Plans2Reality

Moore's Law Conquers Television

This is not really news - it happened a few years ago, although it is hard to pick a specific date.

TVs have gone fully digital, and I don't mean the broadcast format. Even today's TVs deal with analog broadcast by digitizing it and using DSPs and dedicated digital hardware.

Furthermore, with the takeover of LCD and plasma displays, the display itself is now subject to Moore's Law. (Gordon never said he was referring only to silicon, after all.)

What does this mean for the industry?

First of all, because TV is a high-volume market, it means that the larger chip companies will dominate it. Cost of silicon will be the key driver, and the bigs guys with big fabs always win that war.

Second, it means that TV will become a client-server architecture. One could say that TV has always been client-server, and that broadcast radio and TV invented the concept, so to speak, but client-server in the computer context has a different meaning. TV will consist of different types of servers offering content to a wider range of clients. Over-the-air broadcast won't go away, but numerous types of Internet delivery will become more common. Hulu, Apple's iTunes, and NetFlix on-demand are just part of it.

TV isn't going away. But it's going to look a lot more different in five or ten years than it does today. Moore's Law is at work.

3D from nVidia and Samsung

Last year, TI showed a 3D system based on shutter-sunglasses and their DLP TV. Interesting, but the image was dark and, for some viewers, tended to induce motion sickness.

nVidia has addressed all this. Their new video controller, combined with a much nicer pair of "sunglasses", gives excellent, bright, artifact-free 3D. nVidia says most games already support it, and the available movie content is growing.

Samsung has another approach - they showed a TV that converts ordinary content to 3D. Again, magic glasses are required. No information on how it's done, but it appears the TV can determine which object are in the foreground. It duplicates the object with a slight lateral shift to create the 3D effect. A casual viewing looked good, but one wonders how well it works with all content, as opposed to Samsung-selected content.

If you're a gamer, you should check out the new nVidia stuff. Otherwise, life goes on.

Thanks, Veterans! And Those On Duty Now

The title says it all.

You are remembered, and appreciated. As you always will be, so long as there is liberty in the world.