Toshiba's Cell TV

Pretty cool. This also reminds me of a demo they showed of a user scanning through tv channels and looking at dozens of thumbnails (playing the channel) for the user to select. I wonder what price point it will enter at.

 

Well, it has a lot of promise and would serve a true niche/need (though one that diminishes by the month), so I hope Toshiba gets this thing out sooner rather than later. One thing with upscaling though, and especially in the context of software/Cell, is that although it can create a 'clean' and beautiful HD image, it obviously cannot add detail that isn't present in the signal to begin with. I wonder if this will factor into the consumer consciousness going forward and as SD continues to fade.

But the SD upconversion aside (or HD upconversion as well; I hope they do some good 720p-->1080p work), I imagine they'll be able to leverage the Cell to add value elsewhere.

Speaking of... I'd be surprised at a full Cell. Seems like a job for SpursEngine!

 

Well it's coming out:

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/10/05/toshiba-shows-11000-tv/

Light on details but $11k!

You get 8 HD streams and 3 TB of storage along with upscaling of sources like Youtube.

Opera browser.

Toshiba is not going to make a splash in the TV business.

 

Oh the 4k resolution seemed like a real USP.
3TB of DVR space and recording up to 8 channels at once - not so much.

Slightly underwhelming from the initial promises made by Toshiba.

 

I think the SD upscaling would be the real USP if it works as well as suggested. 4k is pretty pointless unless you're sitting about 5 foot away. So rather than offer a 55" TV that's far more expensive with no perceptible improvement for a stupid amount of money, offering a 1080p set for a lot less will likely generate a lot more revenue.

 

Well a 55" 4k screen would be pretty awesome monitor for PC, I'm currently using 52" Bravia and that's pretty sweet already. The amount of power the current and upcoming GPUs have means that you can benefit from the extra resolution. Of course the price is ridiculous.

 

For that price, one would probably be better with three Bravias or for the ultimate setup three front PJs used with Eyefinity.

Resolution can only get you so far, but the immersion of the screen that occupies almost complete FoV, you can't beat that with more pixels on single screen.

Also, the crappy motion resolution on LCDs without some kind of interpolation (also sucky ) will definitely show its ugly face on this ammount of pixel real estate.

 

I never really tought Eyefinity is worth something, but that Three projectors thing sounds pretty cool! I think Eyefinity really needs a seamless picture to be good. In general I prefer one large 16:9 screen to a smaller Eyefinity setup.

 

Well looks like the latest incarnation of the Cell TV is on tap, and this time the processing power is aimed at somewhere where it might not only be appreciated, but that might give the set a first-mover advantage:
2D to 3D on the fly conversion.

Other aspects include 480Hz, Resolution+ upconversion in-built (obviously), integrated Wi-Fi, a separate box feeding wirelessly to the set w/1TB storage, LED backlighting w/local dimming, and I'm sure any other number of lesser items of note.

 

Okay, there is good upscaling and bad upscaling, but it's downright fraudulent to claim you can add information to an image which is what would be required to take a DVD and make it HD.

 

Is it the same as 120/240Hz LCD sets, only higher, so that it can refresh at multiplies of the original frame rate?

 

I believe so, but don't know whether the stat might apply purely to internal processing for the purposes of 3D rendition. Hopefully we'll get some clarity on it; my guess is that if other LCD's announce with 480Hz this year, that the 480Hz here will indeed refer to screen rate.

 

AFAIK, when that feature (Auto Motion Plus, Motion Flow etc. on Samsung/Sony etc.) is turned on, it interpolates frames to eliminate blur and doing so creates the infamous "soap opera effect", but when it's off, it refreshes at multiplies at 120/240/480Hz/etc., which is a multiply of film/video sources' framerate. So, if I understand it correctly, the only benefit is eliminating motion judder, but the blur/lack of motion resolution is still there. If, of course, you don't want your film-based content to look like 6 o'clock news.

 

EDIT: Ok I'm seeing other manufacturers are indeed announcing 480Hz LCD's for this year, so I think we're safe to take it at face value.

 

Well, plasma manufactures just need a marketing approach to fight with LCDs, and mentioning 480/600Hz seems like a nice way to fight all the bad talk plasmas get in general public.
Kuro, afaik, uses 14 sub-fields so it's even "crazier" 840Hz.

Btw, where did they published it as a comparative number to LCDs or "regular" refresh rates? I haven't seen/read about it though. Theyt talk about it as what it is, sub-field drive, not that those numbers are comparable to "real" refresh rates.
http://www.panasonic.ca/English/audiovideo/plasma/viera2.asp

Edit: saw your edit. Sorry btw for the OT.

 

'They' is the manufacturers, but over at retail, 600Hz and 120Hz are both displayed prominently as a marketing feature, and for the un-educated consumer, it could clearly be confusing.

By the way that's not saying that plasma is an evil entity for doing so, just that at retail things can get confused, and I do think benefit from that confusion is part of why the plasma manufacturers started talking up the sub-field processing at retail. Hz is Hz, right? Not saying it's the only area of television confusion either; obviously contrast ratios are another area where consumers might not really realize what's going on.

(I'm happy to indulge the OT discussion pending any more Cell TV news!)

 

Still no word on upscaling quality? If the TV performs the quality adjustments that well, Sony could update PS3 for similar, which would be very welcome!