SeanTech

BrigthSide’s Super LCD TV

Another interesting find at the recent Flat Information Displays conference in San Francisco was a company called BrightSide that is making a turbocharged LCD TV. Its technology, dubbed “High Dynamic Range” purportedly produces a 200,000 to 1 contrast ratio (the difference in brightness between a screen’s darkest and lightest state). Contrast ratio is a big deal, because it helps you see slight shading variations and therefore more detail and dimensionality in screen images. In comparison, a regular high-end LCD TV, such as Sharp’s LC-37D7U AQUOS has a claimed contrast ratio of 800 to 1. Now, all these numbers are probably fudged to some degree, but the difference between the BrightSide TV and typical LCDs is still remarkable. And I say that with some confidence because I’ve seen BrightSide in action.

So how do they do it?

Instead of using fluorescent bulbs to provide a constant light source behind the LCD panel, BrightSide uses an array of light emitting diodes (LEDs), which can be switched on or off faster than the frame rate of the video. So they can custom-adjust the lighting for every frame. Plus, they can control each individual LED to adjust the brightness for specific regions of the screen. (They call this technology "individually modulated LEDs" or IM-LED.) This gets around the main problem of an LCD panel. LCDs use fast-moving, light-blocking crystals to regulate how much of the backlight comes out the front of the screen. In theory, if you tell the crystals to go black, they will block all the light. But in practice, a considerable amount of light “leaks” thought the screen. So black on an LCD is really just dark gray. With such a wimpy black, LCDs just can’t produce a very high contrast (black to white) ratio. (Plasma and CRT televisions do far better blacks.) By turning down the backlight where needed, you can make the screen much darker.

And BrightSide uses a lot of LEDs. Its 37-inch DR37-P model has approximately 1,400 of them. That’s enough to get pretty specific about which areas are bight and which are dark. You can think of it as a low-resolution display with 1400 pixels, sitting behind a high-resolution display of 2,073,600 pixels (a 1920-by-1080 LCD). But this doesn’t lead to light and dark splotches on the screen, because BrightSide can also tweak the LCD settings to further refine the image resolution. Say for example, you have a feature a few pixels wide that you want to make incredibly bright, and around it are details that are supposed to be dark or just medium bright. BrightSide’s driver technology can compensate for the intense LED backlight behind that area of the screen by closing down the pixels around the bright feature more than you normally would on a regular monitor with a constant backlight level. So, even with some light leaking through, they look a lot darker than the highlighted item. As I said, this really works. I’ve seen it.

So what’s the catch?

I’ll be buying a house before I buy this TV. The DR37-P lists for $49,000 and so far has sold in only limited quantities to film producers and designers. Oh, and it uses an obscene amount of electricity – up to 1680 Watts, depending on the video content. (A regular 37-inch LCD consumes about 200 Watts.) In fact, the panel needs a liquid cooling system to keep from melting.

However, a representative of BrightSide tells me they are working with an unnamed TV maker on a deal to produce a slightly less-bright and cooler model at a “significant reduction in price.” The screen size will probably be somewhere between 37 and 50 inches.

Acronym Attack - IBM's 3D HDTV

Sorry I’m a bit late posting this, but here is the first of some interesting tidbits from last week’s Flat Information Displays conference in San Francisco:

IBM gave its first public demonstration of a new technology that allows projectors or rear-projection TVs to switch into a 3D mode. The system requires that users wear glasses with polarizing lenses, as viewers do for modern 3D movies, such as Spykids 3D: Game Over or Aliens of the Deep. The big deal is that IBM representatives say the technology can be implemented on projectors for a small amount of money - about $50 or less, and that the TVs could be set up to switch from 2D to 3D mode at the push of a button.

The IBM rep wouldn't tell me exactly how it works, but here’s my theory:

• The system uses filters to produce polarized light output that alternates in rapid succession. One frame of video, representing the right-eye view, is polarized in a way that it can pass only through the filter on the right side of the glasses. Then comes a frame of video with the left-eye perspective, polarized so that it passes through only the left-eye filter. Because the images flash in such rapid succession, and because all images persist in the mind for a split second, you “see” the alternating right- and left-side perspectives at the same time, creating the illusion of depth.

• This system can be easily implemented using off-the-shelf graphics hardware. 3D games and graphics cards have long-supported the ability to create stereoscopic (right- and left-side) views. One old-time application is in LCD shutter glasses, which alternately darken to block the left and right eyes. The alteration is synched to the refresh rate of a computer monitor, so that it displays the left-eye image when the right eye is blocked and the right-eye image when the left eye is blocked. This helps explain why the IBM solution is so cheap, and also why it’s easy to switch from 2D to 3D. Their main innovation is simply to use glasses with polarizing filters in place of LCD shutters. And graphics cards have the built-in ability to switch between the shutter-glass setup and a standard “2D” monitor setup.

• IBM may be using a spinning wheel made up of polarizing filter segments. As it spins through the light path of the projector, it alternately polarizes the light waves in one direction, then another. I originally thought that IBM had modified the color wheel of a DLP projector, which (in its simplest implementation) has segments of red, green, and blue color filters that allow a DLP projector with a single imaging chip to produce the three primary colors in such rapid succession that the mind sees them all at once. I envisioned a new, six-segment color wheel with a red left-eye polarizing filter, a red right-eye polarizing filter, a green left-eye polarizing filter, etc… My suspicion was heightened when the IBM rep told me that their system does not work with LCD projectors, which have separate chips for red, green, and blue and therefore don’t use color wheels. But the vague, one-page handout that IBM provided states that “The light engine based data projector has not been changed in any way.” So that would rule out installing a new color wheel and recalibrating its timing. My new theory is that IBM has some type of switching polarizing filter that goes on the front of the projector. So why won’t it work with LCD projectors? LCDs control light output through the liquid crystals by using polarizing filters. The light coming out of an LCD is already polarized, with the light waves all aligned in one plane. So you can’t re-polarize it in a second plane to create an image for the other eye.

Does anyone care about a 3D TV?

Probably not, but you never know. IBM (which is seeking to license the technology, not produce actual products) is initially targeting use with video games, which already contain 3D video information. Otherwise, there isn’t much content. Nearly all movies are produced for 2D, although big-time directors such as Steven Spielberg and James Cameron are taking an interest in 3D. The other option is to “upconvert” regular movies to 3D by analyzing the video, guessing at the depth information, and converting it into left- and right-eye images. A company called Dynamic Digital Depth in fact has created software to do this in realtime. I tried it out earlier this year on a Sharp Actius AL3D notebook equipped with a 3D LCD screen. It wasn’t perfect. The images sometimes blurred or went double, what a representative of the company calls “tearing.” But it worked a lot better than I would have expected.

3D has been around since the invention of stereoscopic photography in 1838. And many companies are working on modern 3D technologies using LCDs, plasmas, projection sets, and headgear. Some products require glasses, others don’t. So far, 3D has caught on only with researchers and designers who need to view complex items such as airplane designs or organic molecules in 3D. It could catch on for entertainment, but only if it works so smoothly that people don’t perceive it as some kind of dorky kludge. We’re not there yet.

Specsploitation – A/V Cables

This may be my first published use of “specsploitation” – a term I coined a few years ago to describe the dubious use of technical specs to try to convince consumers that a product is unique or better than those from competitors. I’ve written on the topic a few times, such as in last December’s NY Times article “Making Sense of Specs” and in September’s PC World article “The Cable Game.”

The latter article had some information about specsploitation that we had to cut due to space constraints. I recently saw an article in a reputable consumer magazine in which the author, unfortunately, fell for a specsploitation trick. So I wanted to get the word out.

The author was advising readers to buy some rather pricey video cables, and one of the justifications was that they used “99.9% pure silver-plated OFC (oxygen-free copper).”

Boy, that does sound impressive. It’s on par with Ivory Soap!

But here’s the rub. You would have a VERY hard time finding any video or audio cable using copper that is less than 99.99% pure and that is not free of oxygen. And you certainly wouldn’t want to use it. Anything less would be a truly crappy signal conductor. And, you can find plenty of inexpensive cables that are ALSO 99.99% pure.

On the flip side, you can also find cables that are 99.999% pure, and even 99.9999% pure (what techies refer to as “six 9s”). It’s highly questionable whether one or two extra “9s” make a difference, but it is a plain fact that 99.99% is no big deal.

(As for the silver plating, it's unclear whether that makes a difference, either. The research that went into “The Cable Game" indicates that most video cables are just fine.)

While shopping for wire, you may also be baffled by a term like “Nitrogen-injected dielectric.” Here's what it means. Every wire needs to be covered by an electrical insulator, known in geekspeak as a “dielectric.” An inert gas (AKA air) is the perfect dielectric. But you can’t suspend a copper wire in an envelope of air. So the next best solution is to use plastic foam filled with lots of bubbles. And Nitrogen, as we learned in grade school, is the main component of air, so foam dielectric typically uses Nitrogen. Now, this is a good thing. Cheaper wires might just use something like solid PVC plastic. So, Nitrogen-injected cable is good, but not as exotic as it might sound.

Oh, one other cable tip I’ve got to tell you.

Some fancy audio receivers accept digital inputs from disc players or PCs. Digital is generally better, since you don’t lose any quality in the transmission. So the idea of a digital connection is a good thing, but companies still find a way to use that fact for specsploitation. These digital connectors come in two forms: fiber-optic cable or copper coaxial. If you are using the coaxial connection, beware of specsploitation. The cable used for digital audio is IDENTICAL to the cheapest type of analog video cable, known as composite. Yet when shopping at Best Buy recently, I noticed that a given “digital coaxial audio” cable sold for about $10 more than a “composite video” cable of the same length, from the same manufacturer. Hard to justify, because IT’S THE SAME CABLE.

So, shop carefully, and don’t blow your hard-earned cash on specsploitation.

Front Row – Apple Apes Microsoft

Here’s one you don’t see too often – Apple copying an idea from Microsoft. A few weeks ago, Apple introduced its new iMac G5 with an application called Front Row – a big-screen interface, operated by remote control, that allows you to cue up music in iTunes, play DVDs, view photos in iPhoto, or play videos in iMovie. In 2002, Microsoft introduced something similar – though more extensive – in its Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system.

I’ve been playing with Front Row while researching an article on media PCs for Cargo magazine. My first impressions are favorable, but not ecstatic.

The itty-bitty infrared remote (which looks like an iPod shuffle) is cute and able to transfer a signal across the room. Apple does a pretty good job of integrating a lot of functions into its minimal-button design, but there are some trade-offs. For example, muting the volume requires a tortured backtrack through online menus that makes it impractical. It’s far easier to keep clicking the minus button until the volume is at zero.

Much has been made of the fact that the remote magnetically sticks to the side of the G5. Ah, how times change. Remember the old days when we dared not to put a magnet in even the same room with a hard drive? Now they're in the same box! The magnetic sticking trick is pretty cool, but also glitchy. There are no visual guides indicating where you should place the remote, and if you miss the target spot, you can get magnetic repulsion instead of attraction – causing the remote to flip upside down or go sputtering onto the floor.

The onscreen interface is attractive and works pretty well, but is still missing some obvious functions. For example, you can control iTunes pretty well, via a giant version of the same basic menu that appears on the iPod (showing artist, album, song, and a volume slider). This lets you navigate songs that live on the iMac, but not shared tunes on other networked systems running iTunes. You can, however, play those networked songs in the regular interface to iTunes (which has been possible for years). And if you cue up networked songs and then launch Front Row, the songs continue to play. You can even use the arrow keys on the remote to jump back or forward in the network song cue, but you won’t see a list of those songs in the Front Row iTunes interface. Oops!

And Apple has a long way to go on video quality. Some of my favorite test DVDs, like Charlotte Gray, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and Kill Bill, vol. 1 easily illustrated the shortcomings. Colors were a bit pale, video noise was rampant, and the brightness level tended to jump up and down with scene changes. In other words, the movies screamed out “I’m being played on a PC!”

In all fairness, Microsoft’s first release of Media Center was also pretty rough on the video front. It took a lot of effort by Microsoft, graphics card makers, and the Imaging Science Foundation to get the video quality up. I’ve been reviewing a pile of new PCs running Media Center 2005 Edition and the latest ATI and nVidia graphics drivers, and I’m amazed at how good the video looks on all of them. Hopefully Apple will make similar efforts to improve image quality. Because a computer with a17- or  20-inch widescreen LCD is extra sweet when it can double as a decent DVD viewer.

Even better would be if it could triple as a TV. But we’re not there yet. The G5 has no tuner – digital or analog – and no video inputs for plugging in the feed from a set-top cable, satellite, or over-the-air tuner box. You can jerry-rig this, however, with a USB TV tuner, such as those from Eskape Labs.

All in all, Front Row is what I would expect it to be – a first generation product. But it’s quite good for a first gen. And I look forward to it getting better. Also, it’s a sign that in future more and more (and perhaps all) PCs will lead double lives as desktop machines and digital entertainment centers.

Control of Knowledge – Buzz from the Creative Commons party

Creative Commons – a cool organization with an alternative model of copyright – held it’s first big fundraising event in San Francisco last night, and the room was buzzing with smart people and interesting ideas.

Biggest of course is the idea behind Creative Commons itself. The goal, essentially, is to protect intellectual property without completely locking it away - as current copyright law tends to do. Artists can decide how much to restrict the use of their creations – from quite restricted to quite open – by the type of license they choose. For example, you might allow people to download and even share your work, but they have to give you credit as the creator (such as posting “Photograph by” if they put a picture you took on their Web sites). Some licenses allow people to freely distribute your work as long as it’s kept in its original form, while others allow people to mix it into other creations (such as sampling music in a mash-up).

The first high-profile example was a CD that Wired magazine included with its November 2004 issue. Sixteen artists (including some biggies like the Beastie Boys, David Byrne, and Le Tigre) contributed songs that owners of the CD are free to rip, trade, and sample in other works.

Larry Lessig, the brains behind CC, spoke about where the organization is going in the future. For example:

One goal is to make open-access interoperable. Information in Wikipedia, for example, is free for public use, as is content from MIT’s OpenCourseWare. But the two sources have different legal structures. MIT uses a Creative Commons license, while some Wikipedia content is governed by other licenses. According to Lessig, it’s not currently possible to legally integrate material from those two sources into one offering, even though each source has the goal of providing open access. Lessig said that CC will be working on new legal structures to make different sources of free information work together. He shouldn’t have too much trouble working with Wikimedia, since it’s founder, Jimmy Wales, is now on the board of Creative Commons.

Google is joining in the effort (playing catch-up to Yahoo, which has long supported CC and even offered CC licensing for photos on its Flickr* Web site). In addition to a small monetary contribution, Google announced that it is now tagging all materials that have a CC license. So you can use its advanced search to find photos or other works that you are free to use. Personalities play a role here, too. Glenn Otis Brown, the former executive director of CC, is now at Google. And he made the announcement last night.

Also, CC is launching a for-profit division. How can you make money by giving stuff away? The same way television networks have for years: You include advertising. So for example, freely available videos might have a commercial tacked on to the end. The creator of the video doesn’t make money on sales, he or she makes money on people viewing the video and seeing the ad. So the more people download the video (for free), the more money the creator earns. (It’s like the click-through revenue model on Web sites).

Then some interesting things just popped up in cocktail conversation. One was a discussion between John Wilbanks of Creative Commons, and Dr. Chris Davis a chemist with Codexis who recently developed a gene that allows bacteria to cheaply produce the starting material for making the cholesterol-fighting drug Lipitor. They discussed the debate over whether a synthetic gene can be patented or copyrighted. It is a physical invention, which falls under patent protection, but it’s also a creative work – a string of code – that could possibly be copyrighted. Why does this matter? Copyright protection lasts far longer than patent restrictions. (For more, see Henry Foutain’s NewYork Times article from a few years ago about copyrighting DNA as music.)