“Flowers and Dinners Are Just Not Enough — Show Your Mum How Special. She Really Is With Sleek LCD HDTVs from Westinghouse”

To which, my mum laughs and asks me if these people are on drugs: “Why would I like a TV as a Mother’s Day present? Are these people stupid?” As you can see in the capture, the rest of the copy is equally as retarded. Do they really think mums want “sleek” LCD HDTVs? Do some PR people have mums? Maybe they were abandoned under a bridge? Or do they actually hate mums?

I want answers, PR people, answers!

[Blam: Hey, wait! My Mum asked for an LCD TV for mothers day!]
[JD: The old woman living in the cardboard box next to your home is not your mum, Brian]

As the story goes, Elektro was first unveiled at the 1939 World’s Fair, where it was considered a technological marvel of its time. The robot, which stood over eight feet tall, could walk, talk and smoke cigarettes, in addition to telling an awkward joke or two. Elektro was built by Westinghouse, but when the US entered WWII in 1942, the robot was placed in the Ohio basement of one of Westinghouse’s engineers. It was here that Jack Weeks discovered his childhood friend.

After three years of random make believe adventures with his golden giant, WWII ended and Weeks found that Elektro abruptly disappeared his basement one day. Elektro had returned to performing for crowds and starring in movies. But Weeks never forgot about the robot, and decades later began collecting the head, torso and limbs in hope of rebuilding Elektro.

***

Here’s a brief history of Elektro’s storied career:

• Elektro was built by Westinghouse in 1937, and first debuted at the World’s Fair in 1939. In 1940, a pet dog, Sparko, was also created as a companion.

• Elektro relied on a series of record players, photo voltaic cells, motors and telephone relays to carry out its actions. It had 26 routines it performed, and a vocabulary of 700 words. Sentences were formulated by a series of 78 RPM record players connected to relay switches.

• Elektro had no remote control, instead responding to voice commands using a telephone handset connected to its chest. The chest cavity even lit up as it recognised each word.

• In 1950, Elektro had become old news and was relegated to theme park status in Oceanside, Ca, where it was little more than a roadside gimmick.

• Elektro loved bourbon and strippers. Well, at least in the 1960 film “Sex Kittens Goes to College” where it played “Thinko, the world’s greatest electronic mind,” hung out with a chimp named Voltaire and became visibly aroused by aforementioned strippers (Check him out in the trailer, 30 seconds in).

• Elektro’s life came to an end sometime between the ’60s and the ’70s, when it was returned to Westinghouse and subsequently dismantled. The head was given to the CEO as a gift, and he loved it so much, he threw it in his basement and forgot about it.

***

Oddly enough, Jack Weeks’ brother moved into the house of the Westinghouse CEO years after the fact, where he found the abandoned head of Elektro. This began Weeks’ quest to restore his friend, as he aquired the legs and torso for $US500 in a very roundabout manner four years ago. However he has been unable to trackdown many of the electronic components that gave Elektro “life,” as it can only move its head and arms. Weeks is now considering donating the robot to the Henry Ford Museum. For the whole story on Elektro, be sure to check it out over at [New Scientist]

To find out, we grabbed five HDTVs you can find on the street for under $US900—some require a little snooping to find that price, but they’re out there. We’ve got four LCDs and one plasma, with four of them were discount brands, while one was from a pretty top name brand. We’re looking at a few things: are any sub-$US900 TVs actually watchable? Are any lower-tier brands as good as big name brands? And finally, which TV delivers the most bang for the buck?

The HD Guru Gary Merson and Cnet senior editor for TVs David Katzmaier—two guys who know more about HDTVs than I know about my mom—graciously came by to help us calibrate the sets, in order to coax the absolute best picture out of them and give us some insights on what we should look for.

Here’s how we set up the tests: Every set was calibrated with a THX Optimizer disc, with an emphasis on getting the darkest possible blacks while maintaining detail and acceptable brightness, since blacks are LCDs’ big weakness, and the most likely attribute to suffer in cheaper sets—in more expensive sets, like Sony’s LED-backlit Bravia XBR8, a lot of what you’re paying for are deep, detailed blacks. From there, we tested the sets playoff style—two at a time with a 2-way HDMI splitter using The Dark Knight on Blu-ray as the test disc because it’s a beautifully shot film with all kinds of perfect HDTV test scenes, and its excellent master makes it solid source material. Plus, it’s the one Blu-ray movie everyone will own. And it’s awesome. So, two may enter, only one may leave: The set that wins the showdown advances to the next round. Here are the five cheap HDTVS:

•Insiginia NS-LCD42HD-09 1080p LCD$800 (Note: We actually tested the 52-inch version because Best Buy didn’t have the 42-inch model, but they assured that the guts are the same, so we assume that the results would be the same)
•Toshiba Regza 42RV535 1080p LCD $875-$930
•Vizio VO42LF 1080p LCD $830 MSRP-$880
•Vizio VP423 720p Plasma $830 MSRP
•Westinghouse VK-40F580D 1080p LCD$850-$899

Round 1: Toshiba Regza vs. Vizio LCD

It’s pretty much a blow-out: The Regza wowed us against the Vizio with blacks that weren’t just deeper, but more detailed with a much cleaner contrast. In night-time skyscraper shots, you could make out windows and other smaller details much more clearly. The Vizio’s viewing angle was not nearly as wide as the Toshiba, and it had a more noticeable colour distortion at a 45-degree angle. Colour wise, the Vizio might be a bit more appealing, because even after calibration, they tend to be more saturated. The Toshiba had noticeable instances of showing shiny moire pattern when panning down a building that was essentially a set of verticals lines—in other words, they got kind of warped. But dialing down the sharpness, as David suggested, reduced this quite a bit. Both sets have below-par motion resolution, one of Gary’s favourite picking points. If you watch text as the camera zooms by, it gets mad blurry, but as Gary himself admits, most people don’t notice this kind of thing unless it’s super egregious.

Winner: Toshiba

Round 2: Westinghouse vs. Vizio LCD

This was a really tough one. We went ahead and slotted the Westinghouse against the loser of the first LCD battle because we noticed it had a really obnoxious backlight issue during calibration: It’s much brighter on the right than on the left, a problem that gets worse when you view it off-angle. The picture exaggerates how bad it is, but it’s definitely noticeable.
That aside, it performed favourably against the Vizio. It has a better viewing angle with less distortion as you swing to the side. But it also has some of the moire problems we noticed with the Toshiba. Motion isn’t fantastic on either set. What did the Vizio in was how badly it crushed the blacks vs. the Westinghouse. In other words, at the brightest black level we considered acceptable, a lot of detail was lost. Gary pointed out the problem there—which you’ll see again in the plasma: Its settings don’t have fine enough gradations for picture fine-tuning. It got brighter or darker in huge leaps, preventing us from finding a happy medium with solid blacks that have detail. So, as we said, it’s a tough one. If the Westinghouse didn’t have the backlight issue, it would’ve won hands down.

Winner: Tie.

Round 3: Vizio vs. Insignia
The Insignia is the worst set we tested. It’s just bad. The blacks are really crushed, the details are mushy, the colours don’t pop—we even tried tweaking post-calibration to bring them up, but it just made them look unnatural—and the few aspect-ratio options all resulted in a noticeable portion of the picture being cut off, even as it displayed perfectly on the Vizio LCD next to it. If you buy the 42-inch version for $US800, you’re getting hosed. If you buy the $US1500 52-inch version, you’re just screwed. It made the Vizio, the loser in previous rounds, look almost amazing.

Winner: Vizio

Final Round: Toshiba Regza vs. Vizio Plasma
This was the hardest fought battle of the competition. We gave the plasma a bye to skip to the final, because we rightly figured plasma’s inherently better picture qualities suited it for a boss battle, the Sagat to LCD’s Ryu.

One of plasma’s greatest strengths against LCDs is that, unless you’re talking about super-high-end LED-backlit LCD, plasma will beat LCDs with darker, richer blacks every time, simply because of the technological differences. So it was stunning that the Vizio essentially forfeited this advantage by crushing them. Hard. They were darker than the Toshiba’s, obviously, but bringing the brightness up to a level where you could make out the same dark details seen on the Toshiba without washing out the picture was impossible because of the controls. Gary says he routinely advocates that TV makers build in finer gradations in adjustments, and in this case, the ability of the user to more finely adjust the picture. Better controls would have been to the Vizio plasma’s tremendous advantage.

The Vizio plasma maintained its other inherent strengths though. It had zero viewing-angle trouble, looking essentially perfect from all angles. Motion was better, with more details preserved, in signs for instance, as the camera passed by. Like the other Vizio set, the LCD, colours were verrry saturated, especially out of the box, with a lot of red in the picture. Calibration helped, but the Toshiba still seemed to provide more accurate colour. A few people in our office who passed by said they preferred the extra pop of the Vizio plasma’s colour and saturation, so this might come down to a personal preference.

At our viewing distance of six feet, the difference in
detail between the 1080p LCD and 720p plasma was noticeable, particularly when we examined facial details and hair. The 1080p Toshiba was, well, more detailed than the 720p Vizio plasma. From nine or more feet away though, most viewers would be hard pressed to discern a difference in screen resolution.

In the end, we, along with Gary, came down on the side of the Toshiba. Its picture has a clarity that the plasma didn’t quite touch, both in dark scenes and its colours were truer to life. Overall, we feel it’s the best buy for the money, though it will take a bit of gumshoeing to buy it for under $US900.

Winner: Toshiba

Other Considerations
There are a few larger points to take one. First and foremost, any of these sets will be more amazing than your standard-def set, and none of them, except perhaps the Insignia, are a total waste of money. Another important point, one that David stresses, is that we were able to make the picture on each one worlds better than it was out of the box—if you calibrate your TV, you will get more out of it, no matter who you buy it from. Finally, Gary notes that the lower-tiered brands can have worse warranty and customer support terms, so while the Toshiba might run the highest price initially, its overall cost of ownership may possibly be lower. If you haven’t bought an HDTV yet, we hope this little test-bed has served you in making this very important step.

Right now, almost all products ship with a proprietary power adaptor. Green Plug’s technology allows every electronic device to communicate its own energy requirements to one adaptor, allowing for several goods to use the same power box. But in order for the universal adaptor to work, companies have to embed Green Plug’s firmware into their electronics.

Westinghouse, the first company to sign on with Green Plug, said the adaptor would not only help it cut costs (it wouldn’t have to sell power adapters with each product if the consumer already has a universal one at home), the environmental savings are huge as well.

434 million consumer electronics devices are “retired” in the U.S. each year. Those products, and their power cords usually end up in landfills. Meanwhile, over 3 billion power adapters will be shipped worldwide this year. Imagine how much less that figure would be if everything plugged into a single hub. [ PC World]

Westinghouse Digital and Pulse~LINK Unveil the World’s First Fully Integrated Wireless HDTV at CES 2008

Las Vegas, NV–January 3, 2008–Westinghouse Digital Electronics, one of the top five LCD manufacturers in the U.S.*, and Pulse~LINK, Inc., the UWB semiconductor performance leader, today introduced the world’s first fully integrated wireless HDTV. The High Definition LCD TV, featuring Pulse~LINK’s integrated CWave® UWB Wireless HDMI technology, will be on display for the first time at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 7-10. An initial debut will take place at the CES Unveiled press event on Saturday, January 5, in the Sands/Venetian Marco Polo Ballroom, followed by demonstrations throughout the show at the Las Vegas Convention Center in the Pulse~LINK booth (South Hall 2, #25559) and in the Westinghouse Digital booth (South Hall 1, #21707).

“Our focus at Westinghouse Digital has been centered around delivering the best HD has to offer,” states John Araki, Vice President and General Manager, Commercial Business Unit, at Westinghouse Digital Electronics. “HDMI digital transport provides the full HD resolution our customers expect and we are extremely impressed with the performance and capabilities of Pulse~LINK’s Wireless HDMI solution. The fact that it is fully integrated into our HDTV display is unprecedented in the industry and will certainly raise expectations for high quality ready to mount wall display products in the marketplace.”

The Westinghouse Digital Wireless HDMI HDTV is planned for initial commercial release to the B2B digital signage market in Q2 2008. CWave® HDMI products offer real-time visually lossless wireless streaming of high quality audio and video content between entertainment source devices and HDTV displays. With the integration of CWave® Wireless HDMI, digital display products can be mounted anywhere in the room without needing to run data cabling from the TV to the content source, such as a DVR, Blu-ray or HD DVD player, or a live cable or satellite feed. Video data is encoded using the JPEG2000 video codec, the same codec used by movie theaters for “Digital Cinema,” providing a secure high quality HD experience. Pulse-LINK’s Wireless HDMI solution is engineered to be equivalent in both content protection and visual experience to a wired HDMI connection.

Pulse~LINK recently announced that its FCC Certified CWave® UWB chipset was validated in independent testing to be the world’s fastest commercially available wireless networking technology. A comprehensive test of UWB products, conducted by octoScope, showed CWave’s 1.35 Gbps over-the-air signaling rate delivering 890 Mbps application layer throughput – faster than any other wireless product currently available. Wireless range was also impressive in the test report- with CWave surpassing 500 Mbps at 8 feet and more than 115 Mbps up to 40 feet, at which point they ran out of space in the test facility.

“This is an eye opener. People are going to deeply desire this Westinghouse Digital Wireless HDMI HDTV in their living room as soon as they see it at CES,” states Bruce Watkins, Pulse~LINK President and Chief Operating Officer. “We’ve been leading the technical pursuit of this for several years. Pulse~LINK has publicly demonstrated various wireless HDTV radio prototypes for some time, but nothing compares to the real thing when you finally see it. Actually watching this gorgeous Westinghouse High Definition television – with nothing coming out of the TV accept the power cord and a vibrant high definition image – is an experience beyond comparison with anything that has come prior to now. This really changes everything.”

Pulse~LINK is the only semiconductor company to deliver production silicon with Gigabit data rates for both wired and wireless HD video distribution. A long time recognized innovator of UWB technology, Pulse~LINK was the first company to demonstrate Wireless HDMI in 2005 and continues to set the performance bar for high data rate wireless connectivity. Pulse~LINK also invented the use of Ultra Wideband over coax systems and was the first to patent and demonstrate this revolutionizing technology for streaming HD content throughout the home.

AU: No idea if we’ll ever see Westinghouse TVs here, whether under that name or another brand. But always interesting to see the state of play in TV specs everywhere. -SB

For one thing, the 52-inch set has lowered its response time to 6.5 ms, and Westinghouse is claiming a 5000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, which might be closer to 1000:1 in the real world. Another impressive spec is its four HDMI inputs. Compare the rest of the specs below.

We’re not sure how much we’d want to use those built-in speakers and subwoofer, but these are probably not aimed at the high-end home theater market, anyway. In fact, the price is right for these three TVs, with the 42-inch set retailing for a mere $1599, the 47-incher is $1799 and that 52-inch model tops the line at $2999. The company didn’t mention when these three 1080p TVs would be available.

Because I was kind enough to ask, Westinghouse told me that the TBD price on the 52″ TX-52F480S LCD HDTV we mentioned this morning had indeed been determined, and it was $2,499. For now, you’d be hard-pressed to find a 42-in. 1080p for that price. The unit I saw (and that I photographed, above) was an engineering sample, but Westinghouse reps said it was a revision of the sample they showed at CES. It was tasty. I didn’t have special equipment to test the claim of 6.5 millisecond response time, but I have to say, I went in fairly pessimistic, and it looked tasty. 52 inches of awww yeah. Come September, we’ll try to get one in for a face-off with some of its bluer-blooded competition.

Click here for the roundup of stuff on display at the Westinghouse show. – Wilson Rothman

(These guys sell whitegoods here, but TVs? We’ll see what we can find out about any local distributors. -giz.au)

2007 Digital House Party Press Room [Westinghouse]

Later today, we’ll eyeball-check some 1080p Westinghouse TVs that were announced at CES, including their new flagship, the 52-inch TX-52F480S, which is due in September for an undisclosed but likely relatively rock bottom price. We didn’t bother to see it back in Vegas, back in its early, rough state. That’s partially because Westie’s been off our radar. Basically, if you want a better picture, Sharps, Sonys or Samsungs will generally do you right, and the similarly priced Vizios have been scoring higher in terms of performance. At CES, we simply diverted our attention to better gear.

But this generation could be better, and this set could be closer to production today. Why I care is that this could be an attempt at Vizio’s title for biggest, cheapest, budget 1080p LCD HDTV…if there is such a thing as a cheap 52-inch 1080p set…if the thing ever comes out. From CES to now, the sale date’s been pushed back from May to September. Uh oh, someone’s engineering department needed mooore power, Captain.

Here’s a recap of the stat smather:

The 1080p sets in 42″, 47″ and 52-inch sizes (The TX-42F430S, $1599; TX-47F430S MSRP $1799; TX-52F480S September 2007, MSRP TBD) are what we’re most interested in. The TVs have 4 HDMI ports, composite, component, VGA, and ATSC tuners. The smaller ones have 8ms response rates, but the promised 52-incher boasts 5ms, plus dynamic scene-to-scene backlighting. And the source-detection will automatically switch to active signals. So far so good.

The midrange TVs come in different combinations of 42 and 32-inch sets, which seem to be 1366 by 768 res (press docs don’t specify anything but 720p/1080i compatibility). They get half the HDMI inputs and an 8ms response time. That res works for me at 32-inch sizes, but 42 inches deserve the full 1920 at 1080 pixel setup, IMO.

Alongside the TVs, there’ll be some picture frames. Most notably the 14.1″ Digital Picture frame, the DPF-1411, which goes for $399. From CES til now, it’s lost its Wi-Fi capabilities, but its price hasn’t dropped.

Strangely, most of this already-seen stuff was embargoed again til this morning, despite their Vegas unveiling. And 90% of these sets are already on or about to hit the market (see Amazon).

Regardless of missed expectations, Wilson’ll let us know how the potentially hot 52-inch 1080p HDTV looks to his bare naked eyes.–Brian Lam

Picture Frames

BRING CHERISHED PHOTOS TO LIFE WITH NEW WESTINGHOUSE DIGITAL PHOTO FRAME

Stylish New Digital Photo Frames Offer Unique and Creative Ways To Showcase Beloved Photos and Offer A Complete Digital Story Telling Experience

New York, NY – Westinghouse Digital Electronics, the fourth largest manufacturer of LCD TVs in the U.S.*, takes the photography market by storm offering the best way to enjoy and share photos with its stylish new lineup of digital photo frames. Photo novices and aficionados alike now have an innovative way to tell a complete digital story with the new family of frames including the 14.1″ DPF-1411, 10.2″ DPF-1021, 8″ DPF-0802 and 7″ DPF-0702.

The new lineup features elegant frame designs, high-resolution digital panels in large sizes for improved picture viewing, expanded memory and the company’s patent-pending MosaicViewâ„¢ technology.

Digital photo frames are the ultimate showcase for pictures and events and are a perfect accompaniment to any home, office or dorm room. The new Westinghouse units are a great way to preserve digital photos of vacations, family gatherings, celebrations, birthdays, parties, loved ones or any special occasion.

“Westinghouse Digital is an LCD technology leader and consistently provides consumers with best-of-breed LCD TVs and monitors. We are continuing this tradition in the digital photo frame market with our new cutting edge family of products,” states Rey Roque, Vice President of Marketing at Westinghouse Digital Electronics. “As an established leader in the digital photo frame market, Westinghouse Digital offers an exciting array of sizes and styles that appeal to any type of consumer today.”

Westinghouse’s MosaicViewâ„¢ technology is ideal for anyone who wishes to show a complete digital story by displaying multiple images simultaneously. For example, one frame can highlight several images from a recent vacation: one arriving at a resort, one on the beach, one of a night on the town and so on. Users also have the ability to run a complete MosaicViewâ„¢ slideshow.

Westinghouse’s new digital photo frames offer users the latest capabilities including: Individual slideshow or picture viewing, a variety of transitions for slideshows, variable speeds for slideshows and support for JPEG, AVI Motion JPEG, MPEG 1 and 4 files. The units auto detect and display multiple picture orientation with MosaicViewâ„¢ and offer random picture shuffle. Users can also set their favorite picture, and include save and delete functions. The lineup of frames also offers comprehensive memory card compatibility including CF I/II, MD, MS, MS Pro, MS Duo, MS Pro Duo, SD, MMC and XD.

The DPF-0702 is a perfect entry-level model for the consumer who wants to showcase images at a very affordable cost. With 128MB of built-in memory, users can save files from a memory card to the frame directly.

The DPF-0802 and DPF-1021 are perfect for the consumer looking for a larger screen and more advanced model. The DPF-0802 offers a high 800 x 600 resolution and the DPF-1021 has an 800 x 480 resolution. Both also have 128MB of built in memory with playback modes that include MosaicViewâ„¢ and Individual View Slide Show and sport two USB ports for file transfers and USB drive compatibility.

Westinghouse’s largest digital photo frame, the DPF-1411 is perfect for the consumer looking to showcase once in a lifetime memorable events, such as a new birth, a wedding or graduation. With its massive 14.1″ screen real estate, the DPF-1411 acts as a true work of art that is perfect to mount on a wall and show your digital photos to the world. It features a 16:9 aspect ratio display, 128MB of built in memory with playback modes that include MosaicViewâ„¢ and Individual View Slide Show and offers two USB ports for file transfers and USB drive compatibility.

The new series of Westinghouse digital photo frames are currently shipping and includes the 7″ DPF-0702 (MSRP $119); the 8″ DPF-0802 (MSRP $179); the 10.2″ DPF-1021 (MSRP $249); and the 14.1″ DPF-1411 (MSRP $399).

HDTVs:

NEW WESTINGHOUSE 1080p HDTVs ARE THE
ULTIMATE HOME THEATER UPGRADE

Top-Tier LCD TV Manufacturer Introduces New TX Series in 42″, 47″ and 52″ Screen Sizes with 1080Pureâ„¢ For The Ultimate Cinema Experience

New York, NY – Westinghouse Digital Electronics, the fourth largest manufacturer of LCD TVs in the U.S.*, raises the home theater bar with an advanced new line of 1080p LCD HDTV’s, the TX Series. Designed for the consumer who wants to step up to the ultimate cinema experience and the best in LCD technology, Westinghouse 1080p TX TVs are available in 42″, 47″ and 52″ screen sizes.

The TX series TVs are the ideal centerpiece for any digital entertainment system, whether in a home theater setting, living room or large bedroom. Each matches an advanced array of HDTV features and connectors with superior Westinghouse performance and technology. The 42″, 47″ and 52″ TVs all provide: 1920 x 1080 progressive scan (1080p) resolution, the highest standard available to consumers for HD digital video display; an integrated ATSC/NTSC/ClearQAM Tuner; fast response times; and a full suite of connectors, including: four HDMI, two Component, Composite, S-Video and 1 VGA.

“Large screen LCD HDTVs are in greater demand then ever, and Westinghouse’s new TX series is the perfect choice for consumers who want to upgrade to the distinctive timeless style and design of a brushed aluminum bezel and all of the high-quality benefits of 1080p LCD viewing,” said Rey Roque, Vice President of Marketing at Westinghouse Digital Electronics. “2007 will be a milestone year for LCD HDTV and Westinghouse is poised to play a pivotal role.”

The TX TVs deliver razor-sharp images with their Full Color Spectrum and High Contrast Picture — which creates deeper blacks and richer dark scene details by dynamically matching the brightness of the TV backlight to that of the on-screen image. The Advanced Calibration Menu allows the users to make advanced adjustments to calibration settings including colorimertry and the Preset Video Modes give users the ability to select from a menu of customized viewing styles including movies, games and sports.

The TX series ATSC video processing platform utilizes a chip set that is specifically optimized for high-definition viewing. This allows viewers to watch high-definition content without the artifacts and noise associated with several competitors’ TVs.

The TX TVs incorporate the latest Westinghouse proprietary technologies such as: 1080Pureâ„¢ offering 1080p resolution out of all HD connectors; SpineDesignâ„¢ intelligent cable access; DayBrightâ„¢ panel technology for stunning daytime or nighttime viewing; and Autosourceâ„¢ technology, intelligent engineering that automatically turns the TV on and adjusts it when an external source that is detected. The built-in stereo speakers and subwoofer ensure a captivating sonic experience from richly detailed musical passages to metal twisting car chases.

The TX series includes: the 42″ TX-42F430S LCD HDTV (available May 2007; MSRP $1,599); the 47″ TX-47F430S LCD HDTV (available May 2007; MSRP $1,799); and the 52″ TX-52F480S LCD HDTV (Available September 2007; MSRP TBD).

Westinghouse TV and Picture Frame Lineup [Gizmodo]