The Pixel Pro

The best websites to buy Electronics

2011-01-09T18:37:00.000-08:00

I often get asked what’s the best place to buy electronics online. There really is no-stop shop that will always have the best deal. Just like bricks-and-mortar retailers, online merchants are competing fiercely for your business. At the same time, I find myself returning to the same handful of websites because I simply cannot find it for less anywhere else. Here is a list I compiled of my favorite websites.

Woot.com Ok, I just had to throw this one in because most people have never heard of Woot and I think they’re brilliant. Woot differs from other websites in the sense that they only offer one product for sale each day until it sells out. That’s it! A well-written satirical column always accompanies the deal of the day. Due to popular demand Woot has since added more products for sale at deals.woot!

Bestbuy.com I know I know, big revelation here but hey, sometimes Bestbuy has some great deals on their website. Check out their outlet center for clearance and refurbished products.

Circuitcity.com The retail giant may have filed Chapter 11 but the website was bought out by investors who know what they’re doing. It’s re-emerged as a formidable online merchant.

Dell.com Most of the best deals I find on Dell are located in their small business section & their outlet center. Dell is notorious for using coupon codes. It took me less than 5 minutes to find this one JC?NKXTJ0X1?WR, good for 15% off Outlet items. (Good through 1/12/11)

Buy.com Always competitive on price. I once bought a TV mount for my 42” plasma for $20 after Mfg MIR (mail in rebate). Buy.com isn’t exclusive to electronics either. Check out their weekly deals and what’s shakin section for the price shockers.

Amazon.com If you haven’t heard of Amazon then I doubt you even own a computer. Amazon isn’t always the cheapest but they have an incredible selection. Just remember, Amazon operates an online marketplace and many of their items are actually coming from a third party. The product description page will tell you who it’s sold by and what their feedback rating is.

Newegg.com The holy grail of websites in the world of PC nerds. Newegg is a fantastic resource for anything related to your PC. Their Shell-Shocker deals are nearly impossible to beat and can be found on their home page or if you subscribe to their newsletter. If you ever build your own PC, this website is really all you need.

Ebay.com This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Ebay grossed $7-8 billion last year alone. You can find anything imaginable and unimaginable on Ebay, including electronics. If you’re willing to wait until the auction ends you will usually get the best price on the net. However, I’ve found plenty of “buy it now” auctions that were unbeatably priced. You can also test out your bartering skills if a seller advertises “or best offer”.

Slickdeals.net Alright, I’m cheating a little bit, so sue me. Slickdeals doesn’t really sell electronics. In fact, they don’t sell anything. Rather, they’re a bargain-hunting website that does all the legwork for you. And they do an amazing job. Slickdeals is an open forum so anyone can submit a bargain but they do a great job of filtering out the “diamond in the rough” deal from the “Kohls is having another sale” deal. They won’t always have the exact product your looking for, but if it does go on sale, they’ll know about it. Check em out.

Honorable mentions: bensbargains.net, Fry’s.com, abesofmaine.com, JR.com, crutchfield.com, Overstock.com, techbargains.com, techdeals.net

Laser TV: The $57 Billion industry just around the corner

2010-12-20T10:25:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, Lasers were fictional weapons in movies like Star Wars. The mere mention of the word to friends was grounds for ridicule. It would be analogous to someone today talking about antimatter particles. But nowadays, it seems like Lasers are everywhere. Police scanners, DVD players, corrective eye surgery, super market checkout, concert lighting, hospitals, and even the Internet via fiber optic cable all use Lasers. But the most revolutionary advancement, what some are calling a $57 billion a year market, is just around the corner... and it’s all thanks to Lasers.

Best possible picture quality to date

Laser TV’s have a sharper, brighter, and more colorful picture than any other TV on the market. Current display technologies such as LED-LCD or Plasma are capable of reproducing 40% of the perceivable color gamut. Lasers can carry a thicker amount of information and are capable of reproducing 90% of the color gamut. This translates into richer, more accurate colors never seen before on screen. And unlike other display technologies, Laser TV’s don’t fade over time. This means the picture you see on day 1 is the exact same picture you’ll see 10 years from now.

Fastest response time ever

I mention response times in one of my previous posts and their importance. Since Lasers travel at the speed of light, their response times are virtually instantaneous. This means there’s less chance of motion blur, ghosting, color bleeding, image blotting, or flickr to occur; picture quirks that affect all current display technologies. There’s also no risk of image burn-in with Laser Televisions, an anomaly that has plagued plasma displays. At the same time, Laser TV’s rival the boastfully wide viewing angle of plasma’s at 160 degrees. It’s the best of both worlds, but it gets even better…

It’s cheaper and more energy efficient!

Ok, well maybe it’s not the cheapest just yet. But the technology behind it is the most affordable to manufacture so someday it will be. Keep in mind when plasma TV’s first came out they cost more than $8,000 and only offered 840x480 definition. In contrast, the 65 inch Mitsubishi Laservue offers 1,920x1080 full HD resolution and costs a modest $6,299.99 on Amazon. Laser TV’s like Mitsubishi’s Laservue also use less power than any TV currently on the market, anywhere from one half to one third the energy consumption.

Providing the best possible picture quality and the most energy efficient display to-date, Laser Television could very well be the death of LED-LCD’s and Plasma’s in a galaxy not so far away.

Next Generation 3D Won’t Require Glasses

2010-12-12T19:55:00.000-08:00

In the last couple of years 3D has made a resurgence in the theater and is now invading your home on blu ray. With the huge success of the 2009 blockbuster film Avatar which grossed 2.78 billion dollars worldwide, 3D has become the latest must-have in home entertainment. The new active shutter 3D technology is a dramatic improvement over the old Red-Green anaglyph glasses our grandparents wore on their first date. But the latest version of 3D has just hit the shelves of retailers and is already in danger of becoming obsolete.

The latest incarnation of 3D may very well be the most advanced to date but it has one of the worst names of all time:Parallax Barrier. Whoever came up with this should have consulted Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale who created the Flux Capacitor. Now that was a cool name. But don’t let the terminology intimidate you. A parallax barrier is simply a thin film of liquid crystals placed on the front of your TV. This film acts like a filter by diffusing the light into two distinct images: one image for your right eye and one for your left. Thus creating the illusion of depth and VOILA: You have 3D!

There is a catch however, at least for now.

3D content on a parallax barrier TV can only be viewed from an incredibly precise ‘sweet spot’. So small in fact, that even two people side-by-side couldn’t enjoy the full effect of 3D images. Luckily, researchers are working on creating a solution by generating 4 distinct images versus 2. This should help increase the viewing angle. One advantage of the parallax barrier technology is that it can be switched off for 2D content viewing, a popular feature for the skeptic consumer.

Sharp, LG, and Toshiba are among the first to jump on the parallax bandwagon. Sharp’s Nintendo 3DS features the technology while Toshiba is scheduled to release the first glasses-free 3D TV in Japan later this month. But don’t throw away your active shutter lenses just yet. The 20-inch REGZA GL1 glasses-less TV is expected to sell for 240,000 yen ($2,885).

LED vs. LCD vs. Plasma - Which one should you buy?

2010-12-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

Shopping at your local electronic retailer for a TV can be an overwhelming experience. The new fad for displaying Televisions seems to be a never-ending wall, 25ft tall encompassing the backside of the store. Yes, I understand they are wall mountable but did you really have to mount ALL of them? It does make for convenient side-by-side comparison however.

Hopefully by now you’ve determined you want a flat screen display which pretty much narrows it down to LCD or Plasma. LED is really just a subset technology of LCD that uses a different type of backlighting.

Most people make their decision based upon specs and features. Advertisers try to steer you away from common sense and instead focus on refresh rates, resolutions, and dynamic contrast ratios. Nonsense!

4 simple questions to ask:

What are you using the TV for?

If you play a lot of games on your Xbox or Playstation than you should stay away from Plasma’s. Games usually keep the same images on the screen for hours at a time and Plasma’s are susceptible to burn in. Manufacturers have improved this with anti-burn-in technology, but it still remains enough of an issue to avoid if possible.

If you watch a lot of movies and are budget conscientious then get a plasma. They have the best contrast ratios and deepest blacks. They also have the most fluent motion and suffer the least from motion blur. They perform the best in low ambient lighting like basements or home theatre rooms. If this TV is going in your four-season porch then get a LCD. Plasma’s have a glass screen and suffer from obnoxious glare in higher lighting. A special coating is applied to plasma screens to reduce glare but LCD’s still have superior glare resistance.

If you’re willing to spend an extra $200-500 then get the latest and greatest and buy a LED TV. They provide the brightest picture of the three, are the sleekest, and the most energy efficient.

What size TV do you want?

Plasma’s only really come in 42” on up. If this TV is going in your kitchen or den it’s probably going to be smaller than that. Remember, bigger isn’t necessarily better. The bigger the picture the more imperfections in the picture quality you’ll see. There is such a thing as optimal size based upon viewing distance. The rule of thumb is you should view at twice the distance of your screen size and no further than 5 times this size. For example, a 46” TV should be viewed from at least 92 inches or 7 a half feet away.

What is your budget?

LED TV’s are by far the most expensive right now. Screen sizes 40” and up you can expect to pay a premium of $200-$500 over LCD or Plasma. The smaller the screen size, the less the difference in cost will be. In the 42”-55” range LCD and Plasma’s are very comparable in price but plasma’s give you better value in the 60 plus inch range hands down. Here is an example of what you can expect to pay for the three technologies:

LED 46” Sony - $1,299.99
LCD 46” Sony - $899.99
Plasma 50” Panasonic - $799.99

Thin or ultra thin?

Plasma’s are the heaviest and thickest of the three technologies while LED’s are the lightest and thinnest. Most LED’s are around 2.5 inches thick while a Plasma is usually 3.75 inches. Some LED’s as thin as 1 inch but you will pay a hefty premium for this. With Plasma’s you can usually add about 10-20lbs of weight. LCD’s fall somewhere in the middle. In my opinion, these differences are negligible and all three types of displays can be wall mounted.

Other considerations – energy efficiency, viewing angle, life span

Best to worst list

Energy efficiency: LED, LCD, Plasma.
Significance level: Moderate

Both LCD technologies are roughly twice as efficient as Plasma but usually only amounts to a difference of $1-3 per month in savings. LED’s consume the least amount of electricity.

Viewing angle: Plasma, LCD, LED.
Significance level: High

Newer LCD and LED TV’s have an acceptable viewing angle of 75 degrees before picture quality begins to diminish. Plasma’s have a near perfect viewing angle of 160 degrees.

Life span: Plasma, LCD, LED.
Significance level: Very Low

Plasma’s advertise 100,000 hrs, LCD’s 60,000-90,000, and LED’s 40,000. It’s far more likely your TV will break or you will upgrade before its lifespan is up. Even if you’re a couch potato and watch 5 hours of TV a day, your LED TV should last over 21 years. The construction quality of your television is far more important than the advertised lifespan.

5 Features to ignore when buying a High Definition TV

2010-12-10T22:17:00.000-08:00

1.) Dynamic contrast ratio – A regular contrast ratio is simply the difference between the whitest white and the blackest black on your TV. A measurement of light output (lumens) is taken when a pixel is at its brightest (white) and darkest (black). The higher the ratio the better. For example 10,000:1 is better than 5,000:1. The problem is there is no standardized way in which manufacturers measure this ratio so you cannot accurately compare them to each other.

To make matters worse they have introduced what’s known as dynamic contrast ratios. Dynamic ratios are inflated because they compare the whites and blacks throughout the course of an entire movie versus a single frame. Native or Static contrast ratios compare the ratio of the luminance in a single frame, which is far more relevant than dynamic contrast ratios. Dynamic ratios are often artificially enhanced with a TV’s onboard processor. They usually focus on the “1” side of the ratio by attempting to manipulate blacks. In some cases, pixels may be shut off completely which can crush blacks on the screen making it impossible to see anything. This has even given manufacturers license to claim an infinite contrast ratio by dividing by zero, which is of course ridiculous.

The take away: Ignore dynamic contrast ratios completely. Use Static or Native contrast ratios only to compare models from the same manufacturer, year, and type (LCD, Plasma, DLP, etc.). They only real way to know if your TV has superior contrast is to see it in person or read a review from a credible third party. As a rule of thumb, if a contrast ratio is greater than 10,000:1, it is meaningless.

2.) 1080p Resolution on TV's under 50": HDTV’s come in only 2 resolutions; 720p and 1080p. The numbers correspond to lines of resolution, so 720 and 1,080 horizontal scan lines respectively. The p stands for progressive, which means an entire picture frame is displayed at a time vs. interlaced, or every other line of resolution. Despite popular belief, when you get into the HD realm overall picture quality depends more upon contrast ratio, color saturation, and color accuracy than resolution.

Most people cannot discern the difference between 720p and 1080p unless the size of the screen is 50 inches or larger and viewing distance is within 6 feet. The smaller the screen, the less important the resolution. You also have to consider the source of the signal. The only 1080p sources to date are blu-ray, ps3, xbox360, and select on-demand video sources. Broadcast television comes in 1080i, 720p, or 480i (standard definition). Unless you watch a lot of blu-ray movies or play a ton of video games on your ps3 or xbox360, you’re not even utilizing 1080p resolution.

All televisions on the market today are fixed-pixel displays. This means each pixel is discrete and the total number of pixels never changes. When your watching ABC, the source signal is 720p. If your TV is 1080p, then it must scale the picture to display correctly. Scaling occurs when the source resolution doesn’t match your TV’s native resolution. Scaling is a bad thing because it can create ringing artifacts, posterization, and double scaling. These are glitches in your picture! Because of this, one could make the argument that when the source signal is 720p, a 720p native TV is superior to that of a 1080p. Remember, when the picture is scaled you cannot add sharpness, resolution, or any other quality enhancing information. Scaling is always a bad thing! Virtually every 40 + inch HDTV on the market today is 1080p anyway. 720p is still available, but far more common in screen sizes 37” or under.

The take away: There’s only 2 resolution choices, 720p & 1080p, and unless your buying a 50” screen or larger you won’t see any added benefit by purchasing a 1080p set. You will be hard-pressed to find a large LCD or Plasma TV that isn’t 1080p anyway (doing a search on BestBuy.com yielded me 0 results). The only sources that utilize 1080p are blu-ray, xbox360, ps3, and select video-on-demand services. Contrast ratio, color saturation, and color accuracy are more important to overall picture quality than the difference between 720p and 1080p resolution.

3.) Refresh Rates above 120Hz on LCD HDTV’s: The refresh rate is the number of times a second your TV draws a picture. Most displays operate at 60Hz or 60 times per second. This includes computer monitors, Tube TV’s, and even most flat screen High Definition Televisions. Until recently, 60Hz was pretty much the standard in the U.S. Video is shot at 30 frames per second, so assuming it was shot in progressive, each frame is displayed twice (interlaced video would display 30 “fields” twice, but don’t let this confuse you).

Time and time again, independent testing has shown that 60Hz is plenty fast in order to create the illusion of life like motion and eliminate flicker. Flicker occurs when the refresh rate is too low and each image fades slightly before the next image is drawn (it looks like someone is toggling the brightness up and down at super human speed).

So why fix what isn’t broken?

Advocates of higher refresh rates argue that on-screen motion due to live action or camera movement becomes smoother when the refresh rate is increased, thus reducing motion blur. This argument only applies to LCD displays. Plasma and DLP TV’s don’t have as big a problem with motion blur. This is due to the way in which LCD pixels behave. On an LCD display, liquid crystals must align themselves by rotating and letting light pass through. This process takes considerably longer than Plasma TV’s. Plasma’s contain a grid of cells that are charged by electrical voltage. Charged plasma cells react to the electricity by emitting light. This process takes place at virtually the speed of electricity.

When a pixel on an LCD display receives information to change, it stays lit until it is presented with new information (have you ever noticed a single ‘stuck’ defective pixel on your monitor?). This pixel behavior is referred to as sample-and-hold and is relatively slow compared to other display technologies. If the movement on TV is fast enough (like it typically is in sports or action movies) motion lag will occur. By increasing the refresh rate of timely information, say of a football players arm throwing a pass, motion blur should be reduced. But motion blur is an incredibly complex phenomenon with many contributing factors including refresh rate, pixel response time, compression, scaling, 3:2 pulldown, type of display, and how the brains perceives movement. Because of this, motion blur can plague any display type, including Plasma.

LCD TV’s with refresh rates of 120Hz, 240Hz, or 480Hz do reduce some motion blur, but the difference after 120Hz isn’t noticeable and you’ll typically pay more for a higher refresh rate. In addition, many LCD displays use interpolation, meaning they add images by ‘guessing’ where an object should be in between frames in order to make the transition appear more fluid. This comes at the cost of unwanted background image artifacts. Some people experience a loss of depth and a ‘plastic like appearance’. Luckily TV’s with high refresh rates can be turned back to 60Hz with a click of a button. I have yet to see a TV that doesn’t include this as an option.

So why not get just get a 60Hz instead of a 120Hz?

There is a lesser-known side benefit to 120Hz and it has to do with film. Unlike video, film is shot at 24 frames per second. If you try to divide 24 into 60Hz you get a mess of each frame being displayed two and a half times per second. To solve this problem they developed a way of converting film to video known as 3:2 pulldown. But 3:2 pulldown decreases image quality and introduces judder. Judder is a constant shaky or jerky effect most noticeable in still shots. This is where 120Hz comes in.

If you’re a math wiz, you may have already figured out that 24 goes into 120 exactly 5 times; it’s a perfect fit! This means each frame is refreshed 5 times in a 120hz TV, thereby eliminating the need for 3:2 pulldown and its unwanted side effects. With the right equipment, you can now view movies at home exactly as you would see them in the theatre! The same holds true for 240hz and 480hz as they are divisible by 24 as well, 10 and 20 respectively.

Many blu ray players and DVD’s are now capable of 1080p/24 output. Just to confuse and frustrate you more, not all 120hz Televisions can accept the 1080p/24 signal but if your TV is 60Hz then it for sure won’t work. You need to do your homework first to make sure you’re purchasing all of the right equipment if you want to watch movies at home in 1080p/24 but the extra effort is worth it. You can now view movies from home just like you would in the theatre but without the price of a ticket and the annoying kid behind you kicking your chair.

The take away: Anything above 120Hz on LCD televisions isn’t worth the extra price. The difference after 120Hz isn’t noticeable to most people. Higher refresh rate HDTV’s use interpolation, which will smooth motion in fast action scenes or sports but comes at a cost of decreased image quality and unwanted artifacts when viewing movies. Luckily pretty much every 120Hz or higher TV can be switched back to 60Hz when needed. A 1080p/24 compatible TV that has a 120Hz refresh rate is better value than a 480Hz TV that isn’t 1080p/24 compatible. Look at the refresh rate if you watch a ton of sports and have to get an LCD display, otherwise ignore it completely. I will be talking about Plasma 600Hz sub-field drive in another blog.

4.) Wide Color gamut’s: It is engrained in the mind of consumers that bigger, faster, and higher are always better. And marketers are privy to this. This is one instance in which more of something is not only unnecessary, but is actually counterproductive to overall picture quality. Today’s movie and television content is created and calibrated on 3 color displays. Most people are familiar with the RGB color model: red, green, and blue. High definition televisions conform to the Rec.709 or BT.709 standard, which utilizes the RGB color model and sets forth the color space parameters. These standards are incredibly strict and help ensure accurate color reproduction.

What does this all mean in the real world? This means that whatever colors the director saw on his screen are EXACTLY what you see on yours. If your TV advertises a wide color gamut you will get over-saturated and inaccurate color reproduction. Bloody reds and sun-bright yellows for example. Watch an episode of CSI Miami for reference. This show intentionally over saturates and alters colors as a stylistic device. The ocean is a blazing neon-aqua and each room in the glass crime-fighting lab is a distractive yellow, green, or blue.

It’s important to understand that virtually everything that comes out of Hollywood today is color graded in the studio. This means the colors have already been manipulated to create a particular mood, style, or simply to create the most aesthetically pleasing picture possible. Let’s say the director is shooting a scene that takes place in the forest and really wants those greens to stand out. He will have them enhanced to perfection in the studio. But oh wait, then your TV with its “superior” color gamut decides to reproduce those greens even greener! Do you get the picture yet? Or maybe you don’t because you’re reading this on a wide color gamut display.

The exaggerated colors outside the gamut of the REC.709 color space are nearly impossible to find in nature anyway so why would you want a gamut that creates colors that don’t naturally exist?

The Take away: If you want accurate color reproduction then stay away from TV’s that advertise wide color gamut’s or a fourth primary color sub-pixel such as the Sharp Quattron. If you like over exaggerated yellows then the Quattron is your best bet. Colors are already enhanced in the studio with specific intentions and to precision. Wide color gamut’s will simply over saturate and inaccurately display colors.

5.) Energy Star qualified: Energy star is an international standard for energy efficient consumer products in the US. Products that are energy star certified should advertise the energy star logo. They claim up to 40% less energy usage than standard TV’s.

There are several problems with this concept. To begin with, the type, size, and settings on your TV have a far greater impact on power consumption then the energy star rating. So despite the fact that your new 50” flat screen LCD is energy star qualified, it is still consuming more electricity then the tube TV it replaced. CRT or tube TV’s are less efficient per inch, true, but they never made 50” tube TV’s! The bigger the TV, the more power it consumes. The old rear projection TV’s are the most energy efficient per inch. If you’re comparing a plasma TV to a LCD TV and both have the energy star logo, you might think either one is going to consume roughly the same amount of electricity. You would be wrong. Plasma’s consume anywhere from 2-3 times the energy of LCD’s.

To make your life more complicated than it needs to be, all TV’s have different out-of-the-box settings, including brightness and contrast levels. Most people don’t change these settings. If you were to go home and plug in your new 46” LCD Sony KDL-46A750, in 1 year your TV would use $60.83 worth of electricity. Now lets say instead you purchased the 54” plasma Panasonic TC-P54Z1. Over the course of a year, it would cost you $59.40. A savings of $1.43! But I thought you said plasma’s used twice the energy of LCD’s?! They do, but only when they are calibrated equally. With all settings equal, the plasma would then cost $69.55/yr and the LCD only $31.36, less then half the cost and $38 in your pocket.

To frustrate you even further, the brightness controls on your Television don’t truly control the brightness. It controls the signal level of blacks. This does however have a small effect on brightness, but you’ll want to adjust your contrast levels to make a real difference in energy usage. This controls the amplitude of your video signal, also known as brightness. Confused yet? Good.

When your TV is off it is still using electricity. Some of the newer TV’s can run on less then 1 watt of power in stand by mode. This equates to less than $20 a year on your electric bill. Up until November of 2008, TV’s could be branded with the energy star logo and didn’t even have to be turned on during testing. All that mattered was their stand by power consumption. Then came the improved energy star 3.0, which required testing for when the TV was on. The problem was these standards were remarkably easy to meet and virtually every TV qualified. Even worse, manufacturers could fudge the numbers by rating their TV at a low brightness setting and were allowed to perform their own testing. As of 2010, we are now on the 4^th generation of energy star.

Even if energy star can get its act together an inherent problem remains. You can only improve efficiency so much until you must sacrifice something. Perhaps manufacturers will release TV’s with inferior brightness, contrast, and other features in order to meet the new standards. There’s simply no way a Plasma TV can compete with the low energy consumption of a DLP TV. There’s also no way a DLP can compete with a plasma TV in terms of picture quality, color accuracy, and viewing angle.

The take away: Energy star rating has nothing to do with the quality of your TV picture and is an unreliable way of comparing energy usage among different types of televisions. What makes the greatest difference is the size, type, and setting of your TV. If you are concerned about energy consumption, buy a small LED LCD TV, turn down your brightness, and steer clear of 50 + inch plasma’s. According to CNET.com, the Sharp Aquos is the most efficient TV on the market.