Podcast #1166: CEDIA Expo 2024

welcome to the hd tv podcast featuring the hd guys are a durdarian and brayden russell

now the hd tv podcast welcome to the hd tv and home theater podcast for friday september 6 2024

this is episode number 1166 and as you can tell because i'm doing the intro brayden is not here

he as it turns out is starting a new job so he won't be back until we're gonna have him come

back in october because i'm taking a vacation later on this month and i was going to take

that week off so we decided that rather than just having him kind of squeeze it in during his new

job you know you have that period where you're trying to learn everything we said why don't

you not come back in october so dj will fill in but he's not here today in the usual sense

and he's not here today in the usual sense and he's not here today in the usual sense

he is at cdia so we'll get a first-hand account of what's going on at cdia later on in the show

i'm gonna call him and we will have that but in the meantime i'm going to handle the emails and

the news and then from there we will switch over to cdia with dj so there's a couple ways to support

the show you can do that by becoming a patron of the podcast at patreon.com hd tv podcast you can

sign up for a recurring donation there and any amount you choose greatly helps we don't have any

special like behind the paywall kind of thing it's just a mechanism to support us with a periodic

donation you can also buy us a cup of coffee on the website on the right hand side up towards the

top you can click on the picture of a coffee cup and there it will take you to paypal you can buy

three different sizes which are three different dollar amounts we also have something for you

called a calf pal and that's a 25 donation we had one this week and it was from howard rothstein

and howard sent us an email so we'll get to that now and he says a shout out so he included a

shout out in his email shout out to butt kicker corporation who helped me when i replaced a piece

of furniture and i needed some replacement parts for my 10 year old system all at no charge that

is some good customer service he also has a question he says my question is i'm getting

some resonance on the back wall of my home theater where it meets the ceiling there's some

sound dampening along the walls and a bass trap in the corner any suggestions on what to put in

the corner and he's also included some pictures and howard judging by what i see in the picture

you might want to use some sound deadening material similar to the stuff that they use

in cars i sent him a link to a product that's available on amazon it's about 50 bucks and it

actually comes with tools that you can use to make a sound deadening material and it's a

you can help trim it to the size that you need and also just in case he didn't like that there's

also something that i use inside my speakers it's called a sonic barrier and it's an acoustic sound

dampening foam and that also has an adhesive on the back that's ten dollars and that will be more

than enough the amount that it comes for that ten dollars to cover the area that howard has

indicated in the picture that he sent me so if anyone else has some ideas on how

howard can dampen the sound in a specific area that is where the vibration is coming from let

me know he's also sent me some pictures so if you need a little bit more visual to help dial in the

solution for howard let me know and i'll send you the pictures and hopefully we can get this solved

for howard and our next email is from kevin z and he says hey guys i came across this and i thought

of you it's a website containing years and years of old radio shack catalogs

need a capacitor or a handful of resistors how about a turntable pcs walkie-talkies or cb radio

back in the day only one place had this variety radio shack and i used to love going there with

my dad as he looked at stereo equipment and i marveled at the electronic components

around 1984 i bought the book building speaker enclosures from radio shack and i repurposed

speakers from an old tv console into my own

somewhat massive 15-inch woofers, Keezy. So that's a play on his name, Kevin Z. Anyway,

cruise through the years here, and he sent us a link to them. And Kevin, when I got your email,

this made my day. I went back and I looked at catalogs that were from the middle 80s when I

had graduated and I had a little bit of money. And I would get these catalogs. They usually would come

in the Sunday newspaper in the adverts section, and you get your target ads and all those things.

And that would be what today I guess we do, scrolling through Instagram. I would scroll

through these and dream of the stuff that I would love to buy. And Radio Shack had, as he just said,

all this stuff in one place. And the CB radios back in the 70s, I would ask my dad to buy one.

And one Christmas, he bought one for the whole family.

And we had it installed in my mom's car. And we would go with her anywhere she went just to get

on the CB radio. And I think even one year, we turned on the accessories on my mom's car. And

I think we ran the radio dry, the battery dry, getting on the CB radio. So that was a lot of fun

back in the day. And the store was just, I loved it. It was like a playground for people who were

into electronics. So if you get a chance, take a look at these catalogs.

They go back years. And so whatever year you're interested in, they will have a catalog. I just

wish that place still existed. It was a lot of great memories just from a store, believe it or

not. Our next email is from Quincy in Ridgeland, Mississippi. I had an Apple streamer for close to

four months now. I love the streamer and how easy it makes it to find most of my shows. But I have

one major gripe. It forces me to log in and log out of my show. I have to log in and log out of my

show. I have to log in with my password at least twice a week. And every other week, it sends me to

iforgot.apple.com to reset my password, even if I've typed it correctly. Is it because I have an

Android phone that it does this? Is the streamer searching for an iPhone to verify home every so

often? And when it doesn't find it, I'm prompted to log in again. When I turn on my device, I get

the prompt to go to settings and sign in every so often. And it's very frustrating to be in the

movie only to have the pop up asking me to sign in. I don't share my info with anyone. And this is

the only Apple product that I own at the moment and probably my last if the Google streamer can

be a comparable product. Am I doing something wrong or is this status quo for Apple due to

security reasons? I've never had any other app do this so frequently. Thanks as usual. And I love

the show, Quincy. So, Quincy, this is not usual. There is no reason it should do this. It's not

even if you have an Android phone. So what I did was I sent Quincy an email to a couple of threads

of people who had similar issues and what they did to solve them. Some of them said reset the

box and start over because it may be in some weird kind of loop. But in most of those cases,

a lot of people were saying because they had signed in with a different user ID and it was

trying to validate something. It got in a weird kind of endless loop. So I sent Quincy an email

to the app and it was saying, hey, I don't know if this worked. So let me know if that did help

or if anybody out there has a similar problem and you've solved it, let me know and I'll pass

that solution on to Quincy. But no, Quincy, it should not work this way. I've never had my Apple

box ask me to do that. And I do have friends who have Android devices who have the Apple TV,

and this is not a normal situation for them. And our last email is from Chuck in

Oaks. He's responding to the question that I asked, what other devices use cable cards?

And I said the only one I remembered was the HD Home Run. But Chuck reminds us that the TiVo

uses a cable card. There's an option for a TiVo box that can accept a cable card.

And he says discontinuing cable cards will shut down TiVos. Not all TiVos, but the ones that do

use the cable card to access their cable company's programming, but using

a TiVo as the front end for their DVR. So thank you, Chuck, for sharing that information.

And hopefully you are not one of those TiVo owners that will be shut down here in the near future.

All right. Only two news stories to talk about this week. First one is Samsung Electronics of

America has launched the Premier 9 and Premier 7 certified HDR10 plus ultra short throw projectors.

The Premier 9 features triple laser technology for enhanced

color accuracy and brightness, while both models offer ultra short throw capabilities

and vibrant 4K resolution on screens up to 130 inches. The Premier brings every scene to life

in vibrant 4K resolution and exceptional color. The Premier 9 and 7 provide color gamut coverage

of 154% and 100% of the DCI-P3 standard with clear and vivid images in various environments.

With a maximum brightness of up to 100% and a maximum brightness of up to 100% of the DCI-P3

of 3450 isolumens, the Premier 9 and 2500 isolumens for the Premier 7. These projectors

both deliver sharp and dynamic visuals. The Premier 9 goes for $6,000 and the Premier 7

goes for $3,000. They're both available for purchase at Samsung.com and across select

retailers. And as an additional bonus, now through September 15th, when you buy the Premier,

you'll also get the freestyle second gen

on Samsung. So these are a great deal. Now, if you're going to build a really high-end dedicated

theater, you're not going to want to use an ultra short throw. But I tell you, I've got an ultra

short throw and I've got one of the earlier versions that first came out from Optima. And

I'm very happy with it. The newer ones coming out are even better. And if you've got a room

with a lot of light coming in, ambient light coming in, and you want a bigger than 100-inch

screen, this is the way to go.

$3,000 for the Premier 7. I really think you can't go wrong with this.

And our last news story. This is something that I lived through. Disney Entertainment

channels, including ESPN, went dark on DirecTV during the US Open after both sides failed to

reach a new carriage agreement, an issue that left tennis fans unable to watch the heavily

anticipated fourth round matchup between American Francis Tiafoe and Alexi Papirin of Australia.

coverage was pulled about a half hour before the match. We're hopeful that this dispute will be

resolved as quickly as possible. Fans can view the match on other streaming services. But as

the US Open pointed out, they were not free on these platforms unless it's a free trial option.

And college football fans were also hit with a blackout 10 minutes before the LSU-USC season

opener airing on ABC. DirecTV, which has over 11.3 million subscribers, said Disney offered an

extension to keep the channels on the air in exchange for DirecTV having to waive all future

claims that its behavior is anti-competitive. And that's probably as a result of the lawsuit

against Venue Sports. So I turned on the TV last Saturday and I wanted to watch the LSU-USC football

game. And I get a message that says the channel is not available because of the dispute between

DirecTV and ABC. What I end up doing is I go,

to ESPN and I sign up for ESPN Plus because I normally would have signed up in November when

they start putting the LA Kings games on. There's only about four or five games spread from November

through about May. So I end up paying for ESPN Plus during that period of time. Well, it just

caused me to sign up two months early and I was able to watch the game. I could have also watched

the US Open. This shows how vulnerable the cable carriers, whether it be the cable carriers or the

IPTV or just traditional cable, because I was able to go find an additional way to get this

content. I'm not so upset. I'm not writing letters to ABC saying you better settle with DirecTV

because I'm an irritated customer, blah, blah, blah. I don't know where DirecTV has any kind

of leverage here. And this really shows the problem that if Venue Sports, which will have

even more sports than just what's on ABC and ESPN,

comes online, then the people who would normally pay for cable just for sports don't have to.

And this is where I think the cable providers and the IPTV service providers are very vulnerable.

And I don't think they have that much to negotiate with. They don't have any leverage.

But then again, this could also show how there is a monopoly. So it could also go against

the IPTV service providers. So it could also go against the IPTV service providers. So it could

ESPN or sorry, ABC in their lawsuit because they say, well, you have a monopoly. You've got these

guys over the barrel. You don't need them, but you do provide a service that you have been providing

all these years by allowing these channels to be broadcast through their cable services.

So I think that this lawsuit that the cable providers have against Venue Sports is probably

a good one. And ABC is smart. They will settle as to not,

make the case against Venue Sports even stronger. That's my opinion. I'm not a lawyer, of course.

So we'll have to wait and see what the courts end up showing. But if you are looking for sports that

are on ESPN or on ABC, you can sign up for a month. It's going to cost you nine or ten dollars

extra until they get this thing resolved. And before we get to DJ at Cedia, Panasonic just

dropped a video. It's going to be a video that's going to be a video that's going to be a video

press release. And I got a bunch of emails on this as well about them reintroducing TVs in the

United States. I've asked DJ to take a look at Cedia to see if they are available. So we'll find

if they were on display and we'll find out here in a couple of minutes whether that happened or not.

But what I thought was interesting in this article that Panasonic stopped selling TVs in 2016.

And that was three years after they ended production of their

screens in 2016 just seems like ages ago. But they're back and they've come in with three

models. Their flagship model is a Panasonic Z95A. It's an OLED 4K TV and it's only available in 65

inches and it goes for $3,199. It has a panel from LG that's been upgraded by Panasonic with

a micro lens array and a multi-layer heat management configuration to boost its brightness.

It supports refresh rates of 144 hertz and it has multiple HDR formats including Dolby Vision,

HDR plus as well as HDR 10 plus adaptive. And let's see what else we have here. It also has

its Technics audio brand. Then they use that to tune the TV which features speakers that fire

upward and to the sides in addition to a built-in subwoofer using software tricks that can direct

TV's audio to a specific spot in the room. So this TV has a lot. You may or may not care about

it if you've got a home theater system. So then you might want to go to the Panasonic Z85A. It's

a step down and it lacks the flagship's elaborate speaker array and Technics audio tuning. So

that's what I was saying. If you have a home theater system, you don't care about that. But

it also doesn't have the micro lens array to boost panel brightness.

Its refresh rate is also limited to 120 hertz, but it does offer the same HDR modes. And this TV

goes in two sizes, 55 inch for $1599 and 65 inch for $1799. So if you want the brightness,

you have to go with all the other stuff and you have to get a 65 inch. But they've also got the

W95A mini LED 4K TV and it is available in four sizes from $1599 to $1799. So that's a lot of

55 inch and that is $1299 or $1300 and up to 85 inches, which is $3,000. It offers all the same

HDR picture modes as the Panasonic OLED and it has a refresh rate of 140 hertz, 144 hertz and

accompanies local dimming ultra technology to maximize contrast. It features the same speaker

configuration as a Z85A with access to A-Lady voice commands and it's only available in the

remote. So to me, this is the one I would go for because I have a mini LED. While it doesn't have

the best, sorry, it has really good black levels. It doesn't have them as good as an OLED, but let

me tell you, they're still pretty good. You can get an 85 inch for $3,000 as opposed to spending

$3,200 for a 65 inch OLED. Regardless, Panasonic's back in the US, so that

is great news and hopefully this is just the beginning.

Hey DJ, I told everyone that you would be coming on the show later on. You are in Denver right now,

so how are you doing? Doing good. Doing good. Getting tired, putting in a lot of mileage,

walking the floor. Yeah, but it's better than CES. But even at CES, if you focused just on our

industry and our hobby, you still have a lot of walking because you got to get through

all kinds of stuff just to get to the vendors that we care about. At least in this place, it's

a lot more localized. Yeah, yeah, it is. There's a lot of stuff. I mean, it's a lot to take in,

but it is, you're right, it's more focused to what we like, but there is some interesting

stuff that I probably wouldn't, I didn't see it this year, but there was actually something about

a garage for a car that I thought was weird last year, but that's not really a home theater.

But so much integration, and I mean, you guys talk about that on your show all the time,

lighting. You know what I wanted to ask you that I noticed, and this is only my second year at

Cedia, but since Harmony dropped their remote thing, is there just a huge, did they create a

huge need for that? Because I'm seeing a ton of remotes that look like the good Harmony remotes

that we all love, and I didn't know, was that a huge need for that? I don't know. I don't know.

Was that always a thing, or did Harmony Logitech dropping that, did that become a thing?

Well, it became a thing. There were other companies like Universal Remote Control that

had these things, but they're a little bit more on the high end. After Harmony dropped out of it,

there was a huge void. We've reviewed a few companies that come close, but nothing quite

the same as a Harmony. And the last review I did, the company reached out to me and said,

they've got a version.

Coming out that addresses some of the issues that I had mentioned. So we'll see. But I think with

the HDMI CEC and how people have simplified their lives by just having a set-top box,

a receiver, and a TV, I think that really makes it easier because you just use the remote control

that came with your set-top box. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for the masses, that's fine.

But there is still a lot of guys like myself, DIY guys that want that remote for their dedicated

theater, or maybe not a dedicated theater, but even if it's in your living room and it's something

that you want to command a little bit more than maybe the rest of the family. Because, I mean,

there's still a market for it, of course. And that's why I think you're seeing all,

I can't even name them. There's so many remote booths this year.

Well, let me ask you this. With the pricing on,

I was shocked.

Are those more realistic to what average people, or are they in the universal remote area,

or even, say, Crestron, where you need an integrator to develop programming for it?

I didn't get a ton of pricing, but it's all, from what I'm seeing and hearing,

it's more like the full range. Obviously, Crestron, Control 4, Savant,

they're all there at the higher end where it's an actual ecosystem for your whole

home type thing. But then everybody else is coming in and they're like, okay, here,

we can control this, and then if you want something else, you can advance the system

as well. So a lot of people are, like, a lot of the companies are starting that way, like

trying to come in at a Harmony, maybe a little bit more than, like, the Harmony Elite used

to be. And, you know, I'm saying somewhere between $5,000 and $1,000, and then you can

advance it and do whole home if you want, or if you just want to jump to a whole home,

to a Crestron or a Control 4 or a Savant, you can do that.

Yeah, it's funny you say between $500 and $1,000. Harmony, we're looking at $200.

But can you do me a favor? Because I know you don't have all the details.

Can you take notes and shoot me an email, and I will get more information for next week's show?

And that's a great segue to let everyone know. I told everyone at the beginning of the show

that I recorded prior to calling you, DJ, that you will be,

staying on through September. And we appreciate it and got a lot of great feedback. So the people

are happy that you're here and helping me keep this show going while Brayden starts a new job.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, happy to be here. Happy to keep on trucking along.

Cool. What's the weather like out there?

I will step aside. Oh, the weather here. It was 70 and nice today. No humidity,

a little rain on the way in from the airport last night.

But yeah, it's nice. My hotel's right across the street,

so I don't have to really worry about the weather too much. But it's supposed to be like 80s tomorrow.

So it was 104 here today, and I was working in the garage and I was sweating bullets. But

I am in my office right now where I record normally. I turned off the portable air

conditioner unit. So the length of this show will be how long I can hold out before I,

you know, die of dehydration.

I'll try to keep it short for you.

So it'll bake you in your room.

No problem. So quick question, though. Did you by any chance see the Panasonic that I

talked about in? I talked about it earlier on the show, but I sent you an email about it.

Yeah, I didn't even I didn't get your email. I've been there. There isn't even a Panasonic booth.

Yeah, they just announced it. So they probably didn't have enough time to get a booth put

together. But I'm excited about it. It's great to have Panasonic back. And there's

three of them. I'm excited about it. I'm excited about it. I'm excited about it. I'm excited about

three models that they talked about. There is a OLED that has all kinds of audio processing

that comes from their techniques company. Then there's another one that's similar but doesn't

have the audio processing. But the one I'm interested in is the mini LED because dollar

for dollar, that is a great buy. I said earlier, I think it was like 18 or 1900 dollars for a 85

inch TV. It's really impressive.

Yeah.

I've heard that, especially like on your show for years. You guys would talk about like Panasonic

just not being in the market here and how it would be. So it would be beneficial to the American

market to have them back. You could just competition and pricing for everything. The consumer,

you know, really can't lose when you get more competition.

So you didn't hear me read the news story. When do you think they left the market in the United

States? What year?

What year?

I have no idea.

Just take a guess. What seems about right to you?

Oh, God. I don't know. Early 2000s, say?

Oh, no, they were still around. They left in 2016.

Oh, OK. I was thinking like around 10.

Yeah.

Early 2000s, like in that range. So I wasn't that far. But really, it's only been that long?

Well, see, that's funny you say that.

Oh, so it's been that long?

That was a long time ago, because I thought it was just a few years ago. And it turns out it was

2016, which what is that? Eight years ago?

That was a long time. To me, that seems like a long time to be out of the market.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, it is. But see, I felt like it was longer.

That's funny.

All right. So you were excited about a subwoofer. So can you tell me briefly about this thing?

Can I tell you briefly?

Yes. Yeah. I want you to focus on briefly.

Yeah. Come on. You know me.

No, I was psyched. I'm walking the floor and I get to SVS, who I love it. You know, I love SVS.

And I saw it. And so they've got their new SVS 17 Ultra Revolution subwoofer.

And it's basically the subwoofer to go along with their new Revolution series.

And this is obviously the largest subwoofer.

They've had because before this, it was their, you know, the 16 Ultra.

And but the technology that they put into it, it's not just like, oh, boy, they went up like by an inch.

That's not it. There's so much more they have.

Now, this is, you know, this is my hobby. So I'm not really a tech guy.

I'm not as smart as you are. And we found that out at dinner that time we met.

But anyways, the the technology that went into this dual voice coil.

And then they have amplifiers that are they have an amplifier for each voice coil.

It's that what they're trying to do here and how they're executing it is it looks they had a cutout version.

So you could you could see inside the whole thing.

And it's just it looks like space, you know, something from like, you know, out of space when you look inside the thing.

But.

Hearing all about the voice coils and the amplifiers, multiple amplifiers in there.

And then also they're going to have their own room correction that which is coming soon.

But it just, you know, just ramping it up, all the technology.

And I hate this part because I sound like a sales pitch, but I'm just like, it's crazy what they're doing.

And the pricing on this is I.

Well, yeah, off all aspects, I was like, what would you.

What would you guess this would price out at?

And it's I'll just tell you, it was it's for the ported is three thousand and sealed is twenty five hundred.

You know, for what that is, that is not bad.

I mean, that's a top of the line subwoofer from SVS.

Yeah.

It's their top of the line subwoofer.

I thought I thought when they told.

Me, I was thinking forty five hundred, something like that, forty five hundred, five thousand.

And then obviously they're going to do like SVS does.

They're going to roll this out into their, you know, lower models.

They'll come out with a low model with the same technology.

And like I said, the dual mono amplifier design.

And it's that's inside this thing.

So it's not it's not your conventional subwoofer.

Put it that way.

And it's just insane.

How much does it weigh?

You may have said that, but how much does it weigh?

I have no I didn't get into that part.

It's it's I didn't find the weight of it.

It's pretty big.

It is it is their biggest subwoofer, for sure.

Looking at the thing you're going to have, you know, it's like most of their stuff.

You look, you know, measure, measure, take a look, see if you can fit this in your room.

But this thing is it's a beast.

It looks awesome.

And I.

I mean, I can't wait.

I'm hoping I can get one.

I hope I can squeeze a couple into my room.

So I pulled up the specs that you gave me and I don't see a weight on it.

But my guess is the UPS guy is going to deliver it with a forklift.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's.

And what I what I like about this stuff is like SPS already have like they already have great subwoofers.

And I've been.

Obviously, I've been following you've been following them for years.

And I go back to my Valentine days when it was like the only way to get a subwoofer into your home subwoofers were like that was like, you know, a luxury item in home theater in the 80s into the 90s.

If you had a subwoofer, everyone's like, what do you need that for?

And and they were super expensive.

And then SPS came along and basically revamped the market where they brought you, you know, great low.

Base extension at an affordable price that we to me at the time, it was like, oh, wow, I can try.

Let me try this out.

And that's that's what they're doing is like all of their products to me seem to they come in at a low price.

But it's way below the price is way below the quality.

The quality is like you could pay two times, three times as much from somebody else and be like, you know, the performance.

The performance way outperforms the price.

And now they're doing it.

They're already doing it.

And now they're doing it again.

And when I saw the thing, I was like, and I'm just standing there in a crowd of people.

And I was like, what the hell is that thing?

And then and then it's now I don't know if if anybody's familiar, if I've ever seen their ads and stuff like that or anybody on social media, the SPS group, they do a pyramid of their subwoofers because they go all the way up to the little cube or whatever.

And it's like and now this thing's at the bottom of it.

And you're like, oh, my God.

Yeah.

All right.

So what else did you see that caught your eye?

Oh, my God.

So I did a Sony demo and I went in and saw their top of the line projector, which was really nice.

They got some amazing tone mapping talking with other people.

It's like in this, you know, people are walking out of this room and going, oh, crap.

Finally, somebody is matching with JVC.

And.

They did.

And it looks great.

But inside the Sony section, you go out of that and you go into they have another demo room and they have like their wall stuff panels.

OK, that demonstration has pretty much ruined me for projectors because I just came out of like what would be considered a consumer projector.

And granted, the their new projector is like it's priced at about 30 grand, but that's their top of the line.

And the Bravia nine, then they have a Bravia eight, which is like 15 grand.

And you know what I mean?

So like but if you're looking at projectors, that's that pricing and that's how you're going to get the best possible picture out of a projector.

And at the consumer rate, you can go crazy and eighty thousand dollars for the what is it?

The eight twenty GTV or whatever they call it.

But anyways, you go into the wall and it's the room that's the wall panel.

And it's the stuff that we've all been talking.

About where it's, you know, instead of buying a seventy seven or a ninety eight inch OLED, you buy this and they can do the room I was in.

I'm guessing it was about one hundred and thirty.

I walked in there like two minutes into that demonstration, so I might have missed the diagonal of what that I was looking at.

But for all intents and purposes, it was one hundred and thirty inch OLED.

Put together by panels and you couldn't discern any panel.

It was.

Gorgeous.

When you say the wall, sorry, the wall to me originally many years ago was from Samsung.

Is that what you're talking about?

So I'm calling it's like it's a it's a wall panel.

So like basically they can make any size based on these panels.

All right.

I got you because one one giant piece because Samsung has something called the wall and it was their big panel and it was made up of multiple panels.

But I don't believe it was an OLED, but I could be wrong.

But all right.

So this is we're still at Sony here.

Yeah.

So this is it's a Sony Sony system.

Let me see if I can find the name.

I took a picture as I went into it.

Sony Crystal LED Theater Crystal LED CH series one point two millimeter display and premium and then and then the sound.

So that's the display crystal LED CH series one point two millimeters.

So what it is.

It's so basic.

Like I said, they put it together like Legos and it is absolutely it's like 3D.

It's insane.

But then they end the demo with, you know, they they're they have a showroom in Florida and they're like talking to the integrators and, you know, the dealers.

And they're like, you've got a customer that's into it into this or that would like this.

It's worth the seven hundred dollars flight to come down and do a demo when you're spending, you know, one hundred and fifty two hundred thousand.

On one hundred and ninety eight inch screen.

Did they tell you how many panels it took to make that up?

No, no, one hundred and ninety eight.

No, I didn't get that.

That might have been part of the diagonal.

But I look at stuff like this and I think this is like, what are we, 10, 15 years away from maybe us being able to afford something like this?

Oh, I don't think even that far.

You know what?

When you're describing this, what I'm thinking of, I've got a bunch of lights in my house.

And you snap them together and it can create different shapes and sizes and it's automation and they have different colors and whatnot.

I can see a day where you just buy a whole bunch of these panels and you snap them together and you put them on your wall.

And regardless of the size of your wall, you can just cover up little areas and maybe on one side you have a column and there you could put sports scores.

And then in the middle section, you can.

You could have the actual main part of your screen and you'll have software that will allow you to make use of whatever panels you can put on the screen.

But it's just like you said, going to be Legos where you just snap it together, runs an ad, runs an application and you just configure it and you're done.

I am betting that we are five years away from that.

So you think it'd be five for something like this?

Yeah, I definitely think.

Every time I have given an estimate.

I've been.

I'm wrong because I've been on the long end, because in my head I was thinking ten years.

So I decided just to say five.

OK, yeah, I mean, in technology is advancing a lot faster and that's what makes the price come down because they'll come out with something better or something like that.

But it's a cool concept, isn't it?

And the other part of this that was part of the demo is what's the biggest problem when you go to a screen that size?

Like I think in this room they were saying, like I said, one hundred and thirty or something like that.

Getting it.

Into the room.

Well, that no, where do your speakers go?

Yeah, because now you can't do acoustically transparent when you go to this size of a screen, you have to put your speakers under and to the side.

And if your room's not big enough, you may not have room on the sides if you wanted to go this big.

So you're taking up a lot of space, you know, on the wall.

So where do you put your speakers?

And they had all their speakers down underneath the screen and the technology that's in.

And of course, there's a Sony demo.

But they're technology.

They're technology inside the Sony receiver or the flagship receiver or whatever it was for this year.

They're like they're moving the sound, you know, moving the sound up into the screen and they're demo demoing that for you to show you that you don't have to have the speakers right behind the screen.

You can have a large screen and it'll still.

Now, it's not how I would choose to do it, but they're they're working on this stuff.

They're answering these questions they're doing, you know, and this is what Sony's doing.

You know, other companies are probably doing the same.

The higher end companies are doing the same thing.

So it's and that's what I love about home theater.

It's like we have no idea what the future is going to be because we I didn't know we'd be here 20 years ago.

Right. And you think of the stuff that we have now are we never even imagined in the 80s and 90s.

So where are we going to be in 10 or 15 years from now?

And they'd be like, I didn't know you could do that.

You know what I remember?

Is when I first got a 30 inch LCD TV for my master bedroom, how big the box was.

Not only have we gotten the TVs bigger, but they've gotten the packaging down to so small and thin that you can actually throw it in the back of an Explorer and take home a 75 inch TV unheard of back in 2005.

Oh, yeah.

And speaking of TVs, great segue.

We rehearsed this.

That's probably my other biggest takeaway is no.

I just got here last night.

I knew we were be recording this afternoon.

So I'm trying to take in as much stuff as I can to talk about.

So I'm going to all these like I'm going to TCL.

I'm going to Hisense.

I'm going to Sony.

I'm going to LG.

I'm hitting all of these displays.

And one of the things I think it was like LG.

Their ad is like number one for TVs for whatever.

Eleven years running.

Right.

Number one, OLED.

I've 11 years running or whatever.

And then you go to like maybe TCL saying they're number two or whatever.

But when you get to go around here on the floor and you take your eyes and you go to all these different televisions, we spend so much time and people spend so much time like agonizing over the decision they made.

If you got to be at something like this and you get to see what are you agonizing over?

Make the choice on the features you like the TVs.

They.

Phenomenal.

All look phenomenal.

Like all the OLEDs look great.

All this.

And they're all here on display.

And what's great about see is this isn't for the consumer.

This is for the dealer.

So it's like, how do we how do we move these and how do we sell these?

And then for somebody like me who comes in, who I am the consumer, but because I'm I can get in here because of the media and stuff and I think this is what I do.

And that's what I want to talk.

I want to be the consumer in the room.

I might get kicked out for talking like this, but it's all.

All of this stuff is so close, so close that when you go from one booth to the next, you're like, which one did you like better?

How are you going to tell?

But I will say when you go from like a different technology, you can see the difference, like going from OLED to LED or this this technology from that technology.

Where are the black levels better?

And in my opinion, so far, I'm saying like OLED and I mean, what's the newest component?

I forget off the top.

I had the newest competitor OLED right now.

Mini LED.

But, you know, that's a very good point.

I had a friend that just asked me today about a TV recommendation and he had an OLED that had an issue.

And he said he was done with OLEDs.

And I recommended the micro, sorry, the mini LED TV that I had from Sony.

It's and I have an OLED in my master bedroom and I can put them side by side, but I don't.

And I acknowledge that the black levels.

Look better on the OLED, but I'll be honest, the black levels are still pretty good on the mini LED and it's very bright.

And in the room that we watch sporting events, it's there's a lot of ambient light in there, so you can't go wrong.

And if you're trying to get every ounce of tech of performance, you're going to go with an OLED.

But that comes with issues.

It comes with a price issue.

Not really so much on the on the.

And the brightness, they kind of got that covered, but it's still not as bright as my mini LED and I didn't spend as much money for it.

So you're right.

You don't have to agonize over it.

Find out what there's two ways to go about it.

What's your budget?

And then go get the best TV you can find at that budget.

Or what's your size constraint?

And then go get the best TV in that size in your budget.

Because a lot of people.

Don't have a size constraint, so they have a budget constraint and or vice versa.

Yeah, I will tell you something that really impressed me.

If people want what's one of the drawbacks to like an OLED display as opposed to it?

Well, one is the size, right?

So like if you want to have a big screen TV, a big screen experience and you want to get up over like 90 inches or 100 inches, you're not good.

Not it's not affordable to do it.

You have to go to a projector, but your black levels on a projector aren't as great.

So you got to compromise.

So there's that.

But your OLEDs are typically obviously smaller than a projector system.

But the other the biggest thing to me was always the glare.

So like you're watching in a dark room and it goes to a dark scene and now I'm seeing maybe my reflection because maybe there's a bright light and now I'm being lit up and I see myself in the screen and I'm like, that was kind of a drawback to me to a typical display.

And I was in.

Yeah, it was a Samsung, the new Samsung.

They have a 2024 with the anti their new anti glare technology right next to an OLED from 2023.

And I took a couple of pictures that I'll show on my show.

But it's like you can there's a I mean, they did a great job flattening the screen and like there's no glare or very little glare.

They reduced it.

And you can you can sit there in the chair.

It doesn't go back and forth and they have simulated window next to it and stuff.

So, I mean, that to me is for people that if you're in the market for a new television and you're looking for or maybe you get you're sick and tired of the glare on your television.

Well, somehow you're going to have to tell the financial advisor in the house to say maybe we need one where it doesn't, you know, doesn't have the glare.

That's up to you.

But but yeah, I love what I saw there.

And I think I'm pretty sure that was.

Well, I'll throw this out there to another thing that fights glare are ultra short throw projectors and they're very bright and you can use them in direct lit rooms.

I shouldn't say direct lit rooms in rooms that have a lot of ambient light in there.

It is a little more washed out in the day than it is at night.

At night, it looks phenomenal.

But during the day, you're not going to get the same performance as you would when the lights go out.

But you.

You can watch something without any glare and the newer ultra short throw ultra short throw projectors are even better than the ones I the one I have.

So it's another thing to consider because you can get a big screen and it's not hard to install and get up and running.

So I'll throw that out there.

Did you see any ultra short throws while you were out there?

As a matter of fact, yes.

In the Samsung booth, they had the Premiere 7 laser and then the Premiere 9.

Which is a triple laser technology.

They had theirs.

But yes, there are, you know, drawbacks to the two.

But if you want a big screen experience, you know, and you have you don't have a dedicated room with light control.

Then, yeah, the the the short throws are the way to go.

And John, who's on my show, he has he has one hundred and twenty three inch screen in his living room.

So his wife is just, you know, amazing.

Most people don't allow that in their room.

But but yeah, that is a that is another option to go that Samsung also has the when I see the super big screen, which is it's like a QLED ninety eight inch QLED television.

And I didn't see pricing on it or anything like that.

But to me, it's like you're walking around this place and it's if you can afford it.

Great. It's awesome to see that.

But it's also awesome to see all the stuff that whether you can afford it or not, it's stuff that will eventually come to our to our price point.

And it's just I mean, there's so much stuff.

All right. So I just I have two more technologies I want to ask you about anything on the way of receivers and amplifiers that you found interesting while you were there.

Not yet. Like I said, I saw the Sony demo and their their their receivers and how they're.

They're using their DSP systems to be able to to to move the sound up and be able to run, you know, more channels, even Sony's coming to 13.2 channels, stuff like that, all integrated into, you know, you don't need external amplification, I don't believe, but you still can, of course, turn it into, you know, a pre pro that and that's the seven thousand.

I think it has all amplification and it can 13 amplifiers inside.

All right. So maybe next week, if you have a chance to look, I know you're still going to be there.

You can give us an update on that. What about home automation?

Did you see anything in that regard?

Haven't had a chance to go into that. That is overwhelming.

There's so much of that here.

Again, going into the remotes and stuff, there's a ton of home automation from from lighting to security systems, tons of security systems.

They have one. It's one is.

One, I was really interested in.

Catch the name. I literally saw it on my way out to come here.

It was, you know, battery backup.

The whole thing looked like it was meant for a construction job and stuff.

And then they have the whole they had a had looked like a 40 inch display set up with all the different cameras going to it.

So like all over, it's pretty cool.

Does that what else?

What else I see for home automation that I thought was cool.

I knew there was something else.

I forget.

There was.

Like I said, the place is so overwhelming.

Yeah.

Well, I'm going to give you a homework assignment.

Check and see if you see anything in the way of matter, because that was supposed to be by now entrenched.

And I am seeing a bunch of products that have matter support.

But I'm just curious if anybody is showing that off at Cedia.

OK, yeah, I look for that.

All right. And any final thoughts about the show?

I just it's.

It's.

It's like I said, it's overwhelming, so much fun, but it's it's the ultimate, you know, sandbox or playground for for guys like us.

I love it.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, DJ, thanks so much for being our eyes and ears.

And if you see anything interesting, I'm sure you'll tweet about it.

And we'll you can listen to DJ show as well.

I'm sure you'll talk about it on Bright Side Home Theater podcast.

And then we'll touch base again.

On it next week.

Sounds great.

All right.

Thanks, DJ.

And thank you again, DJ, for going to Cedia and reporting for us.

And with that, we'll say it's time to go watch some HDTV and we'll see you next time.

You've been listening to the HDTV and Home Theater podcast with Aura Dadarian and Brayden Russell.

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