SED TVs delayed again

[RayB]

Looks like we'll have to wait yet again for the final release of SED technology television sets and monitors.  THANKS TO PATENT LITIGATION. *sigh*

http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1310328.php/SED_TVs_put_on_hold%85_again

(SED television uses electrons just like normal CRT tubes, but they've managed to make it truly "flat". The picture thus is superior to LCD or Plasma)

[ChadTower]

Eh, by the time it actually hit the market, then came down to a price a sane person would pay, there would be something "newer and better" in line anyway.    I wouldn't hold your breath.

[shorthair]

HA. AND HERE IT IS! (Didn't even have to create a new thread. Serendipity, indeed.)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a1e_1180120325

[ChadTower]

Okay, that one has all sorts of potential.  Blade Runner Fifth Element stuff.

[RayB]

whatever. Five years from now everyone who bought a plasma will be dumping their DIM television sets (that's what happens to plasma tvs).  SED will be the viable replacement.

[MikeQ]

whatever. Five years from now everyone who bought a plasma will be dumping their DIM television sets (that's what happens to plasma tvs).  SED will be the viable replacement.

I've had a plasma for more than 5 years and  it looks great.  The bad press about plasma is mostly false.

[shorthair]

Sony would love to come up with something innovative.  They've been bleeding money for years.  More flat screen tech?  Bah.  Wake me up when someone has hologram TVs.

There ya go. Particularly as they've been imagined and speculated about since at least the 40s and 50s in SF, and in a less technical/more metaphorical fashion before that in carnival culture.


RayB: yeah, they will, but not for SEDs. The regular market model is starting to fold. This was predicted in NEUROMANCER ('84).

[boykster]

whatever. Five years from now everyone who bought a plasma will be dumping their DIM television sets (that's what happens to plasma tvs). 

That's funny, I have a 5 year old plasma, that has been used responsibly (ie not left on for hours on end when nobody's watching it) and has about 6000 hours of viewing on it.  Still works wonderfully, no need to "dump" it as you say....

This generation plasma (from 2002) had a 1/2 life lifespan of 15000 hours....that's 7 years at 6 hours a day viewing.  I'm not quite 1/2 way there.  Newer plasmas have a 1/2 life lifespan of nearing 60000 hours...thats 27 years of 6 hours a day viewing.  27 YEARS!  And of course, that's until you reach 1/2 brightness, no reason you can't keep watching that set, simply turning the brightness and contrast up to compensate.

 

I love it how people read/hear something, take it WAY too literally and then spread mis-information.

Don't get me wrong, SED and other thin/low-power/flexible/etc technologies are cool, and I'm interested in the next wave of technologies.....but dissing current tech is pretty silly.

[MikeQ]

I've actually not been too kind to mine and never suffered any problems.  I've left static images on it for the good part of a day and never seen burn in.  Mine for a while acted as a digital picture frame so it was on constantly scrolling through thousands of photos for days at a time.  I ran a calibration DVD on it when I got it 5+ years ago and recently did so again.  Nothing was out of wack at all.  AVS forum has a lot of information and case history on the durability of Plasma.  I read numerous articles before buying mine and most of the bad press came from commercial Plasma sets.  Plasma TV has been around since 1964 and because of the cost, its primary application was in the commercial sector.  These are environments where sets are almost never turned off and display the same images for their lifetime.  Early sets had burn-in issues and loss of brightness.  These problems were engineered out before Plasma went mass market.

[boykster]

Yep, good stuff.  AVS was a major resource for all 3 of my plasma purchases, as well as many other things.  I'm boykster over there too 

I agree that most of the anti-plasma hype is true, albeit with some pretty major asterisks.  Sure, you can get burnin on a plasma, but you have to try pretty hard to do it.  Sure, plasmas will dim over time, but when you actually look at the numbers, it's a LOOONG time before you might see a problem.

Your plasma will break for other reasons well before you notice a substantial decreas in picture quality...

[ChadTower]

That must have been one bigass bag of chips.

[Havok]

I've actually not been too kind to mine and never suffered any problems.  I've left static images on it for the good part of a day and never seen burn in.  Mine for a while acted as a digital picture frame so it was on constantly scrolling through thousands of photos for days at a time.  I ran a calibration DVD on it when I got it 5+ years ago and recently did so again.  Nothing was out of wack at all.  AVS forum has a lot of information and case history on the durability of Plasma.  I read numerous articles before buying mine and most of the bad press came from commercial Plasma sets.  Plasma TV has been around since 1964 and because of the cost, its primary application was in the commercial sector.  These are environments where sets are almost never turned off and display the same images for their lifetime.  Early sets had burn-in issues and loss of brightness.  These problems were engineered out before Plasma went mass market.

The main issue with Plasma however, is that they do degrade in image quality over time. Take a new set and put it next to yours, and you will see a difference. However, it's not as bad as "they" say, and you get used to it, so I'm sure it doesn't look that bad. There is a lot of bad press about plasma, but they can work for a long while if used responsibly. I'll never get one just because it would be left on all the time - more than once I wake up for work, go downstairs, and the damn tv is on.

I'm with pinballjim - get me a hologram tv!!!

[Jeff AMN]

I finally decided to stop waiting and just get a TV now. I was holding out to see how several technologies were going to play out, but I realized that no matter when you buy, the next big thing is just around the corner. You could essentially be waiting forever.

I ended up buying a Samsung HL-S6187. It's a 61" 1080p set that looks downright incredible. It was actually delivered to my home about an hour before the Super Bowl kicked off. After some tweaking with some home theater guides, I can honestly say that I've never seen a better picture on any other set in my life (in person). I wouldn't trade owning this set now for getting something else down the line later.

Seeing hi-def, especially 1080p, content (both movies and games) on the set always manages to wow me, even after all this time.

[ChadTower]

Still don't have HD... we like the Tivos too much.

[Jeff AMN]

Still don't have HD... we like the Tivos too much.

Heh, and the HD TiVo is way too expensive.

I actually have an HD-DVR that doesn't have a monthly subscription. It's 100% free, and it has its own guide that it updates each night. It also accepts cable card. I doubt I'll ever part with that beautiful box sitting under my TV.

[ChadTower]

Home built?

[Jeff AMN]

No, Sony made it a couple of years ago. TiVo kinda pressured big box companies like Best Buy into giving it crap for shelf space. I don't know why it didn't take off. I has full HDMI/component/composite/s-video support, a 250GB hard drive, and a pretty slick interface.

I think it was $400 brand new, and now used ones go for around $500 or higher. I think you can mod them to put in a larger drive, but space has never been an issue. I have all of season 3 of Lost on there in HD, most of the Heroes season in HD, and a few other things. I think I still have like 25% of my space left.

[boykster]

Home built?

AFAIK, only Vista PC's can use cablecards.....considering that you can get a rebate on teh new series 3 Tivos for Father's day that brings the price down to ~$400, that would be a cheaper route than building a dedicated homegrown HD DVR....

[ChadTower]

It would be cheaper, but still too much for not enough, IMO.  Plus we have DirecTV, which complicates the DVR situation.

[Jeff AMN]

Here it is: http://tinyurl.com/2w76h2

Subscription free is what makes it so great. This one is a 500GB model, but according to the description it has "significant scratches or scuffs". I bet it's beat half to hell, but it works.

EDIT: Made the URL shorter to keep from stretching the page.

[boykster]

Oh I hear you, don't worry.  I think that there are a lot of ppl who are still married to their legacy Tivo setups because they're so darn useful, and the move to upgrade all the hardware to HD would be too expensive.

A computer based HD DVR solution for satellite is going to be a non-starter.  Of course you'd have to upgrade your sat. hardware, and then there's the problem of capturing the HD video.  There is no affordable component video input/capture card that can support HD resolutions.  There are a couple that will do 480p, but not HD.

I'm somewhat tempted by the series 3 tivo, but I'm actually pretty happy with the motorola HD DVR I get from comcast....Its no tivo, but it records shows and lets me rewind/ffw/etc.

[ChadTower]

I just took a peek at DirecTV's HD DVR... the site is saying $200 plus free dish upgrade.  That's a lot better than it was last time I looked.

Of course, then I have to pay $10/month just for the priveledge of HD content.  The only HD capable set we have is only 32", anyway, so it wouldn't really be THAT much improvement.  Certainly not $10/month better on top of a $200 upgrade and losing Tivo in that room.

[MustardTent]

I recently switched to DirecTV and got the HD-DVR.  I like it a lot -- it has a great interface.  My only gripe is that there's just a little lag time between button presses and the DVR's reaction to them.

[MustardTent]

How well do third-party DVR's integrate into digital setups?  Like the Sony mentioned above -- If you have digital cable, the provider has control over who gets to connect to their system -- do you get the provider to allow the Sony/Tivo, or do you tune via the cable box and only record on the Sony (or Tivo)?

[ChadTower]

My only gripe is that there's just a little lag time between button presses and the DVR's reaction to them.

That happens with DirecTivos at times, too, depending on the load on the box and the strength of the remote batteries.   

[boykster]

How well do third-party DVR's integrate into digital setups?  Like the Sony mentioned above -- If you have digital cable, the provider has control over who gets to connect to their system -- do you get the provider to allow the Sony/Tivo, or do you tune via the cable box and only record on the Sony (or Tivo)?

I can't speak to the "how well" do they work, but the newer ones integrate with cable systems using a cablecard....

[shorthair]

Seeing hi-def, especially 1080p, content (both movies and games) on the set always manages to wow me, even after all this time.

By games do you mean Mame? If so, any pictures?

Something I've had in mind for many years, and something I bet no one here has realised: there's an issue with holographic display. Not the technology, which actually I'm sure is possible even now, but with POV. How do you set things in a real 3D environment with respect to the viewer? (Note: in books, this is easy.)

And on Tivo, etc. : a dude in the computer section a my local Best Buy said he had at least a terabyte of storage at home; I had the impression that was tentative on getting more. We're already starting to see this - and the whole mainframe concept of the 40s and 50s was grounded in this and seems to be returning, as well as the concept being predicted and displayed in David Brin's EARTH - where we'll simply have access devices (be they terminals or internal), perhaps with some storage, and be able to call up any data at any moment.

[CheffoJeffo]

Seeing hi-def, especially 1080p, content (both movies and games) on the set always manages to wow me, even after all this time.

By games do you mean Mame? If so, any pictures?

For someone who is always quoting somebody else's predictions about the future, you really don't know that much about the stuff you talk about, do you ?

 

[jbox]

And on Tivo, etc. : a dude in the computer section a my local Best Buy said he had at least a terabyte of storage at home; I had the impression that was tentative on getting more. We're already starting to see this - and the whole mainframe concept of the 40s and 50s was grounded in this and seems to be returning, as well as the concept being predicted and displayed in David Brin's EARTH - where we'll simply have access devices (be they terminals or internal), perhaps with some storage, and be able to call up any data at any moment.

Sun tried this and it failed - because CPU's just got faster so much quicker than networking did. Dumb terminals are dead, and will stay dead unless someone manages to discover a zuper-duper wireless system for 100 TB/s networking. Network storage on the other hand is getting better and better. The uni here now has a bunch of OSX Macs that can be auto-magically re-installed, rebooted and ready to go any night they decide just by dropping a new image on the control server (eg. whenever new apps or patches need to be installed). From a design point of view user mobility is maximised when the PC HDD works the same your RAM does as a high-speed storage cache between your CPU and the file server, but there are still waaayyyyy too many applications taking stupid shortcuts and ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- for that system to be fully automagic for anything other than highly homogeneous environments like school computer labs. 

[ChadTower]

That's actually VERY easy to do if you can predict the exact hardware and drivers in every situation.  For an appliance like a Tivo, where the company knows exactly what is in every box, you could easily bounce down a new app or whole drive image whenver you wanted to, if you had good enough access to every box.

[shorthair]

Seeing hi-def, especially 1080p, content (both movies and games) on the set always manages to wow me, even after all this time.

By games do you mean Mame? If so, any pictures?

For someone who is always quoting somebody else's predictions about the future, you really don't know that much about the stuff you talk about, do you ?

 

I have no idea what you're referring to.

[jbox]

That's actually VERY easy to do if you can predict the exact hardware and drivers in every situation.  For an appliance like a Tivo, where the company knows exactly what is in every box, you could easily bounce down a new app or whole drive image whenver you wanted to, if you had good enough access to every box.

Hardware, drivers *and* software. You have to know how to not delete all of the users custom settings for their applications when you upload the new image. The *NIX practise of using ~/.appname is good, but there is still too much stuff in /etc to get away with it at the moment. Groups like GoboLinux are trying to encourage this shift away from the 1980's "OMFGZ the HDD is sooo expensive we need to share competing versions of msfc.dll to save space" towards the < $1/Gb situation we have now that means software should be "installable" and "removable" by simply copying/deleting the app directory and editing your ~/.MIME-TYPES file. 

[ChadTower]

Hardware, drivers *and* software. You have to know how to not delete all of the users custom settings for their applications when you upload the new image.

If it's your known hardware and your known software, it is a given that you have designed it with this function in mind.  If not, you're just not doing a competent job. 

[jbox]

I was originally responding to this comment, which does not include a caveat that there is only one computer manufacturer left in the world, but then again I haven't read that book either:

the whole mainframe concept of the 40s and 50s was grounded in this and seems to be returning, as well as the concept being predicted and displayed in David Brin's EARTH - where we'll simply have access devices (be they terminals or internal), perhaps with some storage, and be able to call up any data at any moment.

Start-to-End suppliers like TiVo and Apple have no excuse about *not* being able to do this I agree, but if more software developers started using the ~/.appname vs "I've hidden entries in C:\Windows\*, C:\Program Files\App\* and the registry as well", then the technical problems with doing this for 3rd party software as well would start to vanish. For non-sales groups like Linux and in-house apps that would make it *vastly* easier to do remote management at the click of a button.

Now if only we can get those MicroKernel's working better... 

[ChadTower]

I see no reason why an application designed to be run on a general purpose PC, something other than a closed appliance (like a Tivo), would be expected to conform to standards that make such things easier for other companies.  Just doesn't make sense from an app architecture and business perspective.

[jbox]

For non-sales groups like Linux and in-house apps that would make it *vastly* easier to do remote management at the click of a button.

It is a well established business fact that established players will make moves against their own long term survival if it can destroy a competitor today. This doesn't stop people from pondering ideas like: "hey, wouldn't it be great if we standardised these tools using, say stdin and stdout, so that we could chain a whole bunch of *different* applications together?" Or the idea that making the system Look & Feel available to 3rd party developers makes your platform less hideous to users? Lots of standardisation happens once users start demanding it, I was simply pointing out to shorty that you wont get his utopian "universal access point" idea working until you get the software developers to stop doing nasty shortcuts just to try and make a few bucks.

[shorthair]

Oh, dude, it's way more clandestine than that. But I'm not even remotely referencing utopia. I think things will become more mainframe-like cos of the physical independence people are progressively wanting from systems. Wireless is a gradual example.

Still, things could end up much like Adamists in Peter F. Hamilton's Confederation Universe, where they have nano systems (he calls them nanonics - cute term, there) with assloads of storage and stuff, yet everything is utterly dependent on networks, particularly building-specific.

Alternatively, I prefer his speculation on the Edenists, also of the same universe.

[boykster]

I seriously doubt we are heading back towards a monolithic mainframe based system. We're definately heading toward distributed computing on a global scale, heck even individual computers themselves are heading toward a "distributed" architecture.

I have multi-terabytes of storage at my house....on 3 large storage arrays on 2 seperate computers.  However, the storage is abstracted from the application. I have a central app server and an array of client "servers" (HTPC's) that rely on the central storage for content, but are not slaves to it. 

[shorthair]

Well, you really have to read the literature to see what I'm talking about. In the case of the Edenists, they all have what's called affinity, which is a sort of psuedo-telepathy aided by quantum entanglement. The classy part is it's completely organic in construction: cloned-neuronal symbionts that exist at the basal ganglia. Then their habitats are living, cognizant, recognised-as-'individuals' structures that also have affinity. So, the system is distributed, yes, but it's so sophisticated that it itself is the mainframe. It's embedded. I mean, nature is a huge embedded system. It's so sophisticated, as it's informed by the physics of the cosmos, that at every level information is embedded its very process.

[Howard_Casto]

I've actually not been too kind to mine and never suffered any problems.  I've left static images on it for the good part of a day and never seen burn in.  Mine for a while acted as a digital picture frame so it was on constantly scrolling through thousands of photos for days at a time.  I ran a calibration DVD on it when I got it 5+ years ago and recently did so again.  Nothing was out of wack at all.  AVS forum has a lot of information and case history on the durability of Plasma.  I read numerous articles before buying mine and most of the bad press came from commercial Plasma sets.  Plasma TV has been around since 1964 and because of the cost, its primary application was in the commercial sector.  These are environments where sets are almost never turned off and display the same images for their lifetime.  Early sets had burn-in issues and loss of brightness.  These problems were engineered out before Plasma went mass market.

The main issue with Plasma however, is that they do degrade in image quality over time. Take a new set and put it next to yours, and you will see a difference. However, it's not as bad as "they" say, and you get used to it, so I'm sure it doesn't look that bad. There is a lot of bad press about plasma, but they can work for a long while if used responsibly. I'll never get one just because it would be left on all the time - more than once I wake up for work, go downstairs, and the damn tv is on.

I'm with pinballjim - get me a hologram tv!!!

This is true....  but so do crt televisions and since sed's are based on the same tech, they probably would too.  The future is already here, and you are probably using it.  LCD televisions still give a superior picture to all three and the image doesn't degrade over a reasonable amount of time.  SED's have great potential in portable "throw away" devices like mp3 players, but not much else. 

Hologram tvs are impossible atm due to teh fact that a tv that projects 3d images into open air having to defy the laws of physics.    You see we can't make a beam of light magically stop projecting 3 feet in the middle of the room or what have you, we can only make it stop by putting something in front to block it.  There are two ways I can think of to "fake it" though.

Method # 1

Create a large, acrylic cube with 3d "pixels" seperated from each other by each one having a varied density.  A cathode gun could fire the image just like on an old school crt tv, only at the corner of the cube and with the power of the beam adjusted as it moves, so each pixel would go further from the back of the cube and thus give the illusion of depth. 

This won't work though because:

a.  It 's really not true 3d, just simulated 3d... at certain angles it'd look terrible and you couldn't layer different objects. 

b.  Making a large cube with that level of complexity would be expensive, really really really expensive. 

c.  Now you have a huge box in your room again... we just got away from that. 

d.  Of course we still don't have a way to film things in 3d, only cg video would be possible.

Method #2

Use a simple pane of glass and a projector.  Put motion sensors all around the glass.  The 3d efffect would be done via software.  Basically a computer would tell what angle you are looking at the glass at and adjust the image accordingly.  Because it would be snesitive enough to detect even the slightest eye movement, it'd constantly change and thus the very flat image would look very real and 3d. 

Of course this won't work either because:

a.  Motion detection software simply isn't there yet, and doesn't look to be for a loooong time.

b.  Computers couldn't keep up with that level of computation on a hd image and won't be able to for some time.  The exception of course would be cg images, which could use traditional 3d rendering techniques with your eyes acting as the controller.

c. The most obvious flaw is that only one person would get the 3d effect.  The others would get a very confusing view that moves around apparently for no reason.

d.  Again, we have no real way to film in 3d... cg images being the exception.



I want magical 3d images too, I'm just saying...don't hold your breath.  It'd take a scientific breakthrough the equivelent of the discovery of electricity to give us the tech/understanding needed to generate a true 3d projection in open space.