Susan Johnson

CEDIA 2014 Show Coverage

CEDIA 2014 Show Coverage is underway.....the SECRETS Team is on the ground in Denver.....press releases embargoed until today are being added to the Press Releases posted on SECRETS.  Actual coverage from the floor begins on Thursday.  The SECRETS Team covering CEDIA 2014  includes our Senior Editors, Robert Kozel, Chris Eberle and Kris Deering and SECRETS Managing Editor, Cynthia Johnson. Also roaming the floor and attending meetings are Sumit Chawla and David Rich, so a large presence from SECRETS, for sure.

OmniMount PJT40 Projector Mount

Compared to mounting a flat panel TV, installing a projector is a pain. You need to get the screen perfectly level and flush with the wall. Then you have to mount the projector to precisely line up with the screen. It has to be perfectly parallel to the screen or you'll see distortion. Getting the projector perfectly level usually means lifting it up to make small adjustments to the feet, placing the projector down, and checking again. Since I review multiple projectors every year, I do this dance too many. By the time I get a projector perfect it's almost time to box it up and send it back to the company. The PJT40 projector mount from OmniMount is designed to make this easier than before and so I decided to install one in my home theater to find out.

CES 2014 Show Coverage

CES 2014 is underway in Las Vegas!  Covering the show this year is our veteran team: Robert Kozel, Chris Heinonen, Piero Gabucci and Stephen Hornbrook!  And of course Cynthia Johnson, Managing Editor and John Johnson, Editor-in-Chief are on the ground as well.  This year is no different than past years, with respect to the multiple venues to cover, but it does seem that the off-site meetings, in hotels other than the main venue,s are increasing, so getting to all of the great new products in audio and video is getting to be a race.  And this year is full of travel challenges for those travelling from the East and Midwest.... Coverage will begin tomorrow, here, but do check out the real-time postings on Google+ all week.  Primary audio and video coverage will be from the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Venetian Hotel.  Also planning some coverage of THE Show, later this week.

 

LG 55EA980 55″ Curved OLED HDTV

For the past decade, we've been hearing about a miraculous new technology called OLED that will reshape our lives.  Both Samsung and LG now produce and sell OLED TVs, which cost around $10,000 retail - in both flat and curved form factors.

CEDIA EXPO 2013 Show Summary and Final Thoughts from the Team

The CEDIA EXPO 2013 Coverage Team spent several days covering the press conferences the exhibits and attending training. The Team Members have summarized their impressions and final thoughts on the EXPO....with particular attention to 4k and the direction of the industry, as presented by the Expo. For full coverage don't miss the full report here and on the CAVE.

CES 2013 Show Coverage – It’s a Wrap!

CES 2013 has come to a close and we are happy to be home.....some final thoughts.....

Robert Kozel, Senior Editor, sums it up......The show had an enormous crowd of over 150,000 people. From an audio/video perspective, the new innovation was all around 4K displays. Every major manufacturer was showcasing 4K displays. The practical reality is that while the 4K displays were stunning, the general consumer will not be able to afford this technology for several more years at least until the prices come down to earth. The real stars of the show were the updated plasma and LED televisions that support the current HDTV standards. These new sets were gorgeous and offer the consumer some amazing technology and beautiful video quality at approachable pricing.

On the audio side of things...

The Inner World of LCD TVs – Part I

(Source: Oleg Lavrentovich, Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University)

When you go shopping for a flat-panel television these days, the vast majority of available models are LCD TVs. Today's LCDs are super-slim, super-bright, and super-colorful thanks to many improvements made since Sharp introduced the first commercial LCD TV—with a screen measuring a whopping 14 inches—in 1988.

But exactly how does an LCD TV work?