I had ran across this technology when I was researching TV’s for my home theater and the message boards were saying these TV’s were right around the corner.  This did make me wonder if I should put off the purchase for a while, but after not finding much real information on the technology, I went ahead and picked up a nice TV.  Besides, you can wait forever for the next big thing.

Recently, I ran across this article about Laser TV’s.  Supposedly this technology is going to kill the Plasma TV.  How many technologies have we heard that about…LCOS, SED’s, OLED’s.

From what I can tell, this technology looks like another way to get rid of the spinning color wheel and arc lamp in current DLP TV’s and replace them with a laser.  So a similar concept to what Samsung did with the LED based DLP’s.  I assume this technology could be used in any TV that uses an arc lamp today.

I’m all for getting rid of moving parts and expensive bulbs in a TV.  Just the idea of a spinning color wheel in a TV sounds like a kludge.  Isn’t this the digital age?  Why are we dealing with rotating color wheels?

The article states that Mitsubishi will be announcing something in January about their plans for Laser TV’s which means they probably won’t be available until late next year if not 2009.  So by the time I get around to putting together the next media room, these should have been out for a few years and all the kinks will be worked out.  Of course, there will be at least 3 other technologies to cycle through by then.

If you want to find out more about the technology, here is a link to one of the companies building the lasers.

www.novalux.com

We’ll have to wait and see if this technology actually materializes and lives up to it’s hype, or it may be that Dr. Evil isn’t the only one who can’t get frickin’ laser beams.

Today was turkey day, so that can mean only one thing.  The Cowboys and the Lions will be playing football, not each other, but they will be playing.  I’m not sure how that tradition started, but it’s been that way as long as I can remember.  This event gave me a great opportunity to see how the new TV handled the job.

I took this opportunity to snap a few pictures of the TV in action.

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As the day approaches for my new TV to arrive, tomorrow WOO-HOO, I have all the cabling in place, except for the HDMI cables to connect the DVD player to the receiver and the receiver to the TV.  Two little cables, now that shouldn’t cost too much should it?

You wouldn’t think this was a big deal, but have you priced HDMI cables lately?  If this isn’t Highway Robbery, I don’t know what is.

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I bit the bullet and starting spending some money.  I opened up the wallet for the receiver, the digital music system, a pair of speakers and the power conditioner.  My wallet definitely feels a lot lighter, or more correctly, my credit card feels a lot heavier.  I even pulled the trigger on the TV.

If you want all the details you have to click the link to read the rest.

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I spent this last week or so working out all the wiring issues in the media room.  I’m trying to get all this out of the way so when I go and buy all the equipment, everything will be ready to hook it up and enjoy.

There were 3 main problems to solve.

1. Where is the wiring for the surround speakers?
2. Can I convert the closet to an audio/video cabinet?
3. How do I get the cables between the closet and the built-in where the TV will be?

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After doing some research on the Sony TV’s, I decided to go back to Elmo and check them out in more detail.  In addition to the 55A2020 model, a new 55A3000 model is now available.  The A3000 supports a higher refresh rate, 120Hz and HDMI 1.3 along with a few other things.  Both these models are LCOS (Liquid Crystal On Silicon) that use 3 chips, one per primary color with an arc lamp to project a signal onto the screen.  To me LCOS is a middle ground between DLP and Plasma.  You get rid of the spinning color wheel of a DLP, but still have the arc lamp.  Also, the LCOS has full 1920 x 1080 pixels, no wobulation like 1080p DLP’s.

I hate to say it, but I left the store very disappointed…not necessarily in the TV though.

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Ok, you’re probably wondering, what’s the big item I purchased.  Well, I’m going to disappoint you a bit, since the first purchase turned out to just be a NAS drive.  Hold on though, this means I’ve pretty much decided on my media adapter and that IS a pretty big decision.  For the NAS I decided to go with the Maxtor Shared Storage II 500GB NAS.

I picked it for a couple of reasons…

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With all the different components that go into putting together a multi-media home theater, I feel like I need to be nearly as smart as Einstien just to be able to interpret all the technologies and protocols involved to make sure everything will work when I get it home and hooked up.  Between the TV technologies (DLP, Plasma, LCD, LCOS, etc), High Def standards, resolutions, refresh rates, Wobulation, HDMI versions, HDCP, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, NAS, RAID, SMB, Media Servers, Media Adapters, UPnP, DLNA, Ethernet, 802.1g/n, universal remotes and wiring, I’m not sure how the normal person deals with it all to find the setup that will work for their needs and do it at a reasonable cost.

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I decided to try another trip to a higher end TV store to look at a couple of models, the Samsung 5689S LED based DLP and the Panasonic and Pioneer plasma TV’s.  I’m interested in the LED based DLP’s since they get rid of the spinning color wheel and the arc lamp in traditional DLP’s.  Supposedly the LED’s will last for the life of the set whereas the arc lamp lasts for about 2 years before needing to be replaced at a cost of up to $350.  When I walk into the store I am immediately accosted by a sales guy who looks vaguely familiar….

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It seems every device I’m looking at buying for my Home Theater supports some type of conversion of the video signal to a different resolution.  In my view, I want to limit the number of resolution conversions going on in the system yet still provide for a simple wiring scheme to get everything connected.  I’ll look at three different scenarios and discuss the benefits and issues of each with the goal of only one video conversion point per scenario…

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