Apple IP details tech for 'iTV' innards Apple was granted a further 19 US patents to its colossal archive of intellectual property this week, with the standout blueprint sure to be related to its rumoured 'iTV' product. The new IP deals with display tech for large screen LCDs: FFS. No, that wasn't a pent-up expletive burst of frustration over Cupertino's patenting …
...check out the letterbox aspect ratio for supposedly better movie viewing.
(Idle daydream after a 3 pint lunch: Is it just me, or so the movie makers seem to insist on shooting in formats which require black bars top and bottom, regardless of the prevalent technology? As the TV's catch up, the format changes again. Soon, we will be watching movies that require displays that have aspect ratios of 50:1)
So you prefer your black bars down the sides?
Think about it..........
Incidently, most of the widest film formats date from way before there were any widescreen televisions, so it's utterly incorrect to talk about TVs "catching up" and film changing formats since. If fact, these days the majority of films are shot in 16:9 format........
Here's your ticket for the clue train.... film makers shoot for CINEMA not TV.
Back in the day when TV's were (relatively) tiny and not at all flat, the image had to be cropped to remain at a decent size. The only "catching up" that TV's had to do was "get bigger" so that this became unnecessary, allowing the film to be screened in the original aspect ratio. Yes, this mean letter-boxing the image but people actually seem to prefer to see the whole movie even if only on part of the screen, rather than only part of the movie on the whole screen.
Sidebar: Film aspect ratios are chosen for artistic reasons. Your TV's 16:9 ratio was chosen because back in the day, making glass CRT tubes with a wider aspect than that whilst retaining an acceptably flat screen profile was impractical (the tubes would have had to have been immense).
Very few films shot for theatrical release are framed at 16:9 (1.77778). The most common aspect that is near as dammit to this is 1.85
Not so sure ITV would be too willing to sell as they have been trading under that name for such a long time.
However, I suppose everyone has a price and they do have shareholders so if the offer was big enough....
Beer? If I were a shareholder the payoff would buy quite a few
"'iTV' may be heading into production sooner than we think" Of course it is. There are a load of slavering drooling clones dying to buy another Apple product. They need the "status" that owning one gives them (or so they think).
All it will take is another new shiny product and telly advert and they will be all over it!
Hope it doesn't look as amature as iOS. Thats one god damn fugly OS.
Elsewhere there is an article stating that Sharp, Sony, Panasonic etc are struggling in the face of Samsung in the TV market.
There's a reason for that. Walk into a showroom that has LCD's and plasma alongside a Samsung OLED tv and you can see a difference in pictures that leaves you in no doubt which one you want.
I am happy with my TV, and have no particular love for Samsung, but, if I was in the market for a new one, there would be no hesitation as to which one I'd be going for.
Surprising therefore to see Apple going for LCD. Still, the fanbois will be convinced it looks better.
After picture quality comes connections. As Apple have no love for blu-ray, PS3 or Xbox, what's the likelihood of it sporting 3 or 4 HDMI connectors? No boubt it will have Airplay, firewire and thunderbolt... rendering useless all your home cinema, games consoles etc.
Samsung have yet to launch an OLED TV. It will be a while before it is released, and it will likely be hideously expensive to start with. I've seen a couple of OLED broadcast monitors, and if the future TVs are close, they will be very good indeed, however a 26" production monitor costs about £4k at the moment (still, much less than it did 12 months ago).
If you really want the best picture quality today, the Panasonic plasmas are probably the best. Samsung make the best LCDs, but the plasmas are much better if you are in a room with low-ish light levels.
Personally I have a Panasonic plasma as my main TV. Compared to LCD TVs at the time, well there was no comparison (although my production LCD monitor is not bad, but too small, and LCD TVs are getting better).
I've seen 2 different LED TVs from Sony. I was impressed with the 10" one, but it was a bit small. I don't think they've even released the price for their second one. Apart from that, I've only seen LED blocks to build large screens for stadiums. I could be in the market for an LED TV when they are bigger than 10"
OLED TVs? Where can I get one? I heard that someone dreamt about the idea but haven't seen one yet.
I really don't see why apple would even bother with selling TVs. Unless they plan to manufacture their own they will simply be repackaging someone else's screen into an apple case. Apple's profits lie in itunes and the connected market. iPad, iPhone and iPod were all devices that enabled you to gain access to this market and consume the goods within. Apple already do that with Apple TV, so why bother with providing the display? Unless they plan to sell these as luxury devices with massive markups that make them a status symbol, targeting more the B&O market than Sony, Samsung and Co.
Samsung TVs ?
They may well be selling alot of LCD TVs, but like the japanese makers they are also losing money on their TV operations, they are being cross subsidied fom other areass of the the company. I think if it wasnt for the cheap WON and the very strong Yen, Samsung wouldn;t be sitting so pretty.
Sony has sold their share of the joint LCD panel with Samsung to Samsung, which is current generation stuff, whilst Sony gets the lump sum, and are also investing to develop their own Next gen panels. Crystal LCD/LED and OLED etc..
Sharp panels ar ealso one of the best in the world,.
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