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2005 Consumer Electronics Show
CES Lures Large Crowds and Improved Technologies |
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By Mike Zigler
Contributing Writer
(January 14, 2005)
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More than 129,000 of the world’s most tech savvy and intrigued minds bombarded the Las Vegas Convention Center Jan. 6-9. With products ranging from colossal plasma screens to portable audio and video players, the 2005 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) proved the perfect forum for 2,400-plus exhibitors to showcase their toys - and the future.
Hundreds of companies, from computer giants to small-name audio firms, vied for attention in areas such as digital video recording, in-car digital systems and storage compression. Needless to say, securing a niche in the $115-billion consumer electronic industry was the lure. But Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corp., succinctly summed up the hysteria best before a crowded Las Vegas Hilton theater.
"The rush toward the digital age is going even faster than we expected," Gates said at his seventh preshow keynote speech.
Nothing overwhelmed the expo quite like flat-panel HDTVs. They peered from Hummer head rests, model kitchens and, of course, home theaters erected from the show floor. To abbreviate, HDTV options are growing, and prices (in general) are dropping.
While breakthrough technologies were not witnessed this year, there were plenty of HD products that embraced enhancements. Until recently, screens maxed out at 768 rows of pixels, but trophy sets at the expo supported the 1080-pixel format. For example, Toshiba’s 34HF84 picture quality was pristine as this 34-inch $1,400 set converts all signals to the 1080 format.
Other impressive flat-screen technology included 3LCD, which is projection technology that uses a trio of small LCD panels to process primary colors independently. For price value, Cathode ray tube (CRT) technology still dominates the HDTV market. Samsung and LG grandstanded impressive widescreen models of this style, but demonstrating the most notable improvement in the past year are liquid crystal flat-screen displays - which are certainly developing into the high-resolution plasma alternative.
Flat-panel televisions based on liquid crystal technology were the first displays that offered 1080p (1920x1080) resolutions. As display manufacturers strive to offer increasingly larger screen sizes, the additional resolution offered by 1080p keeps the individual pixel sizes to a minimum. The smaller the pixel (and greater the number), the better the picture.
Picture quality and resolution offered by this new technology isn’t cheap, though. Most display models ranged anywhere from $8,000 (Sharp’s 45-inch "LC-45GD4U") to $12,000 (Sony’s 46-inch back-lit "QUALIA 005").
On another visual front, digital photography witnessed some vast improvements. Digital photographers are increasingly looking to transfer images with greater ease -and manufacturers are trying to meet the demand.
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