Review of Samsung and Sony’s Latest 3D HDTV Technology
This is the year for 3D entertainment and at the front are two of the world’s leading consumer electronics manufacturers, Samsung and Sony. At the beginning of this year both companies made some major announcements concerning their 3D HDTV and other home entertainment systems. Sony has grown their BRAVIA range to include the X900 Series and Samsung is offering their most sophisticated 9000 series along with their 3D Blu-ray players.
This year is Sony’s first year in the 3D HDTV market with its BRAVIA XBR-LX900 and I must say it is not bad for a freshman when you include the host of add features and services that are on offer. The BRAVIA XBR-LX900 series come in screen sizes 60, 52, 46 and 40 inch, with full HD resolution of 1080p (192 x 1080). The TVs features Sony’s own 3D processing Edge LED technology covered in their new Monolithic design.
The LX900 3D HDTV models are comes with Wi-Fi already included for easy connection to your broadband home network. You can access some of the latest on-demand content via your TV from Pandora, Amazon video on-demand, YouTube, NRP, Netflix, Slacker internet radio, Sony music, Sony pictures and over 25 other on-demand services through BRAVIA internet video platform. There is access to social content and news such as Flickr, Yahoo Finance, Twitter and FrameChannel. You can view your personal pictures and listen to music by attaching your USB drive to one to the available slots.
The LX900 range also features Sony’s OptiContrast panel, a new technology that maximise the reflection and refraction of external and internal light. The TV will react to the quality of lighting in the room to give you the best quality pictures. Another smart viewing or energy management technology is Sony’s Intelligent Presence Sensor with face detection, which dims the back light if you step away or not watching the screen. The TV also detects your viewing position and optimized the video and sound balance to give you the best quality. There is a distance alert feature that helps to keep small children at an eye-friendly distance.
Samsung has also pulled out all the stops in their LED 9000, LED 8000 and LED 7000 3D HDTV range. According to Samsung they “will deliver the industry’s best 3D image quality due to its custom designed 3D chip from Samsung’s Semiconductor division”. The LED 900, the highest in the range is the world slimmest fully integrated LED TV.
To give you a complete 3D entertainment experience Samsung is also offering a 3D Blu-ray player, a touch screen remote control and a active shutter 3D Glasses.
Similar to Sony, Samsung’s 3D HDTV owners can access on-demand content through Samsung upgraded Internet@TV Content Services (Tavel Channel, Rovi, Picasa, Vudu, Fashion TV, Blockbuster, The Associate Press and much more). Internet@TV now features Samsung Apps, where views can go and download free and paid for content, for your Samsung HDTV, Blu-ray player and Home Theater Systems.
Note: Some of the services and products mentioned are due out later this year.