Samsung's wireless HD PDP TV

Samsung has announced the Korean release of their new 50" wireless HD PDP TV. This TV set will allow you to use all your peripherals (DVD, VCR, ...) without any cables visible at the back, just to make it more aesthetic. The SPD-50P7HDT will be available for 4800000 Won (approx 4000 EUR) in Korea.

Samsung shows 'world's biggest' LCD HDTV

Samsung today claimed to have produced the world's first 175cm (70in) LCD panel for high-definition TVs - 12.5cm (5in) bigger than the largest LCD TV currently on the market. The monster telly has a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, the company said.

The display has a contrast ratio of 2000:1 and a brightness of 600cdmpm². The response time is less than 8ms, and Samsung claimed the screen has a 180° viewing angle in both the horizontal and vertical axes. The display has a 120Hz update rate.

Samsung said it won't start mass-producing the 70in screen until sometime during the first half of 2007

LG debuts new HD LCDs for World Cup

Just in case you forgot, LG would like you to know that yes, you can watch that foot-centric brand of football on a brand new LG LCD display. They'd also like you to know that you'll have way more friends this June when the FIFA World Cup rolls around if you buy one of their new X-Canvas displays with 8ms response times, 5000:1 contrast ratios, and 250GB hard drives. Sadly, there's no word on resolution or model numbers, but we can only hope they'll keep up with the rest of the specs. The new displays come in 32 and 47-inch flavors, at $3340 and $4280 respectively. They seem to be Korea-only for now, but we're sure LG would love to help us USofA-ers get our "soccer" on as well.

JVC Victor includes 46–inch 1080p among three new HD LCDs

Nothing like a good bit of 1080p to get us going in the morning, and JVC delivers today with their new line of Victor LCDs. The 26-inch LT-26LC80 and the 37-inch LT-37LC85 both sport the more pedestrian 1366 x 768, with at least the 37LC85 pulling down some nice 8ms response times. That's about as technical as they get on the specs, but the LT-46LH800 has the one we want to hear: full 1920 x 1080 resolution. Otherwise victor seems mainly enamoured with the "Maxx Bass" output of the 46LH800, but we did manage to see dual HDMI ports on it, along with the usual connectivity offerings. The 46 and 37-inch displays should be available in May, with the 26-incher following in June.

Sharp's new 20–inch LC–20AX6 HDTV

Another day, another Sharp Aquos gets announced -- today it's the LC-20AX6, a simple livin' 20-inch LCD HDTV featuring a 1,366 x 768 panel with a brightness of 500cd/m2, 1,200:1 contrast ratio, 8ms pixel response, integrated digital and analog tuners, and VGA, composite, and S-Video ins, among others (sorry, no DVI / HDMI listed). No figure for a price tag on this thing (or if we'll see it in the States), but it sounds like a decent smallish mid-range set for broke city dwellers such as ourselves.

Euro trade body launches 'official' HDTV logo

The European Information and Communications Technology Association (EICTA) today announced yet another logo that it hopes will help clear confusion from the minds of consumers as they migrate from traditional television into the HDTV era. However, the move may well have the opposite effect.

EICTA's HDTV logo joins the HD Ready branding it announced in January 2005. According to the organisation, the HDTV stamp is for equipment that can "receive and process" high-definition TV signals, while HD Ready kit is "capable of processing and displaying" HD broadcasts.

It sees set-top boxes, DVD players and recorders and the like being granted the HDTV logo, while the HD Ready tag will continue to appear on displays. TVs with built-in HDTV receivers could ship stamped with both logos.

All well and good, but there's one small problem. According to EICTA documentation, to gain HD Ready certification, a display needs to have not only an analogue component-video input but also either a DVI or HDMI digital input. The digital input must support the HDCP copy-protection system.

The HDTV logo requirements don't quite match. EICTA's rules, published earlier this year to prepare vendors for today's launch of the logo, state that HDTV-branded devices need to support an analogue component-video input, a DVI port or an HDMI connector.

Says EICTA in its HD Ready licence agreement: "4. Requirements for the label 'HD ready'... 2. Video Interfaces... The display device accepts HD input via: Analogue YPbPr, and DVI or HDMI..."

And, in the HDTV licence agreement: "3.2 Output Interface requirements for HD television receivers without display for video reproduction... analogue YPbPr... or DVI... or HDMI..."

So while an HD Ready display has to have an analogue input and a digital input, HDTV equipment doesn't have to have an analogue output. The upshot could be that a consumer, assuming from the HDTV and HD Ready branding that his or her kit is compatible, may find that the set-top box with its DVI port doesn't match up to a TV with analogue component-video and HDMI connectors.

To be fair, it's unlikely anyone's going to get caught out this way - device vendors will include multiple ports, no matter what the logo rules say. Now, if the EICTA was simply using its logos to signal HD support, it might not matter so much, but according to organisation, the logo programme's there "to help European consumers know exactly which devices are capable of processing an HD signal and sending it to their HD Ready screen". Which, of course, they can't do if the rules don't mandate at least one common connector