Televisions

We come at you live from CES 2013, where we saw so many TVs our eyes started bleeding. Kind of.

The week was a blur, but through the rubble we recall images of giant televisions, curved screens, a fork that vibrates, an awesome gaming tablet that Karyne wishes she owned 100 of, and blackjack tables. So many blackjack tables.

Thanks for watching!

Heard a tech rumor you think we should cover? Leave a comment below; ; send us a tweet (@EmilyDreyfuss, @karynelevy, and @CNETRumorShow); or call and leave us a voice mail at 1-800-750-CNET. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Digital signage could vastly change in the next decade, especially if companies such as Hisense get marketers to sign on with transparent display technology.

One Hisense display, as seen above, adds 3D to a traditional transparent LCD. The demo illustrates how a real estate company could show off a real-life model town behind the LCD screen, while 3D video (passive glasses required) plays on-screen to show off some of the town's properties for sale.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--While claims of "world's biggest" have been quite liberally applied to many products at CES 2013, here is a product that is truly big: Samsung's 110-inch 4K television.

The TV dwarfs the UN85S9 announced earlier this week, but at this stage it is only a prototype. It shares the same design elements, though, with the tilt-back easel design and relatively slim bezel. I'm not sure what it is about 110 inches -- there are a lot of products that are the same size this year -- maybe it's the biggest size that will … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Not to be outdone by its competitors, Panasonic has displayed its own 4K OLED screen at CES with claims of it being the world's biggest.

Like the 4K display from Sony, the Panasonic 4K OLED is only a prototype but is the first OLED from a company that has thus far concentrated on plasma technology.

The 56-inch TV features a 3,840×2,160 resolution, weighs 27 pounds, and is less than half an inch thick. The bezel also appears very slim and equivalent to a mainstream LCD.

The company boasted that its new printing technology enabled … Read more

As product names go, BCM7445 is as boring as it gets. But if you want better video, the Broadcom chip might get you excited.

That's because the processor, designed for Net-connected video devices and announced at the CES show today, is among the earliest to support a new video compression technology variously known as H.265, MPEG-5, and HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding). It's the successor to the very widely used H.264, aka AVC and MPEG-4 Part 10.

H.265 brings two notable features. First, it can match the quality of H.264 with half the network bandwidth, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Today Sony announced one of the broadest and most compelling product and service lineups at CES 2013, including 4K and OLED TVs, the first way to get 4K content into the home, and yes, an actual smartphone.

Leading the charge was the company's new flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z. With quad-core processing, a massive 5-inch screen, and a 13-megapixel camera, it has the specs to compete with the best phones on the market. And one of the only ones that's water-resistant.

Next the company talked up NFC, or near-field communication, saying it had integrated "One Touch" communication among devices to ease media transfer and streaming among phones, tablets, TVs, and audio devices. The idea is that the link can be established just by touching the devices to one another.… Read more

Intel may offer a peek at its rumored cable TV set-top box to people attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.

An unnamed source inside Intel said that the first working version of the chipmaker's set-top box will be shown at Intel's CES event on January 7, according to tips received by TechCrunch. A video distribution industry source familiar with Intel's plans also told the blog site that the rollout of the new service will start "soon," but couldn't provide a specific date.

TechCrunch's source further said that Intel is … Read more

A new TV is a great thing. A new TV, right after it's taken out of the box, is not. To get the most out of your TV you need to adjust the settings, use the right cables, adjust your sources (like your cable box) and more.

Compiled here is a directory of everything you'll need to get your TV looking its best. Instead of one long article describing it all, it's broken down into sections so you can find just what you're looking for.… Read more

Now that Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" has opened in theaters around the world, the most controversial thing about it isn't even that he somehow is making three 3-hour movies out of a 300-page children's story. No, it's the way the movie has been shot that has the most people talking.

The "Hobbit" trilogy has been captured using James Cameron's 48-frames-per-second 3D technology (HFR 3D), which Jackson says leads to less eyestrain and a sharper picture.

Only a limited number of cinemas will be showing the movie in HFR -- Jackson says it's only 1,000 out of 25,000 theaters.

"On the first day of shooting 'The Hobbit' in 48 frames, there was not a single cinema in the world that could project the movie in that format," Jackson said, according to CinemaBlend.

While we're not going to go into how the technology works here, CNET editors David Katzmaier and Ty Pendlebury have just come out of a showing in HFR 3D and wanted to share their thoughts.… Read more