3D my TV

This upcoming technology has sparked lots of interest with our
customer's. We all know what it does...it displays a 3D image vs. our
traditional 2D image.

Note: Since the technology is not out yet, some things might change from
what I am going to say below. This information is accurate as of
current.

I want to look at 2 important things of 3D TV, though. One being the
technology and important things to know about it and second is to know
the drawbacks of 3D TV's.

I will start with this statement: 3D TV's aren't going to be as "cool"
as we think....at least not til probably 7-10 years from now (we'll
discuss this more below).

3D Technology

Theres a TON of info surrounding this upcoming technology, what I want
to do here is just lay out the "important things to know".

The upcoming 3D TV's use what is called "Stereoscopic" technology...or
"seeing in stereo". This gives the ILLUSION of 3D but is not actual,
true 3D. True 3D is what we know as "holographic". You cannot get a true
3D image from a display that is 2D, hence why its an illusion of 3D.

The way a 3D TV is going to work currently is it overlay's two same
images slightly off center (where it looks doubled). Previously you
would wear some cheap glasses that have a red and blue lens (anaglyph).
That old technology doesn't allow for a full color range, nor does it
allow for 1080P high resolutions for the image. Current technology will
use powered glasses called "Liquid Crystal Shutter Glasses". These are
battery powered and have to be connected to the system for 3D to work.
The glasses will connect either infrared or through Bluetooth to the
system. The reason for this is the glasses have a 120hz refresh rate
(60hz for each eye). The glasses literally blink each lens 60 times a
second alternating each eye....this forces the brain to see
"stereoscopic". There is a technology called "Autostereoscopic" that
does 3D without glasses. It is expected to be out in 5-6 years. The
problems with Autostereoscopic is that it has no viewing angle
currently....that is, if you aren't sitting head on, it doesn't work.

Cons of 3D TV's

Most people get excited when they hear "3D TV" but what they don't
realize, is there are still a lot of hindrances/cons to this currently.

1. About 10% of people cannot see "Stereoscopic" 3D. Their brains
will literally not interpret the images.
2. Your eyes are meant to work congruently (together, at the same
time). Forcing it to see in a different manner puts the brain into
"overdrive mode" (remember, you aren't seeing 3D, youre brain is
interpreting two 2D images as 3D). This overdrive mode causes the brain
to work harder than it is meant to. This is why most things you go see
in 3D aren't entirely in 3D but are only partially in 3D....because your
brain needs a break. Individuals tolerance on this varies, which is why
people get headaches and eye fatigue/strain from watching 3D. This is
minimized by short bursts of 3D not usually exceeding 20 minutes. This
is why Avatar, most popular 3D movie to date, isn't completely in 3D.
Most people don't realize that you wont be watching 100% of anything in
3D due to this fact.
3. Everyone wanting to watch in 3D will need glasses which are
going to run about $100 a pair. So if you have 5 people in your
household, that's $500. That does not count for the fact most people
would want extra pairs for when friends and family come over to watch
3D.
4. Each manufacturer displays 3D slightly differently. Since there
is no complete standard, you cannot use your Panasonic 3D Glasses to
watch 3D on an LG.
5. Your current equipment will not work. Your bluray player,
receiver, TV...even your cables will not work. All these devices will
have to be upgraded to 3D capable versions. Sony has said the PS3 is "3D
upgradeable" but it's the ONLY device that has the potential to be
upgradeable. Most people aren't going to be rushing out to upgrade their
entire system.
6. Content is very limited. Discovery Channel and ESPN have
announced 3D channels. The few movies that will be 3D are expected to
come with a normal 2D version of the movie. DirecTV has said they will
offer 3D content, but there is talk it might only be 720p and not
1080i/p.
7. For 3D to work properly, seating distance is vital. And, with 3D
its shortened. A 50" 3D TV has a 6 foot seating distance for viewing. So
for our normal customers who sit 12+ feet away from their current set, a
MASSIVE TV/Screen would be needed to achieve 3D properly. The reason for
this, is if you sit too far back, your eyes will not be able to notice
the difference between the 2 slightly offset images that make 3D work.
8. The sets will not be able to display 2D and 3D at the same time.
9. 3D does not work well for fast action. The reason being is the 2
offset images moving at a fast rate are hard for the eyes to track and
the brain to interpret. Some people get disoriented and get motion
sickness from watching 3D.
10. Autostereoscopic is expected in 5-6 years. This technology will
be completely different than current 3D technology and will require
another complete system upgrade and different versions of the films as
well. The reason this is, is because to get a viewing angle out of the
display without glasses, the display has to give a different set of
pictures for each viewing angle. Currently they can get 64 seating
positions out of autostereoscopic, but when you realize that most TV's
today have a 170 degree viewing angle, well....64 isnt a lot. To do
this, the TV has to display 64 different images at once...which means
the source has to have 64 different images worth of information.

While 3D is cool and awesome sounding, it doesn't seem that most people
are going to make the jump for it. Those that would, are probably going
to wait 3-4 years...unfortunately by then, we'll almost be switching
from 3D with glasses to 3D without glasses.

To keep this all in perspective. Only in about the last 6 months would
most of us consider bluray to be the "current, everyday technology" but
it started its development in 2000 and the first disc's were sold in
2006. That's 10 years of development and 5 years of sales JUST to get to
where we are today. There is also no doubt that "3D TV" has many years
to go before its "everyday technology" as well.

If you would like to read more, heres some links: http://bit.ly/aqVaI8
and http://bit.ly/5PShzJ

As always, any questions, I would be glad to be of help.

Power Centers and Filters

This week I want to look at Power Centers.

Let me be the first to say, I was slightly wrong about what these do and how
they operate....scary huh?! Haha. I made phone calls to Panamax and got
some information I was looking for. I also made a phone call to Monster,
but after 15 minutes on hold...I decided I could do better just
researching on their website.

Let's jot down some questions to answer....and then we'll answer them.

1) What is a Power Center/Filter and what do they do?
2) What is Monster's "Green Power"?
3) What is the difference between Power Center filtration "stages"?
4) Whats the difference between Monster and Panamax?

What is a Power Center/Filter and what do they do?

This is where I was slightly wrong. I had always believed the "clean
power" and "power filtering" were forms automatic voltage regulation.
They are actually separate functions. Panamax refers to this as "Linear
Filtration". What this does is remove EM/RF Interference
(electromagnetic or radio frequency). If you play any war (Call of Duty,
for example) video games, you know when an EMP happens all electronics
go offline. Think of EMI/RFI as exhaust gasses that come out of the
tailpipe from your car....but they are electrical and come out of every
electronic in your home....your microwave, your telephones, your TV,
your bluray player, etc. The power centers we carry remove this
interference. Heres a great example: remember when you were little and
lived at home and someone would turn the microwave on and the TV picture
would get fuzzy? This is EMI/RFI interference.

We only carry one power filter that does Automatic Voltage Regulation
(AVR), the Panamax 5400. Electronics operate at 120v (standard
electricity in your house), but the power companies don't output 120v
all the time. Sometimes, you'll get 110v which under powers your
electronics. The AVR in the 5400 stores electricity internally and
"fills in the electrical gap" if the current drops below 120v.

What is Monster's "Green Power"?

Monster really markets to the Green client's here. What Green Power does
is this: there are certain green power ports on the device. You plug the
TV and/or the receiver into these. When the power center recognizes the
devices in these ports are turned on, it switches on all the other ports
on the power center. When you turn the devices plugged into those
special ports off, the power center switches off the other ports. What
this does is eliminate "phantom" or "standby" power. For example, if you
aren't using your system, your subwoofer goes into standby mode....where
it still draws a small amount of electricity. If you turn your system
on, Green Power turns on your subwoofer, if your turn the system off,
Green Power shuts off all power to your subwoofer....eliminating any
standby power draw.

What is the difference in the filtration stages?

This differs between the brands, but overall it means 2 things: More
Isolated banks and more joule protection for surges.

Isolated banks separate your home theater devices from interfering with
one another. For example, on a Stage 1 filter, your home theater
equipment is protected from interference from other devices in your
house, but not other devices in your system. Stage 2, typically has 2
isolated banks. Now we can protect the video equipment from any
interference the audio equipment produces. The more isolated banks, the
better protection between devices in your theater system. For further
example, the Panamax 5300 or better has 5 isolated banks. Now we can
protect the receiver from the tv, and from the cable box, and from the
bluray player and from the subwoofer.

What is the difference between Monster and Panamax power centers?

The Panamax 5400 is the only one that does AVR which is the best
protection you can get your system.

The main difference is the internals that protect your system.

Panamax uses an "Avalanche diode" and Monster uses a "MOV" circuit. Both
of these circuits fail over time. However, when the Monster circuit
fails, it fails into "Open" mode which means your system still works but
is not being protected. That's why the Monster devices have lights on
the front telling you whether or not the power center is working. You
have to literally monitor your power filter. Panamax's avalanche diode
fails into the "Closed" mode. Your system doesn't power on, but it also
cannot be damaged and you know you need to replace the panamax unit.
Another important thing to note is because of the way the circuits work,
the Monster units usually fail after stopping 2-3 spikes...whereas the
Panamax's stronger circuits have taken 15+ spike hits before and still
functioned properly.

As always, any questions, just let me know. Hope this helps!

Multi-Zone Audio

For the last couple of weeks we have been looking at receivers and HTIB’s and their capabilities and common misnomers.

I wanted to take some time to look at multi-zone audio since it is quite popular with our clients.

Here are some good rules to know when looking at multi-zone audio:

1) A Receiver is only meant to power as many speakers as it has channels. (i.e. a 5.1 receiver is meant to power 5 speakers and a 7.1 channel receiver is meant to power 7 speakers).

2) Speaker selectors should NOT be used on the “B Speaker” set or Zone 2 set of a receiver.

3) Receivers maximum power output is its MAX. Just because a 7.1 Receiver has 9 speaker connections doesn’t mean you should connect 9 speakers to it.

The receivers we carry in-store (for the most part, there are a couple magnolia exclusions like the Denon 3310 and above) are meant to drive only a single zone. Some receivers, like the Denon 3310 and above, have a smaller second internal amp for driving usually 2 speakers in another location.

Lets use the Yamaha 665 for this example. Its our lowest model receiver that provides us with zone-2 speaker connections. It is a 7.2 channel receiver which means it can handle 7 speakers. So if we connect up a 7.1 system to it, then we cannot connect up speakers to the zone-2 connections. If we connect a 5.1 system to this receiver then the receiver can handle 2 speakers connected to the zone-2 connections.

That brings us to speaker selectors. Whats the proper way to use them?

Speaker selectors are actually the worst way to do multi-zone audio. The reason being is because a receiver will output 90 watts per channel (Denon 790). When you use a speaker selector, it corrects the Ohm problem that occurs when connecting multiple speakers to two terminals. But, whatever is connected to the speaker selector still only gets 90 watts per channel. Keep in mind, every halving of wattage = halving of volume output. Thus 2 speakers = 90 watts each, 4 speakers = 45 watts each, 6 speakers = 30 watts each and 8 speakers = about 22 watts each. The more speakers you add, the more you have to turn the volume up on the receiver to maintain a certain level of sound. Thus, a speaker selector with 8 speakers attached to playing all at once will be only 33% as loud as just 2 speakers at the same volume level. Do people get away with hooking stuff up incorrectly? All the time. But as usual, doing so can cause the equipment to overheat and fail or cause a much shorter lifespan of the unit.

If you look on the back of the Yamaha 665, you’ll notice an RCA connection below Center channel speaker terminals that says “Zone 2 out”. The proper way to do more than 2 speakers in other zones is to run the Zone 2 out connection into an IN connection on a second stereo receiver (Yamaha 365 and Denon 397 work great for this). A Secondary receiver should handle another 3-4 sets of speakers (add another receiver every 3-4 sets of speakers, they can all be linked up through audio pass throughs).

We do carry receivers simply meant for putting audio out to multiple zones (Denon, Speakercraft, etc.).

I know this one was a little deeper but I wanted to help you out when helping customer’s get what they need.

As always any questions or comments, just let me know.

Ohm, my receiver!

Last week we took a first glimpse at receivers vs. htib's. To keep it
short and understandable, I left out Ohms (thanks Michael Glenn for
noticing!). This week I want to discuss Ohm's because they are very
important to understand power.

Before we get to that, we need to understand what Ohm's are and how they
work.

Lets recall from last week: The Denon AVR-790 we found did 90 watts per
channel and we found the Panasonic HTIB to do 12.5 watts per channel.
While those numbers are great for explaining how the two systems
differ....they actually are not very accurate because we didn't take
Ohm's into consideration.

What are Ohm's?

Ohm is a measurement of electrical resistance and actually should be
connected directly to a wattage rating. To say, for example, the Denon
790 is 90 watts per channel is actually inaccurate and missing
information.

The easiest way to understanding is typically to think of it this way:
Ohm's are electrical resistance or "electrical weight". The larger the
number the more "weight" there is. Think of it like if you were working
out. How many reps can you do at a certain weight?...100 reps of 5
pounds, 50 reps of 50 pounds, 25 reps of 100 pounds, 12 reps of 200
pounds (this is not a completely accurate analogy but should do the job
for you). Thinks of the reps as ohms and the pounds as watts (in the
previous analogy). In the electrical world, the lower the ohm's the more
watts the receiver can let flow. The problem with this is the ohm's are
like a dam on a river. They keep the water flow exactly to what it
should be. For this reason, most receivers such as the Denon 790, are
6-8 ohm (the Denon being rated at 8ohms and the Panasonic HTIB is rated
at 3ohms).

So what does this mean for us?

It means that to directly compare wattage we need to be at comparable
ohms.

The Denon receiver produces 90 watts @ 8 ohms and the Panasonic HTIB
produces 12.5 watts @ 3 ohms. The rule of thumb is for every HALVING of
Ohm's we DOUBLE the watts output. For example, 90 watts @ 8 ohms is 180
watts @ 4 ohms and 12.5 watts @ 3 ohms is 6.7 watts @ 6 ohms.

Lets compare them both at 8 ohms to get a direct comparison:

Denon 790: 90 watts per channel at 8 ohms
Panasonic HTIB: 4.7 watts per channel at 8 ohms

Or we can compare them at 3 watts:

Denon 790: 240 watts per channel at 3 ohms
Panasonic HTIB: 12.5 watts at 3 ohms

So what does this mean in the real world?

Well, we do have direct comparison numbers now. And its even more
evident than before that a stand-alone receiver is light years ahead of
a overrated HTIB receiver.

However, receivers are meant to operate within their designed Ohm load.

This means, we would not want to hook any normal speaker to the
Panasonic HTIB. Only the speakers that come with the unit. Changing them
out to a Bose, Klipsch, etc. speaker could cause the receiver to be
stressed beyond what its capable thus damaging the amplifier.

On the flip side, we also do not want to hook the Panasonic HTIB
speakers up to a stand-alone receiver. The drop in Ohms could cause the
receivers amp to output more watts than its capable thus overdriving and
damaging the amplifier.

Do people do this? Do you do this? Sure. But it is not how the amps and
speakers are designed and can cause serious damage to your components or
could, at the minimum, shorten the life of your components.

As always, questions and comments are welcome. Next week we'll use this
information to look at speaker selectors and multi-zone audio.

Receivers vs. HTIB's

The subject at hand is one that is very confusing, so I will try to keep it as simple as possible. I still want you to understand the differences, so if you have any questions just let me know.

Most have been confused how a $1000 receiver can do 700 watts but a $500 HTIB can somehow do 1000+ watts. There is actually a lot of math involved in it but I’ll keep this as short and sweet as possible. I have been researching this on and off for the last 2 weeks so I can make it easy to understand and accurate.

There are two quick ways to tell the truth about power ratings:

1) What is the distortion rating?

2) Power Consumption: How many amps or watts does the amplifier actually pull?

With either of these two pieces of information, we can tell who is making up numbers and who is telling the truth. Let’s look at them individually. For both of the examples below we will use the Panasonic 1250W Home Theater in a box (SC-BT300) and the Denon AVR 790 receiver.

Distortion

The industry standard for amplified sound distortion is 0.1% (1/10th of a percent). Anything more than this is considered unacceptable. The reason this is important is you can push an amplifier beyond what its physically capable to produce a high wattage number, however the high amount of distortion makes it pointless. Let’s compare our two examples:

The Denon AVR790 (that is rated at 660 total watts) runs at 0.08% distortion which is better than the industry standard. Now lets look at the Panasonic SC-BT300.

The Panasonic SC-BT300 produces 1250 watts at 10% distortion (yes ten percent, that’s not missing a decimal). What does this mean? Well, it means it produces sound 100 times more distorted than the industry average AND 125 times more distorted than the Denon receiver. If you go to Panasonic’s website, you will see they also provide the SC-BT300 a wattage rating of 650 watts at 1% distortion. That’s definitely better, but still 10 times more distortion than is considered acceptable. Basically, Panasonic can make the unit product twice the wattage if it increase the distortion by 10 fold. So at the industry standard of 0.1% the Panasonic SC-BT300 would produce 300 watts. The system powers 7 speakers and a subwoofer so 300 watts / 8 speakers = 37 watts per channel. Not very impressive anymore is it?

Well, theres one more problem:

Power Consumption

A device cannot produce more power than it pulls. If you flip the Panasonic receiver around you’ll notice on the back it says “120 watts 120 volts”. A 1 amp device pulls 120 watts at 120 volts. So the Panasonic SC-BT300 pulls 1 amp. So we just found that the Panasonic SC-BT300 should produce 300 watts at 0.1% distortion. But heres the problem: it only pulls 120 watts. This means it can only PRODUCE 120 watts. Yes, that 1250 watt HTIB is now down to 120 watts. This same system also has a built in blu-ray player (my upconvert dvd player says it pulls 12 watts) which lets say pulls 20 watts. So now that 1250 watt sound system is down to 100 watts. Lets look at how that works with 8 speakers: 100 watts / 8 speakers = 12.5 watts per channel.

Let’s compare this so the Denon 790. The Denon says it pulls 5.5 amps, if we calculate that (amps x volts = watts) then we get 5.5 x 120 = 660 watts. The Denon receiver actually produces the watts advertised! Thus the Denon can produce 90 watts per channel.

Typically it takes twice the wattage to produce twice the loudness (an increase in 10 decibels) thus the Denon Receiver will produce clear sound 3 times as loud as the Panasonic HTIB could ever hope to.

Next week we will look at multi-zones and speaker selectors so we can understand how to use those properly.

As always, any questions or comments, just let me know.

Moving Picture Resolution

Ever wondered why LCD's seem to be more pixilated the faster the picture is changing?

Unfortunately, and oddly enough, 1080P isn't 1080P. 1080P is measured for a still (static) image. For video, which is what a TV is for, there is what is called "Motion Image Resolution" (MIR) or Moving Picture Resolution. Turns out, for video, most TV's only use 300-900 lines of resolution. Most lower model plasma's (all non-panasonic's currently) use 600-800 MIR, 60hz LCD's use about 380 MIR, 120hz use about 600 MIR and 240hz use about 900 MIR. Panasonic S/G/V/Z Series and Pioneer's are the only TV's to currently use all 1080P for their MIR. In essence, only those Panasonic Series and Pioneer plasmas are TRUE 1080P.

120hz and 240hz help with the MIR, but the way it works causes image shutter because it does it by "guessing". The 120/240hz processor known as ME/MC (motion estimation/motion compensation) guesses what the image is going to do on the next frame. Since it's a guess, often times it is wrong which is what creates the image degradation and creates the "video/soap opera effect" of the image (where it seems the foreground is floating over the background). While this works ok for normal TV viewing, it severly degrades the image quality of Bluray because Bluray contains the correct information so the ME/MC processor guesses wrong very often. Plasmas don't have ME/MC circuits so they don't suffer from this issue.

Heres some links to some more information. Some of the links include videos which show how a plasma correctly displays motion vs. a lcd.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10020262-1.html

http://hdguru.com/120240-hz-lcd-problems-exposed/569/



http://gizmodo.com/226993/plasma-vs-lcd-moving-image-resolution