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A More Mobile Mobile is Coming

Mobile data traffic will explode to 367 exabytes by 2020, with video driving 75% of that load - but autonomous vehicles and connected cars are quietly reshaping what mobile networks must deliver. Five defined levels of vehicle automation reveal a surprising gap: Level 3 may be too dangerous for human drivers to manage, forcing automakers to leap straight to full self-driving. The social dimension of man-machine interaction raises questions nobody has quite answered yet.

Ken Werner •
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Laser TVs Market Trends & Analysis

A Tale Of Two Companies, Revisited

Japan's fiscal year 2014 results reveal a striking contrast between two CE giants. Panasonic's aggressive restructuring - including its painful exit from plasma TV manufacturing - delivered a stunning $1.18 billion net profit, reversing a $7 billion loss. Sony, meanwhile, faces a 67% drop in operating income, battered by its PC exit costs and a faster-than-expected collapse in Blu-ray disc sales. The full Sony numbers arrive soon, and they promise to tell an even sharper story.

Pete Putman •
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IPTV Manufacturing 4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Consumer Television: It's Business As Usual (Or Maybe Not)

Samsung sold an estimated 49 million flat-panel TVs in 2013, cementing eight consecutive years at the top of the global television market, while Samsung and LG together command over 40% of worldwide TV share. Sony and Sharp continue bleeding market share, with Sharp holding just 5% globally and 3% in the U.S. as of Q3 2013, and LG's 55-inch curved OLED has already dropped 67% in price to roughly $4,910 in the UK. Vizio's new full-array LED 4K smart TVs, starting at $1,000 for a 50-inch model, signal further price compression that threatens premium-tier manufacturers.

Pete Putman •
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Laser TVs Market Trends & Analysis 4K Ultra HD

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #619: What's Hot Right Now (2014 Time Capsule)

A 2014 snapshot of the consumer TV and streaming market reveals a landscape in transition, with 4K sets just beginning to appear (a single 39-inch Seiki 3840x2160 panel at $599 cracking the top 100) while 1080p LCD dominates and plasma shrinks to just 5 top-100 entries. OLED remained a fringe category with only two curved models available, both priced near $9,000. For buyers tracking value, the data shows a 75-inch 1080p Smart LED TV at $2,658 undercutting a 65-inch model from two years prior by roughly $1,000.

The HT Guys •
Podcasts
HDTV Expert - CES 2014 In The Rear-View Mirror
LCoS TVs OLED TVs Projection HD

HDTV Expert - CES 2014 In The Rear-View Mirror

CES 2014 showcased a wave of 4K LCD and OLED televisions, with HEVC H.265 encoding poised to halve required bit rates and enable 4K streaming at roughly 10-20 Mb/s over existing broadband infrastructure. Quantum dot film technology, already deployed in Sony's 55-inch and 65-inch 4K LCD TVs, offers a compelling alternative to OLED by delivering stable, narrow-bandwidth color without the differential blue-emitter aging that threatens OLED longevity beyond 5,000 hours. Consumers weighing early adoption of these technologies will find the display interface landscape still evolving, with HDMI 2.0 capped at 18 Gb/s and DisplayPort 1.3 promising higher headroom for 10-bit 4K at 60 Hz.

Pete Putman •
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HDTV Expert - CES 2014: First Impressions (4K, Curved Screens, OLEDs, and All That)
LCoS TVs OLED TVs DLNA

HDTV Expert - CES 2014: First Impressions (4K, Curved Screens, OLEDs, and All That)

CES 2014 brought a wave of large-format display technology, highlighted by three manufacturers unveiling 105-inch 21:9 curved 4K LCD TVs, LG's 77-inch curved 4K OLED as the world's largest, and Vizio's 120-inch 4K LCD using Sharp's Gen 10 ASV glass from Sakai, Japan. Chinese manufacturers replicated nearly every Samsung and LG breakthrough with far less fanfare, while Panasonic's conspicuous absence of a consumer LCD lineup signals a potential exit from the TV market. For buyers, the practical takeaway is that large 4K LCDs are on track to become the standard within 2-3 years, with competitive pricing pressure accelerating from Chinese brands.

Pete Putman •
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LCD TVs Mobile HD Laser TVs

HDTV Expert - Smartphones vs. Digital Cameras: The Death Knell?

Digital camera shipments fell for a third consecutive year, with CIPA data showing a 19 percent drop in worldwide camera shipments in August 2013 and point-and-shoot volumes down 40 percent year-over-year by late 2012, while even Canon's DSLR segment declined for the first time. Nikon's D3200, a 24.2-megapixel DSLR capable of 1080p/60 video at $497, illustrates how flagship specs now compete directly against smartphone convenience at a fraction of the cost. For consumers, the calculus increasingly favors smartphones that combine adequate image quality with instant social sharing, portability, and multifunctionality over dedicated cameras.

Pete Putman •
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HD DVD Home Theater Laser TVs

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #615: Prediction Results for 2013

A year-end review of 2013 HDTV and home theater predictions scores a combined 2 out of 10 correct calls, with the standout hit being Panasonic's confirmed exit from the plasma TV business, effectively ending the flat-screen technology it helped pioneer. Predictions that missed include Apple entering home automation, 42-inch 1080p LCD TVs dropping to $300 from $480, and new-release streaming via all-you-can-eat subscription services. Readers tracking the consumer electronics landscape will find useful context on where the industry landed versus expectations heading into 2014.

The HT Guys •
Podcasts
Cable HD Deals Laser TVs

HDTV Expert - Black Friday: Boom, Or Bust?

Black Friday 2013 retail data presents a contradictory picture: while total weekend spending was estimated at $57.4B and online purchases hit a record 40% of all transactions, Black Friday brick-and-mortar sales actually declined 13.2% from 2012, cannibalized by earlier Thanksgiving store openings. Mobile devices accounted for 40% of online traffic and roughly 22-26% of online sales, with smartphones driving 25% of Friday shopping traffic. Electronics and Blu-ray discs ranked among the top four in-store purchases, yet Walmart, Target, and Best Buy all lowered quarterly expectations amid sliding consumer confidence.

Pete Putman •
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Laser TVs Market Trends & Analysis 4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Mixed Signals about UHDTV

Ultra HD (4K) television technology dominated multiple New York-area industry events, with key debates centering on content delivery pipelines, interface limitations such as HDMI 2.0's inability to handle high frame rate 2160p with deep color, and the readiness of H.265 encoder chips. Consumer spending data from CEA shows only 2.6% growth in tech gift spending for 2013, while 4K sets retail at roughly $65 per diagonal inch compared to $15 for standard 2K displays. Chinese manufacturers like TCL are already shipping 50-inch 4K TVs at $999, signaling potential price disruption that could accelerate mainstream adoption despite an incomplete ecosystem.

Pete Putman •
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4K Ultra HD Laser TVs Market Trends & Analysis

HDTV Expert - UHD-TV, Small OLEDs, and Market Forecasting

UHD-TV (4K) panel shipments reached 0.4 million units in Q2 2013, with IHS Displaybank projecting 1% unit penetration in 2013 rising to 8% by 2017 and revenue penetration hitting 20% by 2017 - figures the author finds credible despite the inherent unreliability of early-lifecycle market forecasts. Samsung's years-long struggle to achieve high-yield, low-cost manufacturing of small OLED displays serves as a cautionary parallel for how difficult new display technologies can be to scale. For consumers, the near-term question is whether aggressively priced Chinese and Japanese UHD-TV sets will deliver genuine 4K image quality.

Ken Werner •
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Market Trends & Analysis Plasma TVs IPTV

HDTV Expert - It's "Fade To Black" for Plasma and Projectors in Japan

Panasonic's exit from plasma TV production by March 2014 marks a broader collapse for Japanese display manufacturing, as plasma held only 5.7% global market share in FY2012 compared to LCD's dominant 87.3%. Chinese manufacturers are accelerating the pressure, with CSOT's 110-inch 4K panels and sub-$40-per-diagonal-inch LCD pricing reshaping both consumer and commercial AV markets. Mitsubishi Electric Visual Solutions has already withdrawn from the projector market entirely, and Sharp faces similar pressure, signaling that front projection and niche display technologies are losing ground to large-format LCD screens.

Pete Putman •
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Laser TVs Market Trends & Analysis 4K Ultra HD

HDTV Expert - Who ARE Those Guys?

Chinese LCD TV manufacturers like BOE Technology and TCL are rapidly gaining market share in the 4K UHDTV segment, with BOE posting an 8.9 percent operating margin and CSOT achieving 9.6 percent in Q2 2013, outpacing LG Display's 5.6 percent. Global 4K TV shipments multiplied 20 times in roughly a year, driven largely by China's 28 percent year-over-year TV shipment growth. For consumers, this competitive pressure is already collapsing 4K pricing from roughly $300 per diagonal inch in 2012 to around $90-$100 today.

Pete Putman •
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Blu-ray Projection HD Streaming HD

HDTV Expert - DEG: Here's The Rest of the Story

The Digital Entertainment Group's mid-2013 home entertainment report buries significant declines behind optimistic headlines, with overall DVD and Blu-ray disc sales falling 4.7% year-over-year to $3.6 billion while subscription streaming surged 32% to $1.5 billion. Physical disc rentals across all channels continued a multi-year contraction, and the 61 million Blu-ray players cited by DEG increasingly function as streaming media boxes rather than disc players. The looming implementation of MPEG-4 H.265 (HEVC) encoding, enabling 1080p/60 streams at 2-3 Mb/s, suggests the shift away from packaged media will only accelerate.

Pete Putman •
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HD DVD Home Theater 3DTV

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #584: Plasma vs LED

Plasma TVs deliver superior black levels, contrast ratios, and color saturation compared to LED LCD displays, with edge-lit LED panels frequently exhibiting backlight uniformity defects such as clouding, halo, and flashlight effects that are absent in plasma panels. Plasma's per-pixel brightness and hue control produces richer, more saturated color that mid-tier plasma sets match against higher-cost LED competitors, while In-Plane Switching (IPS) LEDs improve viewing angles only at the cost of contrast. For buyers prioritizing picture quality in a controlled-light environment under 65 inches, plasma remains the stronger value proposition despite its weight and image retention considerations.

The HT Guys •
Podcasts