only be available through LG’s KF757 handset or on the Sony Ericsson G705u.

    Orange currently has one million Unik subscribers.

    The channels are available on the Orange TV Player or, if the handset does not support the software, on the Orange World portal.

  • YouTube Offers Widescreen HD Videos


    YouTube has finally moved to a default widescreen player with an HD-friendly 16:9 aspect ratio.

    Perhaps not coincidentally, the announcement follows the video sharing giant’s recent decision to start hosting full-length Hollywood movies.

    Not that anyone will be complaining.

    YouTube has long lagged behind competitors such as Vimeo and Blip.tv.

    They have offered HD and widescreen players for some time now – but they don’t have the audience figures of YouTube.

    So this certainly opens up the options for video fans that steadfastly refused to compromise on quality by submitting to YouTube.

    A YouTube spokesman said that by expanding the page width to 960 pixels the new, wider player would provide viewers with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience.

    The change does mean that since the majority of videos on the site were uploaded as 4:3, they will now appear with black bars on the sides.

    Quite why YouTube hasn’t either given users the option to select a player depending on aspect ratio or, better still, to auto-detect it, is anyone’s guess.

  • Zoran's New Processors Spell Thinner HDTVs


    HDTVs may seem wafer thin already but don’t expect the drive for even slimmer models to stop anytime soon.

    The Zoran Corporation has just announced a pair of new HDTV processors that should help set manufacturers shave a tad more off their future sets.

    Its new SupraHD processors eliminate multiple components from the DTV system design by integrating the TV microcontroller, 8VSB demodulator, audio codec, audio multiplexer, analog video multiplexer and a stack of other functions, including advanced audio processing and color management capabilities, into the single-chip solution.

    If that wasn’t enough, Zoran said its high integration enables a more energy-efficient design, which allows DTV manufacturers to meet the federal Energy Star requirements.

    Jun Kawaguchi, director of the HDTV product line in Zoran’s Home Entertainment division, said the continued integration of DTV functionality into one SoC had many advantages for both TV manufacturers and end users.

    As well as reduced costs and power consumption, he told hdtv.biz-news.com that another benefit of the new SupraHD-785 and SupraHD-775 processors was that they enabled improvements to set design.

    "Lower power, smaller PC boards allow design flexibility that permit thinner, smaller and lighter TVs," he said.

    Kawaguchi said that by integrating multiple components into one chip, the PCB dimension can be reduced and production costs minimized.

    He said reduced costs to manufacturers usually meant lower costs to consumers as well.

    Other factors included improved engineering cost and schedule, which meant TV manufacturers had less engineering development burden, as multiple functionalities can be addressed by one product.

    This reduces the engineering workload for manufacturer, and also accelerates engineering schedules, according to Kawaguchi.

    The SupraHD® 775 and SupraHD® 785 processors integrated functions include the following:

    • TV Microcontroller and unified memory design
    • Market-proven Cascade® ATSC / NTSC / QAM demodulator
    • Audio analog-to-digital converter with 6 stereo pair inputs
    • Audio digital-to-analog converter
    • Three HDMI v.1.3 inputs
    • Advanced audio processing including virtual surround sound and audio expansion capabilities
    • Advanced color management
    • Two 1080P YPbPr analog video inputs
    • WUXGA PC analog video input
    • Three S-video inputs and four composite video inputs with 3D comb filter
    • Integrated dual channel LVDS transmitters with xvYCC Wide Color Gamut support
    • Content adaptive 1080i deinterlacer for interlaced analog video inputs
    • Six stereo pair analog audio inputs
    • Two stereo pair analog audio outputs
    • Picture-in-Picture function
    • USB 2.0 input
    • MPEG noise reduction provides block-free reception of digital transmission

  • REVIEW BoinxTV: Mac-based Live Video Recording Studio

    Jordi Duran i Batidor, co-founder & CTO, of Biz-News.com, has road-tested Bonix Software’s new tool for video podcasters.

    In his interview with hdtv.biz-news Oliver Breidenbach, CEO and co-founder of Bonix Software, explained that he believed BonixTV is a “game changer” providing tools to create “TV-style” quality recordings at an affordable price.

    We had the opportunity to play with the application and here you have our first insights.

    As with any Mac Application, installation is straightforward – you simply have to drag & drop the application into the application folder.

    On the extras folder we can find a great introductory video (link to the video), some  interesting links and some sample files (Basketball Scores and Bonix Crawler).

    When starting the application for first time, it will run the installer, request a licence be installed, accept terms and conditions and we are done.

    The normal start-up screen shows several templates from which to choose. Some of the default ones are great, with everything from chroma, lower thirds, logo, ticker, and closing
    credits.

    We can also set up the output size, where they have conveniently pre-set the most common video formats.

    The application is devised in five zones:

    • a header zone with the logo of the company
    • a control button to manage the layers
    • a central clock to manage the timing with a record button
    • the sound bars and audio adjustment.

    • At the bottom of the application there is a folded window that allow users to find and define sources and layers.


    The central part of the application is split into three columns: on the left we can define the parameter of the current layer, in the middle we can see, organize and control the layers, and on the right there is a video player displaying the output.

    The system is really simple to understand and is based in layers that are applied one on top of the other, adding or modifying the previous signal. It is similar to what you find in photoshop.

    Each layer it has a red button or switch. When clicking on it we activate or deactivate the functionality of this layer. Also layers can be reorganized and we can save our layout as a template for future usage.

    There are plenty of layers in the default installation of BonixTV. We can find layers to manage: Video Input (Single video, Video Switcher up to 4 cameras, Interview with 2 simultaneous videos), Backgrounds, video backgrounds, Transitions, Efects, 3D effects Audio only, Clocks, Lower thirds,headline tickers, RSS tickers, Logo, etc

    Two promising layers are the Basketball scores and Weather Map. Those layers are made with the idea of demonstrating the possibilities of BonixTV. But the current customization interface for the layers doesn’t allow you to, for example change, the background map, so unless you want to do the forecast of Germany it will be useless for you.

    The good news is that those layers are programed in Quartz Composer – a free and easy to use developer tool that you can get if you are member of the Apple ADC program.

    Also if you don’t want to learn Quartz, Bonix has an option to request a customized layer for an introductory price of USD $999.

    Every layer has its own parameters, for example the weather layer asks conditions and temperature for the four regions in Germany, while the lower third lets us define the background image, the animation, position, text…

    Every layer can be activated via a shortcut, that can be defined. Also the layers can be activated via trigger, for example, when we click on "stop recording" the layer of credits can be activated automatically.

    Sources

    We have tested the application with two cameras, and several other sources like video files, images and audio files. Defining a new camera is quite easy, we connected a firewire camera while the program was running, clicked on sources, added devicdes, and then selected the video and audio device.

    A great addition to this program would be the possibility to use Internet video streams as sources. For example, if we want to interview somebody via skype, use the Skype video-in as source for the program. If Skype is too complex, they can use streaming protocols mostly used in live broadcasting site like Ustream.tv, or Kyte.tv, for example.

    Creating your own studio

    Hidden in the Extras / Links folder, there is a gem, a link to the Studio Equipment page. At that page, they feature two interestingoptions:

    • The first is the PowerKeys for iPhone, to remote control BonixTV by assigning keyboardshortcuts on a virtual iPhone keyboard.
    • The second one is a Firewire repeater or extender, allowing to connect firewire devices up to 65m from your computer thanks to a ethernet conversion (it uses a cross cable).

    Conclusions

    BonixTV is a great application, easy to use and powerful. We like the extensibility of the layers via Quartz Composer, but we would love to see sooner rather than later a less complex tool to manage weather maps, and basketball scores inside the BonixTV application.

    A missing functionality, is a strong streaming capability, in our opinion this tool is for live broadcasting, and has to make it easy to plug the output of BonixTV into Ustream.tv, kyte.tv and others.

    And as said before, it would be great if streaming video could be also used as camera. This could be used to do remote interviews, but also to use wireless webcams as input source.

  • Blu-Ray Takes On Pirates And Old HD Rival In China


    Blu-Ray discs will go on sale in China for the first time today – officially that is.

    While it’s been possible to buy dubious pirated version of the high-def format for some time, today marks the start of what is expected to be a major push by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment into the vast Chinese market.

    Discs will be priced in the region of RMB200 (USD $30) and will be available online and in-store.

    The initial movie offering isn’t extensive – just 30 titles will be available – including Hancock, the recent Spiderman movies and classics including Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

    To coincide with the introduction of the discs, Sony is also launching its BDP-S350 Blu-ray player into the Chinese market.

    It’s an environment where rampant piracy of high-definition discs, among other things, is already an issue.

    Authorities in China recently seized over 800 illegally pirated Blu-ray titles. The discs contained movies ripped from Blu-ray to DVD using AVCHD compression.

    The fakes, seized in Shenzhen, were packaged in realistic-looking Blu-ray boxes, complete with authenticating holograms.

    The bust has highlighted flaws in the robust copy-protection that Blu-ray is supposed to have, although the Motion Picture Association International said this was the first ever seizure of this type of disc.

    Sony Pictures is the first Hollywood studios to release films on the high definition format in China but both Warner Brothers and Disney are in talks with local replicators and distributors in order to release their Blu-ray titles in the country as well.

    But pirates aren’t the only opposition Blu-ray is likely to face.

    Production of China’s self-developed high-definition optical disc format – China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) – is expected to begin production before the end of the year.

    Shanghai United Optical Disc has completed its first production line for the modified version of the Toshiba-supported HD DVD format that lost out to Blu-ray.

    But with no Hollywood studios on board, it faces an uphill battle with (at least) three studios now preparing Blu-ray releases in China.

  • How will Xbox's streaming HD Fare Against PS3's Blu-ray?


    For a while now, Sony’s PS3 has done very well out of being the best Blu-ray player in its price range – oh, and you can play games with it too.

    So it will be interesting to see how it fares now that Microsoft’s Xbox is offering US users streaming HD content from Netflix.

    That, and the fact that Blu-ray player prices generally are falling drastically, may have some impact on the Sony console.

    PS3 sales figures for the third quarter showed a very respectable 56 per cent increase year-over-year, even if total numbers were lagging behind Nintendo’s Wii and the Xbox 360.

    There are also now 14 million active PlayStation Network (PSN) accounts worldwide – equalling the number of Xbox Live (XBL) subscribers, according to Sony.

    Registered PSN users have leapt by four million since July, with the total amount of content downloaded shooting up from 170 million pieces to 273 million pieces.

    That said, the Xbox 360 isn’t doing badly. Microsoft forecasts that by the end of this month, 25 million Xbox 360 consoles will have been sold worldwide.

    The NPD Group reported in September that the Xbox 360 was ahead of the PlayStation 3 in sales for the first time in months – even if only by a slim margin.

    So Microsoft will be hoping that today’s Xbox update will add further appeal to its console and keep those totals climbing higher.

    It will be offering HD content from Netflix, the latest entrant to the rapidly growing streaming digital market that has seen a series of set-top boxes begin offering the service.

    Movies from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment subsidiary, Columbia Pictures, will not be available to Xbox 360 users streaming via Netflix, though.

    Shortly before Xbox 360’s update went live, the list of movies available for Netflix Watch Instantly streaming suddenly dropped all Columbia’s offerings.

    All the blocked content can still be viewed online and through all other Netflix enabled TV devices except for the 360.

    Rivalry issues aside, as well as the lure of high-def programming, the Xbox changes offer a new interface with a simpler panel and new customizable avatars to display users in the friends list and certain games.

    A LIVE Party function can be used to virtually host up to seven friends for voice chat, game play, and photo sharing.

    There is also a community games channel which allows users to play games that have been created by private individuals.

    Among the new games to be launched are "You’re in the Movies" and "Lips".

    So, plenty of entertaiment for Xbox users to get their teeth into – but will it be enough to halt the march of the PS3?