Category: HDTV
LG LF7700 – first truly HD ready 1080p TV released with Freesat tuner
LG and Freesat have put there heads together for the last few months and finally come up with a product for the consumer to get his and hers hands on. The LF7700 LCD range will come in 32″, 37″, 42″ and 47″ panel sizes and is slightly confusingly both 1080p and described as HD Ready.
LG say it’s HD Ready because of the built-in Freesat tuner such that all you need is a satellite dish to receive HD content unlike other TVs that would require a set top box of some sort.
The LF7700 comes with a generous 4 HDMI 1.3 ports, an Ethernet connection and a USB slot as well as speakers tuned by the legendary Mark Levinson. It offers a dynamic contrast ratio of 50,000:1, TruMotion 100Hz frame rates for a smoother picture in the two largest panel sizes and the LG intelligent sensor which allows the backlighting of the LCD to adjust accroding to ambient light and so save the user power consumption and planet its carbon.
They’re available from the end of this month and start from around £570.
Sony Bravia 2009: the greener WE5 & a closer look at the range
CES 2009 set the tempo for TV tech for the year. Whether intentionally or not, you could more or less have switched one manufacturer’s speech for another only with a different company logo behind them.
On the one hand, the global recession was a factor and, on the other, environmental meltdown. What this meant in consumer tech terms was that you could connect all new TVs to the internet; each company has a cleaner, greener way of putting their sets together and that no one showed off the new world’s biggest panel.
For us, we now have a sea of widget TV interfaces to work through until we’ve found the one that suits us best and a marsh of greenwashing shpeel to wade through until we can see if these machines will either save a) the planet, b) our wallets, or ideally, c) all of the above.
So when Sony invited the UK techno-scribblers to have a look at their 2009 Bravia range, I simply couldn’t refuse the excellent opportunity to stand in front of some panels scowling and pretending to be much less impressed than I actually am…
Eee Box gets an upgrade, and HDMI-out
The humble Eee Box B202, which we liked last year, has been granted an upgrade by the technology gods. It’s now the Eee Box 206, and comes with an HDMI-out slot, meaning that you can plug this baby into your TV and watch high-definition content. It even comes with a remote control.
Specs-wise, it’s got an Atom processor, 160GB of hard disc space, 1GB of RAM and Wi-Fi. It comes with Windows XP, but I’d advise replacing that with Linux or Windows 7 swiftly. Don’t replace it with Vista though, whatever you do. For that, Asus is asking £309, which isn’t too bad for an HD-capable machine.
What do you reckon? Would you recommend this for a parent considering plugging a PC into their TV? Or something else? Share in the comments.
(via Tech Radar)
LG looking at the end of the line for plasma TVs
Now I know the image I’ve used isn’t very accurate but a) it’s far more dramatic than some black rectangle of a LG plasma and b) I was going to use this one instead but, seeing as it’s a Samsung and an LCD, that would have been just as ridiculous as this one which, as it goes, is much more interesting, don’t you think?
Anyway, my editorial dilemmas to one side, the point is that LG’s vice president, Lee Gyu-hong, has announced that the Korean giants are taking a bit of a beating on plasma TVs and that they’re thinking about ceasing production…
BBC teams up with ITV and BT for "Project Canvas"
Following the utter failure of Kangaroo, BBC and ITV bosses have put their heads together and come up with a different strategy. They’re launching a public consultation on a proposal for a IPTV service that they’re calling Project Canvas.
There’s not a whole lot of detail available yet, but it appears that the companies want to put together a set-top box service that’ll deliver television (in HD), a PVR service, internet access (to YouTube and other sites), and some sort of electronic program guide to it all. Sounds messy, but then so did Kangaroo.
The partners hope that it would cost in the region of £100-200 for the consumer, and a 2010 launch is aimed at. The BBC says it’ll contribute £6 million to the project over the next five years, out of a total of £16.6 million that it’ll need.
Don’t know about you, but I’m perfectly happy just plugging in a PC to my TV and using that to watch YouTube or iPlayer as necessary. Why would I need a set-top-box to do the same thing? As with many things, I think the key will be in the implementation. If it’s done as well as iPlayer, it’ll be wonderful. If not, it’ll be an expensive waste of time.
Panasonic brings HD Blu-ray recording to UK with the DMR-BS850 & BS750
Panasonic launched not one but two dual-tuner Freesat HD Blu-ray PVRs yesterday at their shindig over in Amsterdam, making the DMR-BS850 and BS750 the first of their kind in the UK.
No prices as yet – something pretty hefty, I’d imagine – but in May you can expect a pair of machines that’ll allow you to watch and record satellite content, HD channels and record onto Blu-ray discs
Philips Cinema 21:9 available from June for €4000
Yeah, not a lot I can really add to that header. It rather says it all.
Basically, in layman’s terms, what we’re looking at here, is that the super widescreen Philips Cinema 21:9 LCD TV, right, well, that’s going to be available, as in, to buy and stuff, for €4000, ok, which is the currency that a lot people are using right now in mainland Europe and happens to be worth far too close to a pound for most people’s liking, and that’s going to happen in June…
Sky HD boxes self-destructing, getting replaced
Sky HD customer? Have you heard from your provider lately? The company is allegedly recalling thousands of digiboxes due to a design fault that will gradually corrupt hard drives, ultimately causing disk failure.
The problem affects Pace-made units (Thomson, Samsung and Amstrad models are fine) and subscribers are getting three months of free HD subscription to compensate them for any data stored on their boxes.
Have you had your box replaced? Get in touch in the comments below and let us know what happened.
(via TrustedReviews)
Even in these troubled economic times people still NEED a big new HDTV
Despite the news all being about the end of the universe and how you’re best off mashing up all your remaining money into papier-mache logs to burn to keep warm, one statistic on the UK economic trends chart is pointing UP – sales of HD LCD and plasmas TVs are still rocketing.
Stats compiled by GFK for the BBC show that sales of fancy flat high-def TVs increased by nearly 11% in the last three months of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007, presumably because no one’s got jobs any more, so sitting around in the house watching TV is now the main occupation of the UK population. And if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it properly with a nice new 52″ Samsung…
Literally *INSANE* Sky claims that watching HD broadcasts helps combat depression
Genius. Simple genius. Sky has teamed up with psychologist Donna Dawson to claim that watching broadcasts in HD via Sky+HD can help alleviate the symptoms of depression.
Of course, as men who have just spent an obscene amount of money on an HDTV and Sky+HD subscription, there is indeed something calming and enjoyable about sitting there, basking in the HD glow, smug in the fact that your picture has more pixels in it than the picture your neighbours are lumbered with.
But the completely ludicrous PDF guide to Sky+HD claims that “programmes with vivid, bright and sharply defined colours create a visual sensation for our eyes, which help to lift our spirits and energise…
