An
Idea to Excite
CES Attendees on 1080p HDTV Monitors with PC Input
©2006
Timothy David GILL
As a technophile and
someone who
appreciates fine home design, I have been waiting for years
to reach the era we are now entering: TV screens capable of displaying
computer graphics and text at a fine enough resolution to make
interesting and reasonably affordable single-screen applications
possible in the home. With 1080p HDTV monitors that can
display PC output at 1920x1080 pixel resolution, I believe one of these
is possible.
I have attended the Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas four times in recent years and have never
seen the dual HDTV-PC display capability of TV monitors demonstrated at
all. Granted, TV resolutions have been going up to levels
that can support text in only the last couple of years. Based
on conversations with friends and colleagues, I think the demonstration
of this in one particular application would be widely welcomed for some
upscale consumers. This proposal summarizes this idea for a
show like CES.
I want to build a new kitchen
for my house, and in this dream kitchen, I would love a single
reasonably
large HDTV monitor to be used for both HDTV and PC use in this family
gathering place. The way I imagine using it is for movies
& TV viewable from the food prep area and a built-in breakfast
nook table, and for PC work from a counter overlooking the food prep
area. I think this scenario could be demonstrated at a large
trade show like CES, with
significant appeal to attendees. Any large CE HDTV company
could stage this demo in an exciting way, as they sometimes have mock
households with actors to showcase their technology.
In summary, this trade show
display would allow the following to be demonstrated:
- A 40-45” HDTV monitor
mounted on a pivoting VESA wall mount, in a mock kitchen
environment. The monitor would be easily pivoted by one hand
of the demo host.
- PC and HD inputs running
simultaneously, with easily identifiable content in both cases: a
recent hit movie or television show for the HD content, and (initially)
a Google search screen for PC content. These would both be
shown in the normal un-pivoted (landscape) orientation of the monitor
(at the 1920x1080 resolution).
- The “wow”
demo would be to rotate the monitor 90 degrees to show the
Electronic Edition of a current newspaper, say that day's New York
Times. This
electronic edition is not a web page, but essentially a PDF file that
presents the exact image of the printed paper, advertisements and
all. (Other newspapers reflecting attendees national
background could also be used, as others are available in such
electronic editions.) The actor reading the newspaper could
page forward and backward in it, simulating the morning paper reading
of many adults.
We’ve all heard about
the paperless future for years. Despite the overall progress,
people are skeptical. Seeing a good demonstration of being
able to read the morning paper on a large screen in one’s
kitchen, on the same monitor used for other viewing, would show that
we’re finally getting closer to that future.
Although this will be better on future screens with resolutions higher
than 1920x1080, I believe that the current 1080p screens make this
possible and useful for environments. Typical
newspapers are about the same size as 27” TV’s, so
a 40” TV makes possible reading text from a somewhat greater
distance than most people read current their PC displays.
Some other aspects of such a
possible demo:
- The layout of the mock kitchen
would be important, e.g. to show the movie being watched from a
breakfast nook with cushioned seats (about 7-9’ away), but
the newspaper being read from a bar stool at a coffee bar, about
3-4’ from the screen. A motor-drive decorative
curtain to hide the screen would also appeal to some attendees
(typically the women want to hide the TV).
- The pivoting mount should
ideally be so well engineered that the screen easily rotates with
little effort and locks into place when reaching the desired
rotation—especially if the person pivoting it can withdraw
his hand before it locks.
- The components driving the
display for both the PC and the HD content need to be appropriately
powerful. For the PC display of the Newspaper, the CPU power
should be sufficient to make the page turning feel as quick as turning
the page on a printed copy of the paper—to simulate that
experience in a paperless way. The zoom capability of the PDF
viewer for the Newspaper would need to be used to good effect by the
demonstrator, so that attendees 20 feet away can also appreciate the
demo.
Other ideas for this demo
include:
- Character roles for the actors
used in a mock kitchen: the child wanting to watch a movie, dad wanting
to read the paper before work, mom showing photos, the teenage nerd
showing mom a camera manual in PDF to help her...
- Making the coffee bar open to
attendees, with real coffee, so that they can actually get a feel for
reading the newspaper on a screen that large. Let the
Japanese attendees read their Tokyo paper, the Germans their own, etc.
- Vendor relationships that make
it easy for retailers to offer a package that let’s this idea
get installed easily for consumers: TV monitors tied to specific VESA
mounts, PC’s with the right software pre-installed, etc.
- Other content could offer a
different wow factor.
- A laser/projection keyboard
might also help the mood and aesthetics, as would free expressos at the
bar.
August 12, 2006