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LCD price drops could be ending soon
The good 'ol days could be coming to an end soon. Analysts are indicating that the predictable nature of LCD TVs could stop soon and it's kind of our fault. You see, around here, we report all these cool, new products that are coming out soon and in turn, you don't buy the current model. Plus, there was that whole World Cup fiasco where the manufactures hiked up the production lines but people didn't buy nearly enough of 'em. Because of both of these things, primarily the second one, there is an over-supply of these panels and the predictable price dropping nature of flat-panels maybe coming to an end soon. This isn't to say that they won't drop in price overtime, just not to the extreme they have been over the last few years.
Global plasma shipments only rose 3% in the second quarter
This last quarter was suppose to be another 'golden quarter' for display makers thanks to the most watched event in television history. These manufacturers were expecting the World Cup to help flat-panel shipments score. (sorry, had to) While shipments did raise 3%, it wasn't the goal (sorry again) that they were expecting. Plasma makers were expecting somewhere near 8% instead of the 3% they ended up with. The World Cup just didn't garner the amount of demand that was expected.
More on HD in Africa for the World Cup
Following up on a story we reported last week about preparing Africa for the World Cup in HDTV, Sony released some news about the 4k (or 4,000-plus-pixel capable) projectors they demoed at this year's World Cup broadcasts in South Africa. Using a projector that is capable of 4k resolution (four times the normal 1080 lines of high-definition resolution), Sony claims their Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD) projector helped with the first live HD transmission on the continent.The projector can drive either four different 1920x1080-pixel screens, or be combined into one 4096x2160-pixel monster display. At up to 18,000 lumens, it's also obviously designed for outdoor venues and movie theaters, but it's great to see yet another area getting exposure to the superb detail and color of high definition. We thought HD was all over the place for the 2006 games, but it's clear we can expect even greater display and broadcast technologies when the 2010 games roll around.Do you think we'lll have to wait for the World Cup games in 2010 to get the ultimate in HD display and transmission technologies like these, or will all this be old news by then?
MLS pushing "The Beautiful Game" on HDNet
In case you didn't have your fill of high definition round-ball football action during the World Cup on ABC & ESPN, Major League Soccer wants you to remember we play some soccer in HD over here too. They've scheduled 10 of the remaining 15 HDNet broadcast games, 7 of which will be exclusive to the network. All are broadcast in 1080i and 5.1 surround, the list of games scheduled so far follows.
World's largest Philips Ambilight screen installed for the World Cup
The Dolphins Stadium might have some competition for "World's Largest HDTV screen." Philips installed 34 very large high-def screens all across Germany for sports fans to enjoy the world cup. They were 77m2, but by our math, that doesn't top the Dolphins Stadium massive 114m2 screen. Sorry Philips, unless our math is off, your screens are big, they really are, but not the largest. What's cool about these screens though is that Philips installed an Ambilight system behind of them that would make the screens appear bigger then they really are. Tricky Philips, tricky.Did anyone have the opportunity to see one of these screens in action? What did you think?
South Africa prepping high-def for the 2010 World Cup
HDTV is coming to South Africa just in time for the 2010 World Cup. A broadband company, Sentech, is set to roll out Digital Terrestrial Televsion, or DTT, just in time to met the governements requirment. This system is set to cost them one billon Rand, 140 million US, to roll out and will take up to five years for a complete installation. The 2010 World Cup is going to be hosted by South Africa and FIFA demands that the country has the ability to broadcast high-def. We wish them all the luck and speed they are going to need in order to upgrade an analog system to high-def in four years.
30% failure rate for BSkyB set-top HDTV boxes?
We've got some experience with glitchy HDTV/DVR set top boxes, but it looks like things are even worse over on the other side of the pond. With almost all their HD customers only recently buying sets for the world cup, many are using the digital connections and experiencing a lot of problems like picture and sound dropouts. Specifically cited is the implementation of HDCP, as many have been able to get around the problems by switching to analog connectors.Of course this doesn't do much for customers expecting a sharper picture out of their digital hookup or maybe have spent a lot of money on a digital cable they can't use, but SkyHD and even some TV manufacturers may have to update their software for this to be fixed.Glitch ridden high-def rollouts are becoming all too common, particularly for the "lucky" few who were able to get their service installed prior to the World Cup, but this may explain why some service providers are so unwilling to even enable the HDMI or DVI outputs on their boxes. If it doesn't work, there is a resulting shifting of blame between the provider and TV manufacturer while the customer's problem continues. Same problem with rolling out CableCard, neither side wants to take responsibility for making it work if there's a problem.
Robots on guard duty at World Cup
It seems that not all of our robot friends are lucky enough to be able to kick back and play a bit of soccer of their own in Germany this month. No, some are stuck with the lowly task of protecting us humans, with eleven Linux-based robots from Robowatch Technologies providing both indoor and outdoor surveillance at Berlin's Olympic Stadium every night until the final World Cup game on July 9th. The outdoor robots, known as ORFO, use GPS to patrol an area up to two kilometers away from the control center and pack thermal cameras able to detect intruders by their body heat. Alas, it appears they are unarmed -- which is probably for the best, you know, in the grand scheme of things. The indoor robots, dubbed MORSO, are deployed throughout the stadium, equipped with video cameras, radar sensors, temperature gauges, and infrared scanners able to detect movement or any changes to the stadium. The robots also use 3G technology to communicate with the control center and, presumably, to watch some TV on their breaks.
Breakfast Topic: Football and WoW
For me, venturing into Azeroth is a form of escapism. The real life intersects with WoW in many ways, from various in-game pop culture references to events like Noblegarden and Winter Veil. However, sometimes there are parts of the real life you don't want to see in your virtual world of choice.With the recent World Cup fever, England has gone football (or soccer, to some) crazy. I'm not a fan of the game; let's skip the anti-football rant for now. I foolishly thought WoW might remain a football-free zone, but logging on to the European servers these days gets a fair few /yells, spam in General ("Come on ENGLAAAAAAAAAAAAAND") and even talk in various other chat channels. It's impossible to ignore everyone talking about the game, and yet I wish I could. Not only does it break the immersion, it's tiresome.Are the American servers succumbing to World Cup fever? Or are they truly football-free? If the latter, I may have to dust off an alt or two. Or should I suffer the spam in order to conduct an extensive investigation into the declining number of PuGs when a match is on?
US Open: Worse HD coverage than the World Cup
Did anyone catch the US Open over the weekend? It was a great sporting event that was butchered by piss-poor HD coverage. There wasn't a five minute interval that didn't have at-least three SD camera shots in it. The event was supposed to be in HD but ESPNHD and NBC continually switched to non-HD. This is somewhat of a common thing on a large course like Winged Foot but both stations insisted on presenting us with Stretch-O-Vision. Normally, ESPNHD would put their logo bars on the side, but that didn't happen this time. One of the best SD camera shots was of a golfer teeing off and they switched from their HD feed to an SD feed and you could clearly make out the other high-def camera that was just on. Now we know many of you had issues with the World Cup coverage but there is no way it was worse the the US Open.
RoboCup underway in Germany
Human footballers aren't the only ones in Germany getting a little bit of lovin' this time of year. More than 400 teams from 36 countries have shown up for the annual RoboCup, which pits robot against robot in soccer matches across 11 leagues. The goal, as always, is to have a humanoid robot team capable of beating the human World Cup champs in 2050, but right now a lot of the robots are just happy to stand up. Current favorites in the humanoid competition is a team from Japan, while the returning champs from Germany are expected to do well in the four-legged league. Live commentary for some matches will be provided by Sango and Ami, two robots from Carnegie Mellon who explain rules, analyze fouls and call out the goals with their very own "personalities." No word if former star RoboVie-V will be making an appearance among the robot horde, but the real question is: can they dance like Peter Crouch?
Annoying sound, video problems mar high-def World Cup broadcast
While the guys playing in the World Cup are professionals, it seems the stateside broadcasters are still very much amateurs when it comes to displaying the beautiful game. I've caught a couple games since the tournament started, and while the quality of the broadcast is excellent. You can see everything very clearly and the sport is more fun to watch in widescreen, as you can see the positioning of the players better. While it is almost enough to wipe the nasty taste of the Winter Olympics debacle from my mouth, and doesn't have the HDTV compression problems cited in Korea, there are still some issues to be worked out.
Overcompressed bitstarved HDTV frustrates World Cup fans
It's an unfortunate but familiar circumstance for many high definition television owners, after spending a lot of money on a new HDTV, hooked up the cable/satellite/antenna and settled in to watch the big game, only to get a blurry, blocky mess. While American soccer futbot football soccer fans have commented that they "can finally see the ball" during the World Cup broadcast, Korean watchers are flooding the nations three major broadcasters with complaints that they can't see anything thats moving quickly.The broadcasters have been testing a new multicasting system, MMS to broadcast more channels within the same frequency, lowering the bitrate from 19Mbps to 13Mbps. It looks like viewers noticed the difference, with threats to sue and other complaints posted on the internet. The Korean Broadcasting Commission is going to vote tomorrow on whether to continue the MMS test or not. Korea, we've got our fingers crossed. Whether or not someone will sue ESPN for their poor color commentary during games remains to be seen.
The geek version of the World Cup
Alice spotted this snap of the geek's version of the World Cup from the Electronic Football Challenge '06. I'm sure many gamers are intrigued by the logic behind a football game that doesn't require much more effort than rapid wrist movements and lets players argue with the referee over irc. Also, check out the absent keeper from the nearest team: they must have replaced him with a firewall (sorry).If you're the type that prefers -- slightly more -- real football, then you might be pleased to know that Konami dropped us a line to say that they've signed (according to the press release) "one of the most dangerous strikers in soccer today", Adriano "lightning balls" Ribeiro, to be the figurehead of Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007.
World Cup tech: HD, mobile, and web TV makes Cup hard to miss
With the FIFA World Cup set for kickoff at 11:55AM EST today, most of us Americans are still sitting around scratching our heads trying to figure out how to pronounce Pelé, and whether we'd be offending anybody if we just called football "soccer" so things are less confusing. Turns out we are very alone in this predicament, since in 2002 the World Cup nabbed a total TV viewership of 29 billion, with 1.1 billion people viewing Brazil's defeat of Germany in the finale. The tournament takes place among 32 teams over the course of a month, and is being hosted by Germany this time around -- who have built or retrofitted 12 stadiums to host the 64 matches. Suffice it to say that this is the biggest sporting event in the world, making our American football's Super Bowl look quite minuscule by comparison. And what better way to celebrate this month of sporting excess than to round up all the tech it entails? If you need a bit more convincing, we recommend Larry Dobrow's "The Ignorant American's Guide to the World Cup," and if that doesn't help, might we remind you of the decent chance of celebratory and/or irate crazed-fan rioting -- brought to you live in HD? While there are a myriad of ways to actually receive live TV of the matches all over the world, the main source for all this video is a team-up of HBS and Deutsche Telekom's T-Systems Media&Broadcast. HBS (Host Broadcast Services) is a dedicated organization set specifically to produce TV and radio coverage of the tournament, and they're all set with a staff of 2,000 to produce live 16:9, SD, PAL, and HDTV coverage from all 12 stadiums. The 1080i/50 MPEG-2 signals alone run at 1,485Mbps, with a minimum of 20 HDTV cameras running for each match. That's where T-Systems Media&Broadcast steps in: pumping out all that data. They'll be on the scene with ISDN, Ethernet, WiFi, DSL, EDGE, UMTS and HSDPA to shoot HBS signals to the International Broadcast Centre master control in Munich, and to manage all the other data from the 15,000 or so press people on the scene. From the IBC, the video and audio "pool feed" gets shipped off to more than 180 broadcasters worldwide. You think we're done? Not a chance, click on!
Comcast is adding ESPN2-HD in time for the World Cup
Many have complained after seeing the World Cup TV schedule that a significant number of the games are on ESPN2, which does broadcast in HD but most companies don't carry. Comcast has announced they will add ESPN2-HD in "several markets" tomorrow...but they didn't say which ones. So for all the soccer futbol fans out there, you might be in luck...or you might not. If anyone can get ahold of the list of cities or areas where ESPN2-HD will be available or if other carriers will add the channel as well, please let us know in the comments.
2006 World Cup HD Schedule
The 2006 World Cup kicks off tomorrow at 11:55 a.m. EST, I know, I know, everyone knows that. With less than 24 hours to go, I thought it would be a good time to remind everyone of the HD schedule or the where and the when. While it is great news that all the games will be produced in HD, we all won't be able to enjoy them because of our own programming challenges. Here in the US the coverage is split between ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, which are all owned by Disney. It has always been a mystery to us how they decide which network cover which event and the World Cup isn't any different. ESPN-HD is carried by many more companies than ESPN2-HD and ever since the launch of ESPN2-HD viewers everywhere have been crying; Why do they need two ESPN-HD channels when the first isn't full of HD? We am sure they have their reasons and we're pretty sure our best interests are not in mind. As a result soccer fans everywhere are going to be crying to their providers to carry ESPN2-HD, ahh now we see why they have 2. As for the where and the when, head over to HDSportsguide.com for the full schedule here in the states and I know it isn't that popular in the states, but we are going to at least watch one game, if for no other reason than to comment on the production quality. The first US game will be on ESPN2HD at 11:55 a.m. EST on June 12th 2006.
Need a wee during the World Cup final? Just bring your PSP
I'm not exactly what you'd call football's number one fan (that's soccer to Americans), but a lot of my friends are close. That's why I'm slightly depressed to bring you news of a World Cup themed feature for the PSP that I know a lot of my footie-loving friends would love to get their hands on. The aptly named (at least for this post) P-TV, the portable TV service for PSPs, is offering all 64 World Cup matches for viewing on the PSP for around a dollar per game. A visit to the "jardin" during a match will no longer be a problem: if you live in Japan. Yep, the deal's exclusive to the land of the steel phallus.In all seriousness, Sony could sell a bucketload of PSPs in the UK if they combined a "don't miss a single shot" marketing line with this promotion. There's no problem with access either: a lot of pubs now serve up wifi with their pints. Unfortunately, unless Sony ends up bringing this deal out of Japan, then footie fans will have to resort to that other boring, but tried-and-tested method for minimizing water breaks: not drinking so much damned beer!
Plasmas being installed in bus drivers lunch rooms - Australia
Oh World Cup. How people must watch you in high-def. You have even gotten Australian bus social clubs to install plasmas in their members lunch rooms so they can watch you while they eat. You are just so riveting that these groups are afraid that their drivers will stay up all night watching you and they are naturally concerned for their riders. You don't want to hurt any body, do you World Cup Why do you do this to these people World Cup? You are depriving them of sleep and making them spend their well earned lunches watching you on a gorgeous HDTV. Why World Cup...Why?
HDTV World Cup madness sweeps the world...but not South America
With World Cup action just a week away, HDTVs are flying off store shelves and broadcasters are gearing up to provide high definition signals worldwide...but not quite. If you live in the Americas south of Mexico there will be no high-def broadcasts available to you as the governments there have not agreed on a broadcast standard. As the article notes (and we've noted previously), Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Colombia are looking into it, but will not have anything set until well after this summer's sports action has ended. Unfortunately, the people of futbol-crazy South America won't get the same broadcast quality available elsewhere, at least in Europe people will go to bars or even movie theaters to catch the HD game. Our government (with quite a bit of prodding from CE manufacturers) at least has a standard set so we can watch HD, now if they can just work something out so cable subscribers can get more channels.Read (Translated by Google)