The clearest development
The clearest development at this year’s show is how people have gone beyond just the boxes and hardware that we have seen in the past to the increased importance of the content/hardware interface. Manufacturers are now focusing on how their box interfaces with the content, tying deals up with unique and special content that goes with their equipment. Some of the makers, such as Panasonic, have announced this development at the show and Samsung have something coming on line shortly that’s already happening in Korea. Do you know who else is currently working on such partnerships? MARKET & TE CHNOLOGY TRENDS GOING “BEYOND THE BOXES” EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: PAUL GRAY, DIRECTOR OF EUROPEAN TV RESEARCH, DISPLAYSEARCH Interview by Richard Barnes IFA International asked DisplaySearch’s Paul Gray to give us his overview of technical trends at IFA 2008… DisplaySearch’s Paul Gray, Shawn Feddeler and Tim Bush at IFA 2008 Sharp are of course working with ARTE HD creating a premium position for selling their sets and concentrating on tailored premium content. The ‘thin’ aspect is another point that’s going to drive the market. How important is that going to be? I think that ‘thin’ is really important in terms of doing something unique and different. However, ‘thin’ is probab ly only going to be a part of the market. There are only so many people who are that sensitive to industrial design and who live in the kind of cutting edge houses and apartments that really require that. It’s going to be an important niche. The other factor is, of course, bringing down energy consumption especially with plasma. We’ve already seen the Neo PDP announced by Panasonic with other plasma manufacturers following suit. Do you think that people who buy TV sets are really going to worry about that? A couple of years ago, I compared the best and the worst TVs in the market in terms of power consumption and the energy cost difference was very high. That difference over 5 years was more than the difference in purchase BLU-RAY DISC TAKES ON NEW DIMENSION DTS PUSHES BACK FRONTIERS OF HIGH DEFINITION By Richard Barnes price. We’re talking about €300 to €400 of electricity consumption based on standby. So it is really a significant amount of money. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the savings to be made. Awareness will be boosted when the EU introduces energy labelling in 2010 and you’ll find that really pushed to the front in retail space too. More information: www.displaysearch.com Don’t Miss the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference in LA! DisplaySearch President Tim Bush was also present at IFA to track trends. He again underlined the upcoming DisplaySearch HDTV 2008 Conference to be held September 15-17 in Hollywood, California, where leading analysts representing decades of experience will uncover up-to-date results, insights, forecasts and outlooks for this shifting marketplace. DTS-HD Master Audio is rapidly establishing itself as the favoured codec for movies and music and is becoming available on more and more of the next generation A/V receivers and Bluray Disc players. In 2008, numerous leading CE brands announced support for the High Definition codec that allows consumers the ability to listen to lossless 7.1-channel surround sound on Blu-ray movies and music videos. During 2008, an ever growing number of A/V receivers and Blu-ray Disc players from Denon, Marantz, Onkyo, Pioneer, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony and Yamaha have become available to consumers that include support for the DTS- HD Master Audio codec, which features 7.1-channel High Definition lossless sound. The increasing adoption of HDMI 1.3 interfaces also means that consumers have the option of transferring the HD bitstream for decoding within the A/V receiver, or internal decoding by the Blu-ray player. At the same time a profile 2.0 player provides access to BD-Live and bonus view (also on profile 1.1) features. All of these players feature decoding of DTS-Express, which is widely used for secondary audio. “DTS-HD Master Audio allows consumers to hear the same details in a movie soundtrack or concert recording on a Blu-ray Disc that the artist and audio engineer heard in the studio,” said Anthony Wilkins, Marketing Director, Europe. “With the increasing support of DTS-HD Master Audio by hardware manufacturers and content creators, High Definition audio is more and more widely accessible and we’re very excited about it all.” In further news, DTS announced that with Sony’s recent deployment of firmware version 2.42, the Sony Playstation 3 is now able to internally decode all versions of the DTS surround codec. The firmware update serves as an important step for DTS to make every available version of its surround technology accessible to consumers during playback of Bluray discs and standard definition DVDs. “The Playstation 3 has been able to internally decode soundtracks with DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS-HD High Resolution and DTS Digital Surround (aka: Core) since April with firmware version 2.30,” said Anthony Wilkins. “With this update, the PS3 receives full compatibility of DTS-ES and DTS 96/24, making it one of the best High Definition players available.” With these firmware updates, consumers with an A/V receiver using HDMI gain the ability to enjoy DTS- HD Master Audio, regardless of their version of HDMI. The DTS stream is decoded in the player and passed to the AVR as multichannel PCM, which is supported by any version of HDMI. Previously, A/V receivers with HDMI version 1.1 or 1.2, or those with version 1.3 that do not include internal decoding of DTS- HD Master Audio, were unable to receive the highest resolution audio streams. Wilkins noted, “Sony’s recent firmware update in the PS3 currently makes it only one of two players that is able to mix a secondary audio stream like DTS Express with the primary audio stream embedded on the disc using High Definition lossless audio. This is now possible as a function of BD-Live.” Source: Blu-ray Disc News 14 www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Wednesday, 3 rd September 2008
The world’s first 200 Hertz LCD TV See it at IFA, Hall 4.2
