61-inch Wide Plasma Monitor

Mister.de writes "NEC Plasma Display Corporation today announced the launch of two 61-inch wide plasma monitors from the PlasmaSync(TM)61XM2+series (a grey bezel model, and a silver bezel model) that are equipped with "Enhanced Split Screen" ability - a high quality, high performance Double Picture function. Sales will commence on February 1st, 2004 to meet various uses mainly in multimedia presentation and public display applications with different release dates for each region. NEC Plasma Display Corporation is targeting 25% of the world commercial market share with its 11 model line up. See the source with picture or Read the Main Specifications." The 1365x768 resolution definitely means this is more TV than Monitor, but who wouldn't want it in their office?

Re:What is special?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever had a chance to view some recent high quality projectors? I've got one in my basement. It's actually a couple of years old and it's absolutely amazing. And 61-inches is small. My screen is TEN feet measured diagonally.

Projector

[donnyspi]

It seems to me that at this size of over 5 feet, maybe a nice projector [allprojectors.com] would be better.

Specifications

[earplug]

>> Current Rating A:6.7A(Max) G:8.0A(Max)

Am I reading this correctly? 6.7-8.0 amps? To protect the investment, is it possible to get a surge protector that can handle that kind of current for a decent price?

Furthermore, don't many houses run on 15-20 amp circuits? That just seems like a lot of power!

>> Speakers 9W+9W (6)

Where does the surround sound hook up at? Does it typically connect to the TV, or is it supposed to connect upstream somewhere like at the DSS dish, or DVD player?

Re:Where are the "True 1080P" HDTV screens?

[gr8_phk]

"But when you look at the specifications they are never True 1080P"

Yea, and the sales people always say "oh yes, it displays all the HDTV resolutions". So then I point to the Samsung DLP set that says everything is converted to 720P (most don't even give a screen resolution) and it clicks for them that receiving and displaying are two different things. I asked a guy at best buy if they are trained to avoid that topic, and we were done talking soon. Deliberate deception?

Huh?

[FrostedWheat]

with different release dates for each region

Why do companies insist on doing that? Surly they'd make more money with a single release date? Would make advertising a lot simpler.

Where's the source though?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know of a single 1080 signal source. Its all well and good to have that capability, but nobody is broadcasting that way, so what's the fuss?

I'm just surprised that most of the plasmas are only EDTV capable.

Re:Aw, MAN!

[iainl]

"If my 20" LCD monitor can do 1600x1200 why is it that a 61" can't do 4 times the resolution?"

Because the difficulty with building a monitor, and number of duff ones they have to bin due to too many dead subpixels, goes up with the number of pixels rather than the size of the screen per se.

1600x1200x4x4 (assuming you want 3 times res in each direction, to give the same dpi as you're used to) is over 92 million subpixels. So you need an error rate of around 10^-9 just to get a fully working screen. 1600x1200 monitors are scarily expensive as it is; ones with 16 times as many would just be obscene.

Re:Aw, MAN!

[Eon78]

So don't look at it from that close :)

We have some ship simulators. The largest has 360 deg. view generated by 10 pc's. Output resolution is 1280x1024 (per pc) which gets downscaled to something around 1024x768 by our Barco SIM6 projectors. That doesn't seem much but the image is more than 4.5m high, and you get to look at it from, say 5 to 6 metres away. Then it's still an impressive picture to look at :)

Re:DLP is better...

[Eccles]

So if anyone can explain what are advantages of big-screen displays over DLPs for home viewing, please enlighten me.

Brightness is generally an issue with projectors; you need a dark room for them. A plasma or LCD display will look decent in interior light.

Re:Technically Valid '?'

[Firehawke]

You've got the gun technology right-- that's how modern lightguns work, but Duck Hunt and all NES gun games used a slightly different trick that MAY or MAY NOT work on plasma/LCD televisions. I haven't tried, but most likely it won't work.

Basically, there's still just a photosensor in the barrel of the gun but the sensor is calibrated to detect only white. When you press the trigger, the screen blacks out for a brief period and replaces targets with white blocks during the blackout. If a white block is detected by the photosensor, you hit a target. Games that have more than one target onscreen use slightly longer blackout periods with the white blocks staggered so as to detect which target had been hit.

I don't believe the NES gun used sync at all to detect hit location; it was pretty inaccurate as a result and prone to cheating.

I should know about the cheating-- I once played Duck Hunt on a black and white TV with the contrast turned all the way up. I couldn't miss-- at all.