Wednesday, December 21, 2005

The Tech News: Dell New 30-inch LCD!!!!!!!!!

"There's no official announcement yet, but apparently Dell is going to roll out a massive 30-inch LCD monitor to compete with Apple's lust-inducing 30-inch Cinema Display. The 3007WFP is said to have a a resolution of 2560 x 1600 (that's WQXGA, baby!), a 14ms response time, 400cd/m2 brightness, 700:1 contrast ratio, support for HDCP, and a built-in 4-port USB hub and 9-in-1 multimedia card reader. No price, but it should hit North America on December 21st, which means you'll have to choose between buying Christmas presents for your loved ones or buying yourself one sweet LCD panel.

They're not saying much about it, but apparently Dell's forthcoming 30-inch 3007WFP display is a) real, and b) actually going to be announced during CES according to their site (hence their "check back on Jan 5, 2006" message), and c) has better specs as Apple's 30-inch Cinema display (those being same 2560 x 1600 resolution, but 700:1 contrast ratio over 400:1, 11ms over 16ms, and 400cd/m2 brightness over 270). Frankly we're a little bummed they're gonna miss the holiday rush with this one, but somehow we have a feeling a 30-inch display, Dell or not, is still one of those things we'd have to pony up for ourselves."

The Tech News: The World's Largest TV!!!!!!!!

Samsung Claims Largest Plasma Display

Company says it has developed a 102-inch high-definition flat screen.

Samsung SDI has developed what it claims is the world's largest PDP (plasma display panel), measuring 102 inches diagonally.

The company plans to start producing the panels during the first half of 2005 at its Chonan factory in Chungchon, South Korea. Samsung SDI expects Samsung Electronics to buy the 102-inch panels and make them into TVs at a later time, says Samsung SDI spokesperson Bryan Sohn. The company would not reveal the prices for the panels at this time.

The panels are capable of a high-definition resolution of 1920 pixels x 1080 pixels, a brightness of 1000 candelas per square meter and a contrast ratio of 2000:1, Sohn says.

Lower Prices?

The production technology used to build the panels could potentially help to reduce prices for smaller PDPs. Rather than using a separate piece of glass for each panel it makes, the company can fabricate four 50-inch panels from a single, larger piece of glass, resulting in a lower cost per panel, Sohn says.

As well as being good for consumers, the lower prices would be a boost for electronics companies like Samsung Electronics, which has seen growing demand for big-screen TVs, he says.

Samsung SDI will produce the 102-inch panels on a newly-built manufacturing line. Production volume has yet to be announced but is not expected to be large, Sohn says.

The giant panel will give Samsung SDI bragging rights over South Korean rival LG Electronics, which has been in a tit-for-tat battle with Samsung over who can produce the biggest panel.

In October 2003, LG Electronics announced the development of a prototype 76-inch screen. Three months later, Samsung SDI said it had developed an 80-inch panel, but TVs have not yet been made commercially at that size, Sohn says.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

The Tech News: BD-R / BD-RE (BD-RW) Discs!!!

"Just in case you were curious to see what you'll have spindles of probably by this time next year, TDK's officially started production of single and dual-layer single sided BD-Rs and BD-REs (which is just their nomenclature for BD-RWs”). They're apparently apt to hyping Durabis, the anti-scratch / smudge / dust coating on Blu-ray discs (even though Durabis is standard for Blu-ray media), but no word on cost per disc. Just don'’t be surprised when it'’s, um, a lot you know the price we all pay for being an early adopter. Remember how much CD-Rs used to cost?"

Just imagine back up your with just one disc, or putting 12 DVD movies on one disc possibilities are just about in less.

Monday, December 12, 2005

The V.O.T.M: Is Mariah Carey's "Someday"!!!

The video this month is "Someday" by Mariah Carey. This song is from Mariah's first album "Vision Of Love" in 1990. Sorry for posting this video so late into the month, I was too busy cleaning up.







Sunday, December 11, 2005

My New LCD: AOC LM929 Silver-Black 19" 25ms LCD Monitor!!



















"As we unpacked the display we were very impressed with the good quality. The silver and black case is clean and edges are smooth. Attaching the display to the stand was not difficult as it is with some manufacturers. Once the display was on the stand all we had to do was hook up the power and decide if we were going to run an analog or digital signal. Many mid level monitor do not include both options, especially in a 19" monitor at this price. Since we were hooking it up to a KVM switch, analog was the choice. Most displays these days have a power cord that plugs into a power adapter which then has a mini plug to the display. It was kind of nice to be able to just plug the power cord directly into the display as you do with a CRT monitor. Keeps the desk a little less cluttered.

Now with the monitor plugged in and ready to go I sat down and positioned the display. I really like the height adjustment options. You can adjust the display to be about 6 inches from the desktop. For me that took the center of the display above eye level. So for normal viewing I use it about 3 inches from the desktop. The tall adjustments are great if you like your monitor high but it's also there to allow you to pivot the display and view it long ways. Turning the display was simple and I did not feel at any time that it was off balance and would tip over. With a large display that can adjust as high as this does, having a sturdy base can help you rest easy without fear of damage.

Now that the display was positioned comfortably we fired up the PC. Upon powering up, a quick AOC splash screen displays before it loads the image from the video card. Once the OS was up and running I inspected the display for any dead pixels or distortions. There were not any dead pixels. The picture was clear with no anomalies or distortions visible. The tagline with the AOC logo says "Eyes Value". As we first powered up this LCD, in the testing process, and with continued use for several weeks, this tag line means many things. AOC has packaged a quality display in all aspects of workmanship and functionality. This display is very easy on your eyes even after many hours of continued use.

After the easy set up, we spent some time putting the display through the paces. First off was checking out the display controls. The controls are placed on the right side of the display case. This novel placement makes the controls very easy to use. Often with most monitors and displays these controls are hid underneath the bottom front edge. Depending on how high the monitor sits, these buttons can be very difficult to use to make adjustments as I am sure you are aware of.

Next we checked out some basic software applications. Email, word processing documents, spreadsheets, web browsing, etc. The picture quality was excellent for these uses. The whites were definitely not too bright, but the images are crisp and clear. However, because I noticed that the white backgrounds of documents and web pages was not glaring, I wondered how the display would fare with darker images and even dark scenes from games and movies. This did made dark scenes from our test DVD movies a little difficult to see. The specs say it is capable of 16.7 million colors. Compared to a more high end LCD the color shades were a little less definite but still good quality for a mid-level LCD. We knew that with only a 25ms response time that we would probably see some ghosting or blurring of images in both DVD movies and Gaming. What we saw in testing wasn't unbelievably bad, but was noticeable. And the darker images and scenes are darker than they might appear on higher end displays.


















The AOC LM929 is not for hardcore gamers or graphics users. For day to day use, this is a great display. If you spend most of your time in office or business related software and web browsing with occasional gaming and movie watching, this display is golden. I'm using it now for my office display several hours everyday on development and email and web browsing...my day to day work. For a large 19" display, with a good array of features, with good solid quality at an affordable price, the AOC LM929 display is for you!!

Because of the excellent functionality and usability at an affordable price."



Pros:
Love the Pivot, Swivel, Tilt, and Height adjustment options, Monitor feels sturdy and still looks nice.

Cons:
25ms response time, it's a little on the dark side, speakers aren't that good....

Saturday, December 10, 2005

The Tech News: JVC GR-DF550US Digital Camcorder!!

"The JVC GR-DF550US goes for a boxy style that looks as if its two halves (one for the lens, one for the tape transport) were designed separately and then stuck together at the last moment. And although the camcorder fits comfortably in the hand, it does have a tendency to tilt--many of its heaviest parts (such as the battery) are positioned to the left, away from the hand. You can deal with this by putting your right thumb underneath the camera to stabilize it, but this solution takes your thumb away from the record button. It's an interesting attempt at a different design that doesn't really work.

We found the video quality of the GR-DF550US to be somewhat disappointing. The video was sharp and had plenty of detail, but colors looked washed out, both under natural light and indoors. However, the GR-DF550US outperformed all the other cameras in the August review group at shooting video in low light, doing an excellent job of reproducing colors in a very challenging lighting situation. You can set the two white LEDs to turn on automatically when a scene becomes too dark. But the lights are so bright that some subjects might find it uncomfortable to look into the lens.

We also found this JVC camcorder's still images to be relatively poor in our tests, producing muddy colors and showing a lack of clarity in fine details.

With its 15X optical zoom, the JVC leads the group in that category (though you really need to use a tripod at the longer zoom settings, as such settings exaggerate camera shakes). It weighs just 14.4 ounces, which makes it the lightest of these cameras. And it's also the least-expensive camcorder here, with a street price of $450.

The battery life of the DF550US, however, was disappointing at just 1 hour, 5 minutes--the worst in our group, and less than half that of the Sony DCR-DVD403 or the Hitachi DZGX20A. There are ways to stretch operating life, such as by turning down the LCD screen's brightness or using the viewfinder, but on this camera, the viewfinder screen is rather small and uncomfortable to use, so that resort isn't ideal. One nice touch: If you close both the LCD screen and the viewfinder, the camera turns itself off, lessening the chances of accidentally running down the battery.

Another welcome detail is the quick-review button, which rewinds the tape, shows the last few seconds of video, and then switches back to recording mode. This is useful if you can't remember the last thing you recorded--and a lot easier than switching to playback, rewinding the tape, watching the video, and then switching back to recording mode.

The camera also has a selection of scene modes (such as sports or snow) and special effects (such as sepia, monotone, and strobe), and a number of modes have a preset shutter speed to approximate some degree of manual control."


Pros:
Lots of ports, Low Light Plus for low light video.

Cons:
the lackluster image quality, short battery life, and awkward handling.