TV Articles

LAS VEGAS--The highest-end plasma and LED TVs Samsung announced at CES yesterday offer a feature called Smart Interaction, which among other functions allows volume and channel changes at a word or gesture. Most TV watchers, however, use a cable box and not their TVs to change channels.

The solution is an IR blaster, a device designed to send infrared signals (just like a remote control) to operate the box. The little device pictured above handles that duty for Samsung's 2012 Smart Interaction models, namely the UNES7500, UNES8000, and PNE8000 series.

The TVs communicate with the blaster via Bluetooth, as … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Toshiba has announced its flagship LCD, the L7200 Cinema Series, which includes passive 3D, an onboard cable program guide, and smart TV.

One of the unique features of the Toshiba 2012 range is MediaGuide, an electronic program guide designed to replace your cable box's own while integrating search. Tell the TV your cable provider, browse the guide on-screen or on your tablet/smartphone, and the TV uses an IR flasher to control the set-top box.

The L7200 is a passive 3D screen that includes what the company calls "trivector" 2D-to-3D conversion.

The TV uses ClearScan 240Hz processing and incorporates an edge-lit LED panel which includes local dimming.

Like many high-end TVs this year, the TV includes a dual-core processor designed to aid multitasking and accelerate the CQ Video Engine. This will come in handy when using the Smart TV service for Netflix/YouTube and the Open Browser.

There are plenty of flashy televisions at this year's show, but the Toshiba is quite understated, if slim, with the Aero "bezel-less" design and a black glass table stand.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--LG has its Magic Motion, and Sony has its Google TV nub. And until now, Panasonic hasn't had an effective way to navigate Web content. Enter the new Panasonic touch-pad remote control.

Available on Panasonic Blu-ray players--DMP-BBT01, DMP-BDT500, DMP-BDT320--and select televisions, including the WT50 and the VT50--the new remote offers a simple touch-pad surface, with a couple of additional buttons.

This year's Viera TVs and Blu-ray players feature a beefed-up Viera Connect smart-TV service and an onboard browser, and the touch pad is designed to make it easier to navigate around Web pages and services like … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It's hard to imagine a DVR without a hard drive or a video output, but that's exactly what the new Simple.TV box is.

Designed with cable-cutters in mind, the Simple.TV ($150, available in the spring) is capable of recording over-the-air HDTV and Clear QAM cable, along with traditional DVR functionality like pausing live TV.

What makes Simple.TV's solution interesting, compared with more-traditional DVRs capable of recording over-the-air content (like TiVo and Channel Master TV), is that the Simple.TV box itself doesn't have an HDMI or any kind of video output. Instead, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Google TV has a way of disappointing expectations, and one strong case in point is the Vizio's VIA Plus platform for TVs.

At CES 2011 we named the VIA Plus models as our favorite TV product of CES. They used Google TV to deliver what the company described as interoperability between the TV and Android-equipped phones and tablets. Among other features, Via Plus was also said to support the OnLive gaming service. Those extras, along with the same kind of full-array local-dimming backlight we know and love, was enough to convince us that the so-equipped TVs were going … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Do you think your wide-screen TV isn't wide enough? Vizio's 21:9 TVs have you covered.

The company's CinemaWide models, dubbed the XVT3D0CM series, offer three screen sizes (50, 58, and 71 inches) that have an aspect ratio of 21:9, which in person is noticeably wider than the normal 16:9 rectangle shape used by typical HDTVs.

The advantage of the shape, according to Vizio, is that it allows the sets to display 2.35:1 (CinemaScope) movies without any black bars. As the company points out, many big-budget Hollywood flicks are shown in CinemaScope, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Despite the increasing ubiquity of the 3D feature, we get plenty of e-mail from people interested in "non-3D" TVs, or TVs that couldn't support 3D. In 2012 such TVs will be even rarer, but one will be the Sony EX640 series.

This relatively bare-bones LED TV lacks most of the other fancy step-ups of the higher-end HX750, such as local dimming, Monolithic styling and Gorilla Glass, but it does keep the Internet extras. Unfortunately, you'll need to either connect an Ethernet cable to the TV or invest in Sony's dongle since the EX640 lacks … Read more

LAS VEGAS--As a rule, no company divulges pricing at CES anymore, but we still have reason to suspect that when its price actually does get announced, the Sony HX750 series might represent a good picture-quality-for-the-buck proposition.

This set is the least expensive in Sony's admittedly small 2012 CES announcement lineup to offer the edge-lit local dimming we liked so much on the NX720 from last year.

Sony has slowly begin competing in price in some TV categories over the last couple of years, and the HX750's feature mix eschews the MotionFlow 960 of the step-up HX850, settling for … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Much like Samsung this year, the best LCD-based TV Sony announced at CES is a non-full-array model, relying on edge-lit LEDs to produce its picture.

That's the bad news for videophiles expecting a full-array follow-up to the excellent XBR-HX929. The good news for said videophiles? Judging from the picture quality of the NX720 from 2011, Sony knows how to eke great black levels and minimal blooming from an edge-lit configuration.

It's curious that Sony didn't name the HX850, a TV its press release identifies as a "flagship," with the traditional "XBR" moniker. … Read more