Cool stuff annoucned at CES

[robr]

The SkyScout

The SkyScout from Celestron doesn't play music or video games. But it would still appeal to that budding or seasoned astronomer. It's about the size of a pair of binoculars, but it only has one viewing lens. On the side is a digital readout, and inside, it packs an impressive amount of technology, including GPS and the ability to calculate the angle at which you're pointing it at the sky.

You see, if you point the SkyScout skyward -- indoors or out -- it will tell you precisely what's above you with the click of a button. It can also guide you to the night's celestial highlights with a series of arrows inside the lenses. For example, if you want to know where Mars is in the sky, just hold it up, and red arrows that blink as you move the SkyScout across the horizon will find it.

This may even fall under the somewhat rare "e" category for gadgets, as in educational. It's expected to ship in early spring for about $399.

 

[robr]

Series 3 TiVo

http://www.tivolovers.com/252572.html

The unit has two CableCARD slots on the back and it will support Multi-Stream (CableCARD 2.0) or Single-Stream (CableCARD 1.0) cards. If you have multi-stream then you only need one card, but as long as only single stream cards are available you can use two of them. Yes, the unit is dual-tuner - actually, like the HD DirecTiVo it can use any two of the tuners it has, and it has six. 2 cable tuners, 2 ATSC tuners, and 2 NTSC tuners. Yes, it supports digital and analog cable, digital ATSC OTA, and analog NTSC OTA.

 

[NsXMas]

Re: Series 3 TiVo

Rob, sorry for this off-topic question, but since you're a gadgets guy, I figure I'd pick your brian:

I've been looking to buy a good quality DLP big screen TV for a while now. I was considering the Toshiba 62" 1080P TV, but I've been hearing that it doesn't actually accept 1080p sources!

Is this true? If so, when the hell will TVs that display 1080p actually begin to accept 1080p sources?

It's a ridiculous situation if true.

Thanks.

 

[robr]

Re: Series 3 TiVo

I dont know anything about that TV specifically but it's true that most TVs that can display 1080p cannot accept it via HDMI. Besides, there are virtually no sources of 1080p content available today. All broadcast HD is 720p or 1080i. Perhaps when the Playstation 3 and BluRay/HD-DVD launches, things may change, but right now there is nothing (and it wouldn't surprise me if everything was 720p/1080i for a while even after those are launched). Here's a little blurb about this subject:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11246_7-6388574-1.html

 

[NsXMas]

Re: Series 3 TiVo

Thanks Rob. That helps clarify things a great deal.

I know people say it's not a "deal breaker", but with blue-ray and HD-DVD on the horizon, it's simply annoying that the TVs can't accept those sources.

I've been holding off my DLP big screen TV purchase for over a year now. I was waiting for the prices to drop. Now that they're of decent quality and price, it's frustrating and extremely annoying that I have to wait another half a year to a year to buy a DLP TV.

 

[NSX2398]

NsXMas, it's not obvious to me why you'd wait for a 1080p TV when 1080i is available today in quantity at great prices. After all, both formats have the same 1080 vertical lines of resolution so from a detail perspective, you get the same number of dots per inch. Granted the 1080i set takes two passes to write those lines but your eye can't really tell the difference .. it just merges the passes like it was 1080p.... which is the way it's been since TV's were developed.

Electronic devices are like computers .. they're always coming out with something new ...and thus there's always a reason to wait for the next cool thing. Having bought a 60 Pany DLP early in '05, my perspective is that this whole HD TV things is a prime example of "creeping commitment" .. first you get the HD TV; then you need to subscribe to some HD content; which probably drives a new STB; which will require new DVI or HDMI cables; then you'll want one that records in HD; then you'll want to get an upconverting DVD player (more new cables); then you'll probably want to update your home theatre surround sound to 5.1 (or 6.1 or 7.1); and finally you'll need to upgrade your remote because you'll have to be a geek to be able to switch from live TV to DVD and back. I digress ...

Actually, at the moment, the big thing to gripe about is the lack of HD content being broadcast on the supposedly HD channels. But if you can get HD content, the difference between it and anything you've had is mind blowing .. but, as the link in the previous post says, going from 1080i to 1080p will be almost undetectable ... so why wait?

 

[nchopp]

Some light reading on the subject.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/hdtv_edtv.htm

And some more advanced stuff.

http://www.atd.net/HDTV_faq.html
http://alvyray.com/DigitalTV/Network_Plans.htm

(I get this type of question all the time)

 

[Arshad]

nchopp: The first article was good, the second two articles were a load of hooey. So much misrepresentation and flawed logic that it's sickening. They both clearly have an agenda to push 720p and don't show the pros and cons of 720p vs 1080i. I fully agree that it would have been nice if it were 1080p instead of 1080i in the ATSC standards, but the bandwidth requirements were simply too high when that was drafted. Many of their arguments either leave out important facts, or are outright incorrect. Even the diagrams only illustrate one aspect of what you'll see and conveniently ignore others.

I've been working with both 720p and 1080i for years now and there's plenty of cases where one is better than the other. There is no "clear cut winner" as they seem to imply. You're in the industry, so I'm sure you've seen this as well.

BTW, to clarify for the person asking about 1080p: The HDTV broadcast resolutions are specified in the ATSC standard. The highest resolution is 1080i, so unless/until they change the standard, this is the highest you'll see being broadcast or delivered on High Definition DVD's. 1080p is only useful when coming from some other non-TV sources or from a line-doubler.

 

[Joel]

That's insane

The SkyScout

The SkyScout from Celestron doesn't play music or video games. But it would still appeal to that budding or seasoned astronomer. It's about the size of a pair of binoculars, but it only has one viewing lens. On the side is a digital readout, and inside, it packs an impressive amount of technology, including GPS and the ability to calculate the angle at which you're pointing it at the sky.

You see, if you point the SkyScout skyward -- indoors or out -- it will tell you precisely what's above you with the click of a button. It can also guide you to the night's celestial highlights with a series of arrows inside the lenses. For example, if you want to know where Mars is in the sky, just hold it up, and red arrows that blink as you move the SkyScout across the horizon will find it.

This may even fall under the somewhat rare "e" category for gadgets, as in educational. It's expected to ship in early spring for about $399.

 

[akira3d]

Gamers, especially those looking forward to PS3, can make a good argument for waiting for 1080p over 1080i...video games look way better in progressive modes than interlaced due to the latter's line shearing, most pronounced with fast moving objects and backgrounds (even worse with games than video since games usually lack motion blur).

I'd much rather wait for a 1080p TV (I'm in no rush, because I won't buy one until I know I can buy a TV that will fully work with the PS3).

Of course, I'm also holding out for a 1080p video camera. I can't wait for the day that I never have to work with interlaced video!

 

[Joel]

Gamers, especially those looking forward to PS3, can make a good argument for waiting for 1080p over 1080i...video games look way better in progressive modes than interlaced due to the latter's line shearing, most pronounced with fast moving objects and backgrounds (even worse with games than video since games usually lack motion blur).

I'd much rather wait for a 1080p TV (I'm in no rush, because I won't buy one until I know I can buy a TV that will fully work with the PS3).

Of course, I'm also holding out for a 1080p video camera. I can't wait for the day that I never have to work with interlaced video!

Can Xbox 360 run on either 1080 i or p?
How about 720p?

 

[llf51]

xbox360 is 1080i. I have one.

 

[Arshad]

Gamers, especially those looking forward to PS3, can make a good argument for waiting for 1080p over 1080i


Agreed that is a viable source for 1080p content, but I don't know how prevalent 1080p games will be. There's a pretty huge performance hit on the GPU rendering to 1920x1080 vs 1280x720, especially when you're enabling high levels of FSAA and turning on all of the graphical frills. As the resolution moves up, all of the corresponding buffers (textures, pbuffers, shadow buffers etc) all start taking up much more space as well, which not only causes greater stress on the HW, it also means hitting memory and bus bandwidth limits sooner. As pixel shaders become longer and more complex, rendering time per pixel will increase greatly and 720p will start looking a lot better to game developers.

 

[NSXFreak00]

The other cool thing about CES was that next door to CES was AVN(Adult Video Conference). I happen to be in Vegas during that time, and boy did I see a ton of porn stars! I even saw Ron Jeremy

 

[NsXMas]

Thanks for all the info. I'm too lazy to do a search on 1080i vs 1080p, but won't Blu-Ray and HD DVD be 1080p? I'm assuming it will be since PS3 is blu-ray, is this correct?