CES - Televisions

Samsung and 3D specialist RealD announced a plan today to jointly develop a technology called RDZ that they say will mean brighter 3D TVs that work with 3D glasses used in RealD-equipped movie theaters.

RDZ, integrated into an LCD display, works through a synchronized switching of the display between left-eye and right-eye views. The companies argue that it's better than "patterned retarder" 3D technology, which devotes half a screen's pixels to each eye by masking alternating lines. That approach works with passive 3D glasses, which typically separate the right-eye and left-eye views with polarized light, but … Read more

Netflix will become more prominent and easier to use with the arrival of a button this spring on remote controls that connects directly to the company's widely used video-streaming service.

A big, red button with the company name will appear on multiple remote controls for Blu-ray players, TVs, and set-top boxes, the company announced today just before the Consumer Electronics Show gets under way in Las Vegas.

The announced partners are notable, though it's not immediately clear yet how broadly the button will propagate through product lines.

Netflix said its buttons will appear on remote controls for "… Read more

OnLive CEO Steve Perlman hinted this summer about his company's interest in integrating its cloud-gaming service directly into television. It seems OnLive has achieved that goal after this morning's announcement of a partnership with Vizio.

Previously confined to Macs and Windows systems through downloadable software, as well as its own dedicated MicroConsole set-top box, OnLive debuted last year as the first major cloud-gaming service. With its partnership with Vizio, the OnLive service will now extend to Vizio HDTVs, as well as Vizio's newly announced line of Via tablets, smartphones, and Blu-ray players.

Details in OnLive and Vizio'… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Today Vizio announced it would be shipping a pair of TVs shaped a bit wider than usual.

The new displays, sized at 50 and 58 inches, will be known as Cinema HDTV, and their LED-backlit LCD screens will have an aspect ratio of 21:9. That's visibly wider than the 16:9 shape used by nearly all other plasma and LCD TVs shipping today in the United States.

The advantage of the shape, according to Vizio, is that it allows the sets to "display 2.35:1 (CinemaScope) movies without any black bars." As the company … Read more

At CES, companies like to roll out new TV technologies and higher-end sets. But Westinghouse is doing something different. It's talking up the value of its LED TV lineup, highlighting the 46-inch LD-4655 that hits stores later this month for a suggested retail price of $899.

The 1080P LCD measures just over 2 inches thick and has a high-gloss, black bezel and weighs 38 pounds. In terms of specs, you're not looking at anything fancy: a 120Hz refresh rate, 6.5ms response time, and LED backlighting, which helps make the set more energy efficient.

We can't say … Read more

Vizio is the second TV maker, after Sony, to officially announce a television or Blu-ray player with Google TV.

The company is marketing the Google TV feature as part of its VIA (Vizio Internet Apps) Plus platform, an improved version of the Vizio Interactive Apps suite found on current models like our 2010 Editors' Choice XVT3SV series and the new XVT3D650SV.

Vizio's announcement today touted the availability of VIA Plus on TVs and Blu-ray players, in addition to its newly announced smartphones and tablets. According to the company, the platform "combines the convenience of entertainment on demand with … Read more

Let's face it: CES is often about hype. New products, new promises, and a lot of very thick carpeting greets us every year, and as we sort out what impressed us most about the show, we can only hope that some of these gadgets actually deliver.

With CES 2011 just around the corner, it's a perfect time to take a look back at the year that was, and see how the biggest stories of CES 2010 fared. Some of them did remarkably well, including our best-of-show winner, the Panasonic TC-PVT25 Others, not so much (remember the Motorola Backflip?). … Read more

Welcome to CNET's predictions for the TV hardware category at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For previous shows--most recently CES 2005, CES 2006, CES 2007, CES 2008, CES 2009 and CES 2010--I've placed not-so-bold bets on buzzwords like "1080p," "LCoS," "iDCR," "xvYCC," "LED," "Green," "Internet TV" and, yes, "3D." My first bet for 2011: Don't expect to see any major new technology acronyms this year.

The most prominent trends of 2010 were the introduction of 3D--the biggest, … Read more

In advance of the Consumer Electronics Show next month, LG has released a teaser announcement vaguely detailing a couple of its new, high-end LED-based LCD TVs, the LW9500 and LW7700 series.

The company is branding the new models under a new "Nano" moniker, which it says refers to improved local-dimming LED technology. According to the release: "An extremely thin film printed with a proprietary light dispersion pattern combined with a full array of LEDs disperses light more evenly across the screen, creating pictures that are brighter and more uniform than conventional edge-lit LED sets." … Read more