The home of the Oscars for nearly two decades, the Dolby Theater in the heart of Hollywood was designed from the beginning to be the venue of choice for the Academy Awards telecast. This massive space also hosts big movie premiers and countless concerts, shows and events, but it’s best known as the place where Oscar nominees …

The easiest way to buy a TV is online, right? A few clicks and a few days, and there’s a TV on your porch. But if you’re not sure exactly which one you want, or you at least want to physically check out the TV before you buy it, you’re going to have to head to a store. This is …

All modern televisions use one of two basic display technologies: LCD and OLED. The vast majority are LCD, and only some more recent TVs from LG and Sony are OLED. While LCD may be the norm, OLED TVs offer better picture quality overall, though at a higher price.  You may have heard OLED discussed when it comes to mobile phone …

If one LCD is good, two is better, right? I’m not talking about two TVs in one room, though that’s cool too. In the ongoing effort to improve picture quality of LCDs, companies like Hisense and Panasonic are working on dual-LCD, or what could probably be more accurately called dual-layer LCD. No, that’s still not quite right. LCDs have lots …

Most new TVs have high dynamic range capability, which can improve picture quality. Unfortunately there are multiple HDR formats and your TV likely can’t decode them all. Companies like Dolby, Technicolor, Samsung, Philips and others each have different ways to create HDR video. In theory, they can all coexist inside your TV, though that’s rarely the case. Streaming services like Netflix and …

There’s something otherworldly about hovercraft. The way they glide over water and land, usually with billows of spray or sand, is pure mechanized spectacle. There was a time when it seemed hovercraft were the future. Huge car-carrying ferries shot over the English Channel, tying Britain to the Continent with speed and ease, decades before the Channel Tunnel was dug. But …

When I first heard Samsung talk up AI upscaling in its 8K TVs, I assumed it was the age-old marketing practice of smashing a new buzzword onto some old tech and proclaiming it super-fancy.  That might not be the case. While adding Artificial Intelligence isn’t going to suddenly make your TV smarter, or sentient (yet), there are theoretical benefits to …

CES 2019 marked the first time most of the world’s biggest TV makers introduced 8K TVs. And it’s good news that most will include the next-gen connection that will actually allow 8K TV shows, movies and games to get to those TVs. LG, Sony, and Samsung all confirmed that their new 8K TVs will have HDMI 2.1 connections capable of the …

The consumer electronics industry has cycles. CES, the annual tech jamboree held in Las Vegas each January, reveals where we are in this cycle. Some years there are revolutions, like 4K TVs, quantum dots or OLED. Other years there are evolutions: a bigger TV or a thinner one. Sometimes it’s a new TV operating system. Certainly not flashy, but they’re …

If you just bought a new TV, chances are you might feel the need to get expensive new HDMI cables. Resist the temptation. Even with Ultra HD 4K resolution, high dynamic range, and wide color gamut, you don’t need expensive HDMI cables. It’s probably that your current HDMI cables could work fine, but if they don’t, no matter what a …