After a significant trade show, Insight Media analysts traditionally compile a list of the products and technologies that generated the most talk on the show floor.
The buzz may be about a technology breakthrough, a bold, innovative design or a quirky design, or it may reflect a new social direction, like today's commitment to ''green.'' Following the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in January, our analysts Ken Werner, Steve Sechrist, Pete Putman, Chris Chinnock, Matt Brennesholtz, Aldo Cugnini and Mike Kalmanash compared notes on show highlights.
Here are our Best Buzz Awardees for CES 2009
Best Pico Projector
Samsung Projector Phone
While it was not on display at the Samsung booth, a projector phone currently available in South Korea was shown in the TI booth at the Digital Experience.
This unit uses the same basic projector technology as the MBP200, but includes cell phone functions, as well. It is a touchscreen handset with 3G, GPS and Samsung's TouchWiz GUI. Accessing the projector is simple since there is a ''projector'' icon in the main menu, and then you select a source -- audio, video or photo files, PDF, PowerPoint, Word, Excel or text files.
Image quality is good and, of course, comparable to other pico projectors using the DLP Pico chipset.
Runner Up: WowWee Cinemin
The Cinemin series of projectors from WowWee generated considerable buzz in the pico category -- in particular because this is a toy company and they have a very aggressive price point for their DLP-based pico projector - $299.
While there have been a number of pico projectors on the market, most have been introduced by unknown companies that have done little other than build a projection engine into something. WowWee has been around for a while and has a lot of (successful) experience designing, manufacturing and marketing high-priced, technology-oriented toys.
If that company can't make a go of pico projectors in the consumer market, we don't expect anyone can.
Best Home Theater Projector
Vivitek's H6080FD
Vivitek's H6080FD LED-powered DLP Home Theater projector was among the most interesting products at the show, and it was nearly impossible to locate, given Vivitek's tiny, remote booth in the lower South Hall.
We wouldn't have expected Vivitek to be the first company to bring out an 800-lumen, 1920 x 1080p DLP projector. But it did, and it looked pretty darned good -- there's no color wheel, and the red, green, and blue LEDs should last at least 20K hours. Be prepared to fork over a few dollars for it, however -- the list price (so far) is $19,999. Availability is in June.
Best Projection Screen
Da-Lite JKP Affinity
It's hard to get worked up about a new projection screen, but the Da-Lite JKP Affinity Projection Screen, which Da-Lite developed in conjunction with Joe Kane Productions, works so well that we had a hard time believing it came from Warsaw, IN (and not those other guys in southern California).
The matte texture of the screen material (.85 gain) is so fine that it clearly showed noise problems in 4K and 2K film scans projected onto its surface from a Samsung 1080p home theater projector. Impressive!
Best 3D Systems
Panasonic and Dolby
Panasonic announced the US debut of its ''world's first'' 3D Full HD (3D FHD) Plasma Home Theater System. It consists of a 103-inch Plasma HDTV and a Panasonic Blu-ray disc (BD) player that delivers full 1080p images to each eye.
At the show, we wore active-shutter glasses and saw probably the best 3D footage we have ever seen. It was a film of the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and it was truly stunning, nearly jaw-dropping content.
As Panasonic points out, other systems suffer from reduced vertical resolution, caused by the 3D display method that divides the scanning lines between the left and right eyes, and picture quality degradation caused by squeezing two (left and right) screens' worth of full HD images into one screen of data capacity for image storage and transmission.
Its specially developed authoring technology records 3D FHD images onto a single, ''standard Blu-ray Disc.'' One hitch: 3D content encoded with this process cannot be played back on existing Blu-ray players.
Dolby
privately showed its approach to encoding 3D content for existing file formats in the home -- which enables the immediate delivery of high-quality stereoscopic 3D content to 3D-ready HDTVs or 3DTVs that feature embedded 3D decoding/transcoding electronics over the standard Blu-ray disc medium, using standard Blu-ray players.
The solution does not require changes to the Blu-ray, HDMI or MPEG specifications, and does not require an external decoder box.
Best 3D Monitor
Samsung's 22-inch, 120-Hz 3D monitor
Samsung's 22-inch, 120-Hz 3D monitor, compatible with NVIDIA's new GeForce 3D Vision solution, generated a lot of buzz at the show.
It's not a simple matter to produce a 120-Hz active-shutter glass LCD monitor. It requires a special ''holding time.'' First, all 1,050 rows of the LCD must be written to the panel with left-eye data.
Then, the shutter on the glasses for the left-eye view is opened and the LED backlight is flashed on during this image ''holding period.'' The shutter on the glasses then closes and the backlight is turned off. The cycle is then repeated for the right-eye view.
In order to do this at a fast enough rate to avoid flicker (120 Hz per eye), the ''on time'' of the LED backlight is quite short, so optimizing performance is tricky. Samsung has hit the mark with its new monitor.
Best Innovation
Toshiba 4K LCD Cell Processor TV with Spatial Motion Control
Toshiba showed Cell-powered next-generation TVs using spatial motion control (no remote).
This is a new type of GUI targeting hand operation and powered by the eight-core Cell processor.
''The interface cannot be done with legacy inputs -- even though the software was developed on a laptop computer,'' according to Akira Nakanishi, a developer of the gesture concept at Toshiba.
The IR-based sensor is focused on X, Y, and Z dimensions, allowing hand motions in all three directions. In addition, the sensor can differentiate between right- and left-hand motions as well as gestures using both hands.
Cell also empowers recording up to six HD streams simultaneously. The technology was demonstrated on a Toshiba 65-inch Cell-based LCD-TV with 4K resolution (4096 x 2160), full frame upscaling and local dimming LED backlighting.
Runner-up: Widget Channel Framework
The Widget Channel framework, co-developed by Intel and Yahoo, got a lot of attention at the show -- if for no other reason than it's showing up on TV sets from Samsung, Panasonic and Sony.
The Widget Channel puts the PC ''dashboard'' experience on the TV, allowing consumers direct access to Internet content via their TV remote control. All you need is the built-in Ethernet port or a Wi-Fi USB dongle, and you can get content from Flickr, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! Finance, USA TODAY, YouTube, eBay and Showtime Networks.
The list undoubtedly will grow, as TV manufacturers jump on the bandwagon. The HW/SW overhead is relatively small, and the feature could spur a small jump in sales.
The true differentiator will be services that play up effortless interactivity and content access, and play down any similarity to the negative aspects of the PC experience -- software bugs, slow response, and complicated revision upgrades.
Best OLED (large)
LG 15-inch OLED (Product not Prototype)
At CES, LG Displays (LPL) showed a 15-inch OLED monitor due to ship next quarter.
This was an impressive display, perhaps showing LG's intent to launch mid-range OLED panels into the hybrid monitor/small TV display space before launching headlong into an LCD-TV replacement market. And why not? This size is not a bona fide TV size anyway, no matter what Sony and its 11-inch OLED-TV claim.
The pixel format is 1366 x 768 driven at 120 Hz (Sony is at 60 Hz) with a 0.8-mm thin package.
This is significant in that, if commercialized, it will be the first native HD OLED-TV (supporting 720p signals). The 11-inch Sony XEL-1 is an OLED-TV, but it is only 960- x 540-pixel resolution.
Best OLED (small display)
Sony's Flexible OLED Display (prototype)
Sony's flexible OLED display (prototype) incorporates durable Flex OLED display and high performance bioplastics, and its ''bendable material'' is meant to simulate the flexible (paperback) book reading experience.
Best LCD Technology (3-way Tie)
JVC 32-inch Super-Thin
JVC's 32-inch super-thin LCD demo generated considerable buzz, not only for its skinny-ness, but for its mounting mechanism. It has a built-in magnet on its back that allows the TV to be stuck to any ferrous surface. Yes, there is an umbilical cord to the driving electronics.
It stayed amazingly cool, considering the lack of grille work on the rear panel for heat ducting. JVC's LCD HDTV measures 0.28 inches thick, and weighs all of 11 pounds.
LG's 480 Hz LCD
In a world where speed suddenly seems to be paramount in displays (forget brightness and contrast), LG's demonstration of a 480 Hz LCD monitor with a combination of black frame insertion and scanning backlight was impressive. Motion blur is a big problem for LCD-TVs and even 120-Hz systems don't clean it up completely.
But 480 Hz (four times faster) does, as demonstrated by fast panning shots of sheet music -- blurred at 60 Hz, still blurred at 120 Hz, but very readable at 480 Hz.
Samsung 82-inch
The ''mine's bigger than yours'' HDTV jockeying at CES between Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic and LG may be a thing of the past. While Samsung's 82-inch Ultra HD LCD monitor isn't the largest in the world (Sharp's 103-inch is), it may now be the biggest HD+ product out there, with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels.
Any way you look at it, that's a lot of picture.
Best LCD Monitor Panel
Samsung's New 24-inch WUXGA
Samsung's new 24-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200 pixels) in 16:10 format boasts 16.7M colors, 300 lumens and 1K:1 contrast. It's 18.5-mm thin and has a 5-ms response time. All that, and it's green:
The panel is mercury free and has a low-power consumption (down from 65W to 24W).
Best Plasma TV
Panasonic Z1
Panasonic Z1 series sets offer high-contrast NeoPDP panels that are wireless, less than 1 inch thick, and cut in half last year's power consumption (for comparable sizes). And the Z1 series gives Panasonic a premium product with margin.
Prices in Japan will be $6K to $8K depending on size (46-, 50-, 54-inch). They're shooting for summer availability, and at least one size will be sold in the US.
Best LCD-TV Value
Vizio VF551XVT
Vizio has launched the VF551XVT, a 240-Hz TV (actually it's 120 Hz plus backlight scanning), featuring a 55-inch panel from LGD and a direct W-LED backlight with local-area dimming.
It also features USB (with MPEG-2, H.264, WMV9, JPG, MP3, FAT32 for use as hard drive), SRS TruVolume and TruSurround, and built-in sound bar -- all for an amazing $1,999.99. Other comparable models cost two to three times as much. Wow!
Best Mobile Technology
Open Mobile Video Coalition
The Open Mobile Video Coalition gets kudos for pledging the over-the-air deployment of Mobile TV services later this year.
At CES, the alliance of US broadcasters announced that they will be launching mobile digital television (DTV) services in 2009 across 63 stations in 22 markets, covering 35% of US television households. Of the 63 stations, there will be 14 NBC affiliates, nine ABC affiliates, nine CBS affiliates, five FOX affiliates, nine ION Television affiliates, four CW affiliates and four MyNetworkTV affiliates.
Also, nine PBS stations are in discussions with the OMVC to join the 2009 launch. In the months to come, the OMVC will conduct extensive interoperability testing and trials in various markets nationwide. The mobile service will be advertiser-supported, which will probably be a more profitable proposition than pay services.
Best New Notebook Display
Lenovo W700DS
Lenovo was showing its new W700DS, a large and powerful laptop workstation PC with a 17-inch 1920 x 1200 main screen and a 10-inch 768 x 1280 side display that slides out from behind the main display.
Fonts are stable as you drag them across the mullion from the main display to the side display.
Best New Display Innovation or Category
D-link Notebook Add-on Display
D-Link was showing a 7-inch USB-powered monitor called the Side Stage. D-Link will introduce it in March or April, and the price is undecided, but will be ''$500 or less.'' This is a nice little product, but it is little.
We think the price needs to be around $200 if the Side Stage wants to take center stage and be a star.
Best Interconnect Device
PPC HDMI Cable
The PPC HDMI cable with patented locking connectors wins in this category. The standard HDMI connector has a pull strength of only three pounds, and the weight of the cable plus vibration over time can loosen the connector spontaneously, resulting in a poor connection or no connection at all.
(This is so common that the volume of ''help'' calls from PPC customers induced them to come up with a solution.) The clever, solid design has a 12-pound pull strength and is compatible with standard HDMI sockets -- unlike competing designs, which require matching custom sockets.
There is a broad market here, including cable manufacturers (if PPC wants to license), CEDIA-type installers, commercial networks, Geek Squad type installers and end users.
Biggest/Busiest Booth of the Show
Samsung's, with its video wall display and ''Samsung Cavern.'' Whose show was this anyway -- the industry's or Samsung's?
Best CES Party
Pussy Cat Dolls at Qualcomm's party at Planet Hollywood. Open bar all night -- enough said!
