2007: 120Hz, Deep Color, Extreme CR and 1080p

[mrcorbo]

Looks to be a banner year for display technology. Anybody have any favorites among the announced sets for this year? Minus a serious deficiency in CR (which hasn't been revealed yet) I am keeping a very close eye on the Toshiba LX177-series sets to make a purchase this year.

 

[Capeta]

Yeah it looks like Toshiba is ready to beat down SONY's Bravia and Sharp's Aquos series in 2007. Anyway for me I'm excited about JVC's HD1/RS1 front projector which should be receiving reviews in a few days. I'm looking forward to Pioneer's new ultrahigh CR plasmas too.

 

[Pete]

I didn't realize 120hz was so close. I looked into some LCDs today and am very curious about how nice this JVC 37" 768p 120hz LCD looks. It's pricey as hell ($1700 vs. $1000 for the 60hz but otherwise similar 37" Sharp @ Costco), but I can't wait to see it reviewed.

 

[Gubbi]

What's the point of 120Hz on LCDs and PDPs ?

The only use I can see is temporal dithering to give the display a higher virtual bit-depth, ie. 1-1.5 bits more, but you could make that directly in the panel driver without the need to have the back end processing crunching along at 120Hz.

Cheers

 

[mrcorbo]

What's the point of 120Hz on LCDs and PDPs ?

The only use I can see is temporal dithering to give the display a higher virtual bit-depth, ie. 1-1.5 bits more, but you could make that directly in the panel driver without the need to have the back end processing crunching along at 120Hz.

Cheers

Well, one thing that comes to mind is hybrid content. That is, content that has both film and video sections. Since 120fps is the lowest common multiple of 60fps and 24fps it enables smooth motion with both types of content. The ability to sync to both 60hz and 72hz would be enough to allow smooth motion in both video-only and film-only content, but it's not like you could change your sync rate in the middle of playing a movie if it suddenly changed it's source material. It's not common, but it happens.

There is also in all the examples I have seen of 120hz-capable sets some sort of post-processing engine that is supposed to yield smoother motion. I figure they wouldn't bother adding any of this in if it didn't yield some benefit given the added cost and the price sensitivity of the market they are in.

You need at least 72hz support, though, to get smooth pans, etc. in film content.

 

[mrcorbo]

I didn't realize 120hz was so close. I looked into some LCDs today and am very curious about how nice this JVC 37" 768p 120hz LCD looks. It's pricey as hell ($1700 vs. $1000 for the 60hz but otherwise similar 37" Sharp @ Costco), but I can't wait to see it reviewed.

The lack of 1080p would be a deal-killer for me, but only because the set I intend to get will double as a primary PC monitor and I want the added rez so I can run a 1920X1080 desktop. Even if I can't see every pixel at my normal viewing distance.

 

[Star_Hunter]

Does anyone know if we will start to see some 120Hz LCD computer monitors? I know all the talk has been about LCD TVs but I would think you could bring 120Hz LCD monitors in for gaming as 120Hz for an LCD would finally be good enough for me to get and LCD and ditch my CRT.

 

[mrcorbo]

Does anyone know if we will start to see some 120Hz LCD computer monitors? I know all the talk has been about LCD TVs but I would think you could bring 120Hz LCD monitors in for gaming as 120Hz for an LCD would finally be good enough for me to get and LCD and ditch my CRT.

It's possible, but it might take a while for this tech to make it's way to desktop LCDs. The design goals for these types of panels are actually a little different. Development of panels to be used in higher-end PC monitors is more likely to focus on obtaining higher resolution, for example, or quicker gray to gray response. High end TVs OTOH are fine with 1920X1080 and development is more focused on, well, all the stuff I mentioned in my OP along with getting larger, thinner, and more power efficient.

 

[dizietsma]

I've got a pretty bulky 100hz CRT Sony that I bought a few years ago that is to be replaced and as mentioned in the first post this year seems to be the coming together of several features that means it's time is now up. 1080p an 100Hz here in PAL land would be a definite.

I would hazard a guess though that I will be upgrading in early 2008 when prices have come down and probably go HD with a new recorder as well. 37 inch will do me, or posibly 40. I tend to favour Sony or Samsung but will read reviews at the time and look at value for money ( not necessarily cheap, value for money ! ) .

The problem is though the TV will be vying with the PC base unit and LCD monitors for upgrade at that time

 

[Sobek]

2007 : CRT's, we've almost matched their quality!



I think once these babies hit 40"s at a decent enough price, it might well be time to replace one of the old Trintrons with these. Damn you soft, breakable, screens...you're swaying my desire!

 

[mrcorbo]

2007 : CRT's, we've almost matched their quality!



I think once these babies hit 40"s at a decent enough price, it might well be time to replace one of the old Trintrons with these. Damn you soft, breakable, screens...you're swaying my desire!

Yup, that's why I'm looking. Got a 36" widescreen tube set here that I'd love to swap for a bigger, thinner, higher-res and much lighter panel. Not looking forward to having to move this beast, though.

 

[Sobek]

Exactly. But for me it's also because if i'm upgrading from such a quality CRT, I really want it to be worthwhile. I want something at least twice as big, that can match (or at least come so very close I truly can't tell the difference) the quality levels i'm used to, and support insanely high resolutions. Those are my real criteria...weight, size, and portability are of no concern for me though :smile:

 

[MfA]

What's the point of 120Hz on LCDs and PDPs ?

Less judder, also at that kind of frequency you can start turning off the backlight during transitions to improve the perceived smoothness of motion even more without getting too much perceptible flickering (which prevent a couple of artifacts which turn up during the transitions such as ghosting and false colors).

 

[Gubbi]

Less judder, also at that kind of frequency you can start turning off the backlight during transitions to improve the perceived smoothness of motion even more without getting too much perceptible flickering (which prevent a couple of artifacts which turn up during the transitions such as ghosting and false colors).

I'm not buying the judder argument, anti odd-cadence mechanisms are standard today in most TVs (certainly flatpanel TVs).

You're have a point about faster transitions reducing artifacts for LCDs though.

Cheers

 

[MfA]

That's not the kind of judder I meant. Judder is a name given to the effect caused by the frame staying static while your eyes are trying to track a moving object ... LCDs suffer more from this than CRTs because of the lack of strobing.

 

[Gubbi]

That's not the kind of judder I meant. Judder is a name given to the effect caused by the frame staying static while your eyes are trying to track a moving object ... LCDs suffer more from this than CRTs because of the lack of strobing.

Ah, I see.

But wouldn't it require higher frame-per-second source material to be any good ? Since you'll be strobing between frame (or field) transitions you'd have 60Hz strobes with todays 720p60 material, which is sure to piss as many people off as it would please.

Cheers

 

[MfA]

That's what motion compensated framerate up-conversion is for.

 

[Gubbi]

That's what motion compensated framerate up-conversion is for.

Ouch, sounds complicated. So you'd need hardware to identify different regions of pixels in the screen space based on their common motion vector, and interpolate between frames accordingly ?

Cheers

 

[Bolloxoid]

Ouch, sounds complicated. So you'd need hardware to identify different regions of pixels in the screen space based on their common motion vector, and interpolate between frames accordingly ?

That's what better-quality 100 Hz (PAL) CRT TV sets have been doing for years, so the technology is there already.

Works well for steady, slower movement. Fast, erratic movement can naturally cause problems. But that's why some sets allow you to turn motion estimation off.

 

[ballsweat]

i don't know about lcds not having surpassed crts in quality.

tubes weaken rather fastly, and that alone is why i prefer lcds, even with slight bl bleeding.

what they need to do though, is move up to 48 bit color output. that would display the whole shader model 3 frame buffer and that also include the ps3's whole frame buffer.

we've been stuck at 24 bit forever.

the 3do and jaguar came out in 93 and they did 24 bit color output.