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Wudman crashes the last day of the 2008 Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas, Nevada!
The mission became clear as soon as I figured out that a layover
in Las Vegas on my way to Sacramento during my vacation crossed
paths with the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. The "CES" as it is
known is the premier venue to showcase production and prototype
consumer electronic equipment. This is the show where manufacturers
representing all facets of both home and mobile audio, video and
communications equipment, display the new 2008 electronics as well
as prototypes showing what the future might bring.
My flight was suppose to layover in Las Vegas for a few hours, but
instead I decided not to get on my connection. Not only would I stay
and fly out the next night after sprinting through the 5 football
fields that compromised the CES show, but I would be able to visit
with my Mother as well! In mid December, I registered via my
multi-media company for access to the show and booked another flight
to continue on to Sacramento after the show.
On the day I was to head to Las Vegas, my Mother called me with
serious cold that looked to crash my plans to layover in Las Vegas.
I have wanted to go to the CES ever since I worked for Pacific
Stereo in the mid eighties. I was bummed at the prospect of just
getting on the connection and missing the show. Getting sick was not
an option and since my mother sounded very ill, I considered
bypassing the show. Instead, I asked my mother to search up some
hotel numbers and while in the line to board the plane, I searched,
found and booked a room in a downtown Las Vegas hotel. I was going
to the Consumer Electronics Show!
There were at least 15 manufacturers I wanted to visit. I had
questions for several of the vendors for my Home Installation
customers and I wanted to get a good feel on what was coming in the
2008 models of flat screen HD televisions as well as other allied
technology. The booths I wanted to visit were stretched over 5
football fields in four different buildings. It was going to take a
lot of very fast walking to visit as many as possible.
The mission started out very well as upon leaving the Plaza Hotel, I
was able to commandeer a ride with a manufacturer's representative
who was taking a cab to the Venetian-Sands Conference Center, where
the high end audio/video booths were stationed as well as was the
Sling Box booth. I spent about an hour in those two areas before
catching a shuttle to the Las Vegas Convention Center. The LVCC
aspect of the show was where most of the high tech consumer
electronics was on display. This was an area about the size of four
football fields on three floors in two buildings!
I spent the next 5 hours power walking to visit the booths of
companies like Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Monster Power, Pioneer,
Alpine, SanDisk, Canon, Toshiba, LG, Texas Instruments (DLP),
Microsoft, Samsung, Sennheiser, Intel, and more. I asked lots of
questions, took a few pictures and more mental notes of what future
toys are coming our way. If there was a common thread among the home
audio/video vendors it was wireless transmission of HD signals to
televisions and very thin LCD and Plasma HD panels.
A few tidbits of information that I scrounged up...
-The biggest pain when it comes to new, High Definition Flat Panel
Television installations is connectivity. Wire are messy and with
more stuff to hook up to today's televisions, the mess is growing!
All the manufacturers at CES had variations on the wireless theme.
From Panasonics "Base Station", that was a line of site transmitter
of uncompressed video others, wireless connectivity was the major
theme of television manufactures. Okay, there was one other key
word, "thin"! Finally, Pioneer's "Kuro Project" displayed the first
"true black" display I have ever seen. This "non-emissive"
technology panel was so black that in a completely blacked out room,
you could not tell the set was on until content lighter than black
was displayed. It blew away a PDP-5010! One more keyword would have
to be big! The 150" Pioneer Plasma was awesome! Samsung had an
ultra-high definition panel that rocked and Sharp was not to be beat
by displaying a few 108% LCD panels. Other panels that stood out was
a teaser 83 inch Sony XBR that was not destined for production!
-
I talked to a source that had attended the Mitsubishi debut of it's
laser DLP. They indicated that Mitsubishi indicated the pricing was
going to be more equal to LCD panel pricing but with superior
blacks, contrast and color intensity. These new televisions should
be delivered sometime in 2008. This is not what the Mitsubishi reps
were saying at the 2007 Road Show in St. Louis. Back then they were
emphatic that not only was the technology going to be about half the
price of equivalent LCD flat panels, but they would be ready for
delivery at the CES! It would seem that they are building a product
for high end users.
- A Sharp source indicated that the Sharp Aquos LCD panels in the
D64U line had been quietly turned into 120hz panels in December
2007. There is a model and serial number designation that will help
identify the 120hz panels from the early 60hz models. This
information came about when I suggested to one of the reps that
there were some D64U panels that seemed to be doing better at jitter
reduction versus the early, top of the line 120hz D92 series panels.
- Sony will be announcing the new replacement for the "A" series
SXRD rear projection televisions in late February. The Sony reps
acted like they didn't know what a Laser DLP was and when I probed
them on what the technology might be, they acted even more
uniformed. Clearly with the largest OLED on display being a 27 inch
prototype and the only OLED being sold only 11 inches (for $2500),
that the only option was some kind of advanced light engine driving
a DLP or SXRD chip.
-Alpine show big love for boat owners by re-engineering a few
choice higher end car audio pieces to be corrosion proof and marine
ready. This is huge for people that want real audio in their boats.
Standard car amplifiers and head units, which most boat
manufacturers and retailers install are quite inadequate for marine
installations. The facts are that moisture and boats are reality
whether or not the boat is in the water. Audio equipment designed
for cars will eventually rust or rot to failure when installed in
extremely high humidity environments.
More to come later as I have to get back to my vacation!
J. "Wudman" Wood
Reporting from Roseville, California
1/13/2008
Click below for a few pictures. |
