Miles of Aisles:
The 2005 Consumer Electronics Show

To give you a sense of the almost midway-like feel of the Las Vegas Convention Center's Great Hall, where most of the largest company exhibits are set up, I'll take you on a random stroll past some of the more noteworthy products.

On entering the Great Hall, the Texas Instrument (TI) DLP exhibit is always interesting, because it lets you check out a wide range of different brands of DLP rear-projection sets, all nicely calibrated and within a few feet of each other. Highlights of the TI exhibit were a new ultra-thin RCA Scenium Profiles 61-inch DLP rear-projection set (model HD61THW263) just 6.8 inches deep. RCA worked with InFocus to develop the light engine and ultra wide-angle internal lens that enables the RCA's amazingly shallow depth. The RCA's picture quality was excellent, with no visible picture distortion despite its thinness; whether consumers will actually try and wall-mount this set (it's designed for wall-mounting with an accessory bracket), I'm not sure. And though it's expensive (a bit under 10 grand), it nevertheless offers real competition to large and costly HD plasma panels. InFocus, which builds a range of DLP front projectors, has a 61-inch DLP rear-pro model almost identical to the RCA, the Screenplay 61MD10, also 6.8 inches deep and 135 pounds.

Toshiba's New DLPs

Toshiba showed an excellent-looking new 52-inch rear-projection DLP set, the 52HM94. It's gratifying to see Toshiba back in the rear-projection market after its setback trying to develop LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) technology, which it had to abandon because of production/supply problems with the LCoS chips. Historically, Toshiba, along with Sony, Mitsubishi, Hitachi and Panasonic, have been among the premier makers of excellent direct-view and rear-projection CRT sets, so it's great to see the company recover with a DLP HD set as impressive as any in the Texas Instrument exhibit. Right beside the Toshiba DLP was a new Panasonic DLP that looked equally good, and a Samsung DLP unit with the aforementioned 1080p display. I wasn't as knocked out by the rear-pro DLP sets from Optoma or Mitsubishi at the TI exhibit; while good, they didn't seem to have quite the contrast and brilliance of the others.

Just past the TI exhibit was Panasonic, with an enormous floor area in which they showed plasma and LCD panels, DLP and LCD rear-projection, and a new LCD front projector, the AE700, which will replace the very popular AE500. What is it about LCD front projectors that I still see a grid-like pixel structure, something I never see in a DLP rear-projector? Given the often less than ideal conditions of show demos of front projectors, I shouldn't make snap judgments, but the AE700 LCD front projector didn't do it for me.

On the other hand, what caught my eye at Panasonic was a wall of new Panasonic plasma panels in 42-inch and 50-inch diagonal screen sizes. Panasonic specs the life of these plasma panels at 60,000 hours (that's 32 years of TV-watching five hours a day, more than any sane person should indulge in). Panasonic also says they are immune to burn-in problems because of a new pixel-shifting technology that Panasonic developed. The picture quality of the PX50 and PX500 plasma panels was a knockout and retail is said to be $5,000 or less. Like most of the new HD sets, the Panasonics have built-in ATSC HD and NTSC tuners as well as being CableCARD ready, which permits HD reception from cable systems without the need for an outboard set-top HD box. I previously felt that Pioneer plasma panels were the pre-eminent HD plasma display (with very high prices), but Panasonic's new plasmas have taken the lead and at greatly reduced prices.

Sony's SXRD Technology

For video fans hungering for the long-awaited and much-delayed appearance of viable LCoS sets (Liquid Crystal on Silicon), and after several false starts by a number of major players, including chip-maker giant Intel, who also abandoned LCoS because of chip shortages, it seems that Sony's variant of LCoS may win the day. Sony calls its version SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display) and claims to have smaller pixels that yield a true 1920 x 1080 resolution, which is greater than any existing HD material. The two Sony 70-inch sets are the Qualia 006 and the Grand Wega KDS70XBR100. Both are expensive ($13,000 and $10,000 respectively) but critics so far have been impressed. Previous implementations of LCoS have not, in my judgment, lived up to the promise of the technology, which originally claimed to combine the best features of LCD and DLP. The Sony SXRD sets use three panels and a reflective technology (like DLP) as well as real-time monitoring of picture content with instantaneous adjustment and enhancement of black levels and contrast. I missed the Sony displays, but critics elsewhere will no doubt weigh in.

One final note on the video front: Full marks for ingenuity and execution go to Optoma for a tiny DLP front projector (Enhanced Definition, not HD) that combines a built-in top-loading DVD player and Dolby Digital decoder in a single package no bigger than a hardcover book that is slated to sell for $1500. It even has crummy little built-in speakers but an optical digital out lets you connect it to a Dolby Digital 5.1 channel surround system. While it's not HD, the projector keeps the DVD data entirely in the digital domain for processing (the latter includes enhancement of contrast) and throws a remarkably bright, contrasty and pleasing DVD image that rivals many true HD projectors. The demo was staged in a mock living room using only a white wall as a screen. To these jaded eyes, the image looked better than several other HD front projectors selling for many multiples of the Optoma's proposed price. In another theater, Optoma showed an HD DLP front projector that was startlingly good. The H79 will sell at about $9,000 but in this case, it's worth it. It threw the kind of HD image that reminded me of early demos of $30,000 3-chip DLP units a few years ago.

Speakers and Audio

The Alexis Park Hotel, a short bus ride away from the main convention center, is always packed with bizarre and exotically beautiful high-end stereo gear, some of which sounds very good, and some fairly awful. I did a quick tour and heard several disappointing and very expensive speakers (strident, sibilant and bright), as well as some impressive and wildly expensive ($9,000 and $22,000) models from other speaker companies. While both models were beautifully finished, as one might expect at those prices, I didn't hear music in any way more neutral or transparent than I hear from Axiom M80s, M60s, or M22s at a tiny fraction of the prices.