TVs

Scott Wilkinson ... on the wall

Scott Wilkinson

Episode 1612

Scott joins us to talk about the next generation of TV displays, called microLED. Tiny LED lights that are .003 square mm which is what TV manufacturers are going to need to get to the next level of sharpness. And it looks perfectly smooth and beautiful. but they're super expensive, which is why we won't see them in homes for a few years. But when they do, the stand-alone TV will be a thing of the past, and we'll see video walls in homes. It's coming. Scott saw an example of it at Sony last week, 16' wide by 9' tall.

Dick DeBartolo, The Giz Wiz

Episode 1566

This week's gadget is ... well, interesting. It's a jock strap for your TV! It's for anybody who enjoys sports on TV, but find the Score Ticker at the bottom of the screen on sports channels annoying. So the TV Jock Strap masks it out so you won't see scores of recorded games you haven't watched yet. The company says it fits flat screens up to 75" diagonal. The TV Jockstrap is a 2” wide stretchy black fabric that attaches using a plastic belt buckle. There wasn't too much stretchy fabric left once it was on my 50” TV, so if you do have a 75” model, it will probably be stretched to the max.

Why do I get audio from my TV when it's turned off?

Vizio D Series TV

Episode 1565

Max from Boca Raton, FL

Max is having issues with his TV speakers on his Vizio D series TV. He keeps hearing audio coming out, even when it's off. Leo says that today's modern TVs don't really turn off anymore. They just go into a very low power mode. Leo suspects that Max's Xfinity cable box woke his TV up through HDMI. Leo recommends putting the Vizio into Eco mode and it will turn off. Then, he should turn off CEC in his TV settings.

CES 2019 Comes and Goes

CES 2019

Episode 1557

This week was the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and there was a lot of 8K TVs being showed off. Samsung also showed off a new microLED 75" TV. The price is $50,000! Short throw Projector TVs were also popular at CES. LG's Optima is under $2,000.

There were also self driving cars using artificial intelligence and LIDAR. There was also an electric helicopter and self-driving flying cars. There were also Amazon Dash Buttons, which are designed to instantly order a product at the touch of a button.

Scott Wilkinson on Home Theater

Scott Wilkinson

Episode 1554

Scott says that next week is the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and he expects a ton of 8K TVs will be showcased. But they'll be extremely expensive and there's no real 8K content. So it'll be a while before it's worth investing in an 8K TV. The real improvement will be the new HDMI 2.1 standard. So any new TV should have that component architecture to it, and it will offer an increased bitrate of 48MBps. There will be improved low latency and variable frame rate as well. HMDI 2.1 will require new cables as well, but it will be fully backward compatible.

Why don't my headphones work with my home theater system?

Optical splitter

Episode 1541

Eileen from Upland, CA

Eileen bought a Bose sound system, which is connected to an optical splitter, so they can use her headphones too. But now the headphones won't work after a power surge. Leo says it's possible that the power surge fried the optical splitter. She should check if the headphones work with her TV (she may need to change her audio settings in the TV). It may also be possible that the settings changed in her TV, so she should look in there and see what it's offering. She may need to reset it to PCM unencoded audio or something similar. She should just try different settings.