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By: Richard Del Cazzo
Web site: http://www.hdtv-hdtv.com
Panasonic is taking HDTV projection television to a whole
new level in 2004, with four new Digital Light Processing™
(DLP™) technology HD projection televisions. Models
PT-60DLD64 and PT-50DLD64 (60- inches and 50-inches, diagonal
screen measurement, respectively) feature built-in ATSC/QAM/NTSC
tuning, HDMI (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection),
Photo Viewer (SD), SD and PCMCIA memory card slots, CableCARDÔ
slots and dynamic VIVA/BBEâ High-Definition sound to
deliver brilliant, razor-sharp pictures and superb audio.
Panasonic’s DLP line-up is rounded out by the PT-50DL54
and the PT-60DL54, both of which feature a NTSC tuner.
At the heart of DLP technology is a tiny optical semiconductor
chip called a Digital Micromirror Device™ (DMD™).
The surface of the DMD chip is made up of approximately one
million, independently controlled microscopic mirrors, each
representing one pixel. Responding to a digital signal, the
mirrors change angles and switch on and off, hundreds of thousands
of times per second, to produce a high-contrast, high resolution
1280 x 720 picture. DLP technology also helps diminish digital
artifacts, creating a stable image without perceptible color
bleed or picture degradation.
The PT-60DLD64 and PT-50DLD64 are ready to recreate the movie
theater experience on their 16:9 wide screens. The 16:9 aspect
ratio is the standard for HDTV broadcasts and DVD movies produced
in the anamorphic widescreen format.
The sets feature built-in ATSC/QAM/NTSC tuners to deliver
a dazzling array of analog and digital entertainment. With
the use of an optional CableCARD™, these models are
also able to receive digital cable television systems services
directly from the cable operator1 without requiring a separate
cable box.
“Panasonic is committed to bringing consumers the best
and most convenient ways to enjoy the wide variety of present
and future digital entertainment in all its forms,”
said Ed Wolff, vice president of Panasonic’s Display
Group. “We’ve designed these new, versatile, high-performance
projection sets to satisfy the expectations of the most discriminating
video and audio enthusiast.”
Additional picture-enhancing features like ten-bit A/D image
processing and a progressive scan converter allow these TVs
to deliver high-resolution images from various digital sources,
such as high definition broadcasts and DVD discs, to their
fullest potential. Ten-bit A/D image processing boosts conventional
grayscale gradations by a factor of four, producing four times
as many shades of black and white for extraordinary picture
brightness. The sets’ NTSC tuners feature a built-in
progressive scan converter that “line-doubles”
conventional NTSC analog signals to 480p, dramatically enhancing
the picture quality of today’s standard TV broadcasts.
Other features include:
- Digital CinemaScan 3:2 Pulldown: Movies on film are converted
to NTSC interlaced video (480i) for television by a process
known as telecine conversion, in which the 24 frame-per-second
film is converted to video at 60 fields per second. The
fields are then paired to create 30-frame-per-second 480i
video. Some of the frames will contain dissimilar pairs
of fields derived from two different frames of the original
film, which causes artifacts. Panasonic’s Digital
CinemaScan circuitry converts 480i video to 480p while restoring
the original frames of the film, resulting in an exceptionally
faithful reproduction of the cinema image.
- Motion-adaptive 3D Y/C digital comb filter ¾ displays
bright colors and fast-moving scenes with incredible clarity
by minimizing the "color rainbow effect" in closely
spaced patterns, compensating for the motion that occurs
between fields.
- BBE® High Definition Sound System ¾ provides
true linear phase correction and dynamic amplitude compensation,
improving speech intelligibility and the dynamic range of
musical passages, giving music a realistic, “live”
presence.
- SD Memory Card and PCMCIA card slots and Photo Viewer
for viewing still images.
- HDMI (High Definition and Multimedia Interface) with
HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) for exceptional
video and audio quality when the television is connected
to A/V devices such as a set-top box, DVD player or A/V
receiver.
- 2-tuner split-screen P-I-P.
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