We’re well into the transition to Ultra HD “4K.” Most mid- and high-end TVs are now Ultra HD resolution, with many also supporting HDR. Not surprisingly, cable manufacturers are jumping at the chance to sell new and more expensive “4K” HDMI cables. But guess what — you probably don’t need 4K HDMI cables, because your …
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What do you need to get 4K in your home? I’ll give you a hint: it’s more than just a TV. While the 4K-compatible TV is the most obvious part — and prices on those TVs have never been lower — there’s also content, external devices, cables, and more to consider. So here, in five easy steps, is what you …
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The latest TV technology is high dynamic range, or HDR. If you want to take advantage of this latest and greatest, you need an HDR TV (of course), an HDR-capable source (either a streaming app on your TV or a media streamer/UHD BD player) and HDR video to watch. But do you need new HDMI cables? Surely those many-years-old, dust-covered, …
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Is SUHD really better than UHD, or is that “S” full of it? Is HDR better than 4K? What’s the difference between 4K, HDR, OLED, UHD, SUHD, UHDBD, and all the other letter jumbles? Good questions. The TV world is filled with impenetrable jargon, and TVs can get expensive, so it’s certainly worth taking a moment and figuring out what’s …
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Every year TV companies come up with new terms to describe their latest, and sometimes not-so-latest, technology. Why? Because marketing works. A catchy name can do wonders for sales. But it’s also confusing, sometimes on purpose. Savvy CNET readers know that LED TVs are actually just LCD TVs, that UHD and 4K are (effectively) the same thing, and that most …
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This story is part of CES 2016. Our editors bring you complete CES 2016 coverage and scour the showroom floor for the hottest new tech gadgets around. Journey to Space LLC Media company Shout Factory is the the latest entity to detail new 4K Blu-ray discs for 2016, including Imax features such as “Journey to Space,” narrated by Patrick Stewart. …
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Once the hallmark of the high-end, 4K TVs are now coming down in price. In the US on Black Friday, for example, you can get a 60-inch Vizio 4K TV for $800. At the same time, many of the top picture quality technologies, like that Vizio’s multi-zone local dimming, are becoming increasingly rare in non-4K, (aka 1080p) TVs. So what …
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Sarah Tew/CNET It’s probably been a while since you upgraded your AV receiver, right? Receivers, those bulky boxes at the heart of many surround sound systems, tend to last longer than a lot of other gear. However, if you use yours not only to power your speakers, but to switch video as well — that is, all your sources are …
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A Sony Experience area in a Best Buy in Rochester, Minn. Sony Sony and Samsung are doubling down on their retail presence. Both companies said on Thursday that it would open its own “Experience” space Best Buy locations around the country. Sony would be in 350 locations, while Samsung would be in 500. The spaces are designed to better promote …
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I’d like to call it H.265, because it sounds cool, but its full name is High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). It’s the new successor to Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also known as H.264, which is one of the compression schemes used by Blu-ray. The idea of HEVC is to offer the same level of picture quality as AVC, but with …
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