LCD HDTV 8

Home theater projection screens are one of the hottest home accessories today. They not only give that lavish look, but they also make watching TV a memorable experience.

The projection screen is one of the most important parts of a home theater system, apart from the projector. Home theater projection screens also can be of various types. The most basic classification is the front projection screen vs. the rear projection screen. Front projection screens can be further divided into curved screens and fixed flat screens. Each of these has certain advantages; for example, curved screens are lightweight and hence easy to install. The image is also much brighter, with better resolution and contrast since the curve can reject the

lighting in the room.

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GetGray is a hobbyist produced home theater calibration DVD. You can only buy it through internet download, as it s a VIDEO_TS folder you burn to a DVD-R. As implied by the title, the DVD s primary purpose is to track your digital display device s underlying gray scale with the aid of a color measuring device like the Colorvision Spyder2 or Gretag Macbeth Eye One Pro. [http://www.calibrate.tv/]GetGray has some caveats. First, it can only be used (by itself, without the aid of additional calibration discs like Avia Guide to Home Theater and Digital Video Essentials) with digital displays like LCD, DLP, LCOS, etc. It does not have the proper test screens to evaluate CRT displays (tube TVs and

old and/or high-end front projectors) like needle pulse and blooming patterns. Second, since The DVD is an internet download it cannot include any color filters for primary color evaluation. The disc s author assumes you already own a calibration disc with the included filters and even offers a photography supply to buy your own filter. Animated de-interlacing tests are the last big omission (I never like these de-interlacing torture tests, they just reveal your DVD player s short comings, making you feel bad about your investment while your very likely not going to see any of the defects in real entertainment only viewing). (Plus, many times it is the source DVD s fault. Last week we rented curb your enthusiasm and it has massive distracting jaggies in all the backgrounds, I believe a short coming of the source video resolution.) (Despite this aversion to these 3:2-2:2-bad-edit-low-frame-rate-anime-euro-PAL revealing test DVDs, I check the Special Interest shelf every time I m in a video store for the HQV Benchmark DVD.) Oh and no audio evaluations except for a Tron Master Control-like face for lip-synch control.

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Obviously price variations of LCDs would depend on screen-size, differences in display quality, screen resolution and a host of other factors, including, but not limited to, the brand name. LCD televisions are now available at increasingly lower prices, and the smaller units are available for as low as two hundred dollars with several retailers. But the upper range still runs into tens of thousands of dollars and the biggest LCDs for home theaters come at steep prices.

A majority of the customers belong to the middle range of 23 to 40 screen size, which generally come at nearly $1,000 to just under $3,000. Some of the biggest manufacturers of electronic goods present televisions with LCD technology such

as Samsung, Sony, Sharp, Phillips, Panasonic and Toshiba; even computer manufacturers Dell have taken an interest in this field and have come up with a model that has created quite a stir.

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