So Clint was the Swine Flu case at CEDIA! I’d heard about there being a confirmed case of H1N1 at the convention, but I had no idea it was Clint! lol Doesn’t he listen to the President? Stay home, man. Keep those healthcare costs down!

What a hoot!

Two things: first at least according to the NY Times, the new Sony BD player lacks an $80 wireless bridge, which makes the price much less appealing against the LG and the Samsung wireless units.

Second, it’s not clear to me how the Yamaha remote system has any imprvement over a Harmony which seems to have a similar activity-oriented focus and a reasonably well-designed interface.

I wasn’t “the” case… I was never diagnosed, so I am possibly “a” case… or maybe I just have the flu… I wasn’t really all that sick until the end of day 1 of the show – then it hit me pretty hard.

Tom should stick to Audio and let somebody else do the Video. 😉

Some of the information he provided about 1080p/24 was incorrect.
He may have been confusing refresh rate issues with CRT’s compared with LCD’s and also with what constitutes smooth perceived motion. Add some old NTSC standard goodness into it and it’s a whole mess.

LCD displays do not flicker and do not need to be refreshed for the same reasons as CRT’s since the whole picture is displayed continually until refreshed, unlike CRT’s that need to have each phosphor lit sequentially by an electron beam. For LCD’s displaying a new frame once every 1/24 second shouldn’t look jerkier motion-wise than displaying the same frame four times every 1/120 second. However, if some of the 120Hz processing features like Sony’s Motion Naturalizer is turned on, the fancy electronics will compare two consecutive frames and create an in between frame that is displayed therefore, theoretically creating a smoother, less jerky, and more video like viewing experience… but usually in real life, the interpolation creates odd artifacts.

If one still had a CRT with phosphors optimized for NTSC display, so are meant to be refreshed every 1/60 (so stay lit up reasonably well if they’re hit by the electron beam every 1/60 second) and fancy electronics that would allow it to be fed directly a 24fps source (ie not an NTSC connection which is restricted to 2 interlaced fields at 60 fields per second) that display would flicker like the dickens since the phosphors would be refreshed less than half the rate they were designed for. But if you displayed the same frame three times at 1/72 seconds each, that would result in a nice non flickery CRT image, but it would be just as “smooth” motion wise as the flickery one frame every 1/24 second one.

I can’t comment about how many times each film frame is reprojected at movie theatres, but I’ve experienced the same perceived differences compared to my home setup as Tom. Also I’ve noticed that I don’t get that feeling at DLP/digital theatres.

PS I really enjoy the podcast (with Clint or Dina and Tom), but generally only post comments when I disagree with something… which may make it seem like I don’t like it. Keep up the good work.

I’m wondering who the target market is for the neoHD. Doesn’t seem worth the money versus a decent HDMI receiver coupled with a Harmony remote. You can add a Popcorn Hour C-200 and still be under the $799 price tag of the neoHD, with a lot more streaming capabilities brought to the table. I’m also wondering what the specs are on the neoHD receiver, can’t find any mention of watts, frequency response or THD in any of the Yamaha literature.

In addition to what bbf said, 1080i 60 is 60 fields per second, not 60 frames per second. Two fields of interlaced video make up one frame. A field is all the odd lines or all the even lines.

I too have noticed jerky motion at movie theaters that are using film. I think some of the issue is exactly where the film stops in the gate of the projector. Just a little off one way or another will cause the entire image to move a little from frame to frame.

A film projector displays the image either 2 times or 3 for 48 or 72 times per second.

Hey Tom,
I know you didn’t claim Sony was first with their electronic alternating eye 3D glasses that do 60 FPS to each eye, but I had to say that this has been available to consumers for a couple of years now from Samsung.

It is one of the features I touted to my parents when recommending their HL67A750, which they bought last year.

If I remember correctly, the adapter and 2 sets of glasses cost a couple hundred bucks, and require a PC be connected, but any consumer could buy this whole rig for under $2k last year.