Home Theater Geeks 465 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
00:00 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I chat with Mike Heiss, industry journalist and consultant, about his trip to CES 2025. It's the first of three parts, so stay tuned.
00:16 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Podcasts you love From people you trust.
00:20 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
This is TWIT. Hey there, scott Wilkinson. Here, the home theater geek. Now. I didn't make it to CES 2025 this year, but my good friend, industry journalist and consultant, mike Heiss, did. So I've had him. I've asked him to come on the show here to talk about what he saw and heard in the first of three parts. Hey, mike, welcome back to the show.
00:57 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Hey Scott, thanks, yep, I figured I'd take one for the team and I haven't done a COVID test yet, but I avoided it. Well, this wasn't a super spreader, but I've spoken to a number of people that got the obligatory CES cold.
01:14 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's one reason I didn't go is I'm somewhat respiratorially compromised these days. I really want to be careful.
01:24 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yep, well, well meant, well meant. Good idea, yes.
01:28 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Well, first of all, before we get into the show, I want to mention that, mike, you live in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles yes, I do which is experiencing unprecedented fires as we speak. I hope you're safe and I hope your home is safe.
01:45 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yes, my home. Thank you, scott, I appreciate. My home is safe. I'm in a sort of little you know. If you didn't know that I live in California, you'd think this was suburban anywhere USA. And like the Brady Bunch, which was actually filmed about, you know, five miles from me, right, right, right, right, right, um. But no, it's a typical little neighborhood and and I appreciate when people ask me if they have floods or fires and you hear me being unsafe, it's an apocalypse then it's a real apocalypse.
02:18 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Well, this is more of an apocalypse than I think la has ever seen.
02:22 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Oh, oh, no, for certain I know people, as I think you said when we were speaking earlier today. I know people that have lost their homes. In fact, I actually came home from the show a day early, thank you technology. My wife was without power for three days while I was at the show and the power came back, thankfully, and we had lots of battery banks.
02:45
you know, you gotta have those yeah, no internet and um, they sent out a false alert pack. Get ready to go. And after three days without power, my wife sort of said enough of this, you gotta come home. And I did and thankfully it was a false alarm, but what a pain in the patoot.
03:10 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Well, I'm really glad you're safe and your wife is safe and your family is safe and your house is not burned down. May it remain so.
03:20 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Make it so. Make it so.
03:22 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
That's right, exactly right. Okay, so we're here to talk about CES. You were there for several days, more than enough. It wasn't enough. No, I know you missed some stuff, especially because you had to come home a day early, but you probably would have anyway.
03:37 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Well, no, I would have stayed. The one thing I missed was Eureka Park, which is always cool as an indicator of what's kind of coming. But I did see. If anybody says AI in a TV to me, one more time I will puke. So I went to all the press conferences, visited all the booths, visited the secret booths, the secret booths, the secret booths. So, I had more than my fill. I think this is somewhere close to my 50th CES.
04:10 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised, I'm not surprised. Well, let us start with what I'm calling the biggest story slash non-story of CES, which is HDMI 2.2. Now we know HDMI, it's been around forever.
04:31 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
You know it, you love it, you can't live without it.
04:35 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
And yet you also hate it.
04:39 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
That's true. But in fairness to HDMI and I actually had an interview with Rob Tobias, who's the head of the HDMI licensing group I said I've been saying for years you know, it's a shame that a lot of the stuff that Steve Venuti, if you remember, used to have that job was always pilloried about. They get blamed for stuff that HDCP is really the cause.
05:03 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
They get blamed for stuff that HDCP is really the cause. Right right, which is the copy protection embedded within HDMI.
05:13 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
And not to jump ahead, I did ask Rob. Hdmi is now at 2.1B and HDCP is at 2.3. They're on parallel tracks but independent of one another, and there will not, as best we know as of now, not be a new HDCP standard. That's sort of staying as is.
05:37 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Wow, okay. Well, that's interesting to know.
05:39 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
That must mean the suits over in the Black Tower are happy Right.
05:43 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
So here's the first graphic I wanted to show. Keith's 521 in the chat room is saying that it has a modest bit faster than DP2.1b, and that is true.
05:54 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
And Thunderpants 5.
05:56 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
And Thunderpants 5. Thunderbolt we're jokingly calling it HDMI 2.1, what we have had for the last year or two has a maximum bandwidth of 48 gigabits per second. Hdmi 2.2 doubles that to 96 gigabits per second, which is in fact faster than DisplayPort and Thunderbolt, currently at 80 gigabits per second. So that's quite a bump up in speed, Thunderbolt currently at 80 gigabits per second.
06:30 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
So that's quite a bump up in speed, it is. And the big question is why? Well, in the consumer electronics world, if you're talking about whiz-bang, $750, nvidia cards and things of that nature, yes, sure, fine. If you're talking about medical imaging or things of that nature, sure, is it going to make. If you're and I saw Joe Cain, you know, if you're Joe Cain and you want, you know 1632-bit blah-da-blah-da, but there's no content. So it doesn't matter For the consumer it's just not going to make any difference.
07:16 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Well, in consumer video, consumer television and movies.
07:19 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
07:21 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
It's not going to make any difference Now. It does allow higher resolutions and frame rates, and we have a graphic here.
07:28 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
And sample.
07:30 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
And sample rates.
07:30 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
So there you go. So if you want, there's the eye chart. Let me see. It is an eye chart, this eye or that eye, cover your right eye and read this. If you want 12K, 60 frames per second, 444,. Yeah, you're going to need this, but who's?
07:50 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
what are you? Who needs? Yeah, who needs that Well?
07:54 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
if you've got, if you're an e-sports person and you've got a fancy schmancy NVIDIA card or similar, it is important to those folks.
08:06 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
And.
08:07 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
I get it, but I think for the average consumer it's just not. It just there's nothing there.
08:15 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Well, this is why I call it the biggest story slash non-story of CES. I mean it will allow you to do 4K at 480 frames per second.
08:26 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Well, or you know, 8k at 240 or 12K at 120. And again, if you're in a military, you know near-to-eye kind of thing, that's cool. Well, the requirement is, if you need to get a lot of data from here to there, really, really, really quickly, and a lot of it, here's the way to do it. But do we want to talk about the butts Always?
08:55 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Okay.
08:58 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
So, first of all, they announced it the standard isn't done yet, right. All they announced it the standard isn't done yet, right, the standard will not be done till sometime in the next couple of months. So until the standard is done, you can't make chips. So not only is there no standard, there's a standard, but there really isn't a standard.
09:21 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Well, it's probably a preliminary standard.
09:23 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Right, and you could start making chips.
09:27 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
But you wouldn't want to. You wouldn't want to until you knew for sure every last detail.
09:32 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Well, because you can only go, and I went through over the years I've gone through this from 1.1 to 1.0 to 1.1 to 1.3 to 1.4. And it's it's terrible because with the increased bandwidth you can't monkey around with this stuff and once you start cutting the duck, you know when you get the die that makes the chips you just can't be for. Oops, we changed the standards.
10:01
Yeah well, kiss that 15 million dollars, goodbye, yeah, and pretend that you're somebody in the division that is in charge of these chips or one of the chip guys. Would you and I've done this would you like to go up to the suits at the top floor and say, hey, guys, I need about 50 million dollars. Yeah, well, like why. For the new hdmi. Well, we did that a couple of years, guys, I need about $50 million. Yeah, well, like why For?
10:30
the new HDMI Well we did that a couple of years ago. What do you want to do it again? Why Are we going to make money? There's the key right there, you know. So it's going to happen where you will probably see it. First, because these guys cut new dies more frequently. Or in the socs, the all-in-one system on chips from companies like mtk. Or, when we get to the tv section, all those processors.
10:56
My processor is better than your processor we're gonna get there part two yeah that's where you'll see it first, so you you may well see it in TVs way before Cool your jets folks before you see it in AVRs and surround processors. It's going to be easily, easily 18 to as many as 36 months. Remember 2.0?.
11:22 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Yeah, it took a while.
11:23 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Remember 2.1?
11:24 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
It took a while it took a while. Remember 2.1?
11:25 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
It took a while, Took a while, so use that as you know the kind of expectation that you should have. Yep, but they showed a prototype of the cable. Oh wait, what am I going to connect it to?
11:37 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Now it's a new cable, it's a different cable.
11:41 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Same connector.
11:42 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Same connector.
11:47 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
And I know I'll be very disappointed because you've got a pretty educated group of folk watching this and no, they will not add a locking mechanism. And somebody asked rob, somebody asked rob tobias about this at the press conference. And having a locking mechanism as long as it doesn't get in the way of interchangeability is okay, but hdmi will not mandate any change to the connector. And it's like where are my notes? It's like, remember they used to have the signs over mc a billion served.
12:23 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Yeah, sure.
12:24 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
So they said to date there have been 14 billion with a B HDMI devices shipped.
12:32 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Wow.
12:34 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
So they don't want. You know, there's a big legacy issue, so there will be new cables. The cables will be backwards compatible but clearly not front compatible. So, that cable that you just bought last week for $48 ain't going to work for $96. Yeah, and the increased speed and bandwidth will mean that it's going to be harder to go longer distances.
13:01 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right, exactly, keith's 512 in the chat room made that exact point. So if you go with a longer cable it might reduce the bandwidth, but you can use active cables.
13:17 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
And they said, yeah, you want to use active cables, but you'll need new chips for the active cable. You'll need new chips if you're going HD-based T, which I don't think could probably do 2.1 in many cases now anyway. So you've got to look at what you need and what you're going to get out of this. If you're going to hold off, for somebody who is involved in this market and other parts of my life, don't be waiting. Yeah, don't be waiting. Don't be waiting, Buy now, Buy now. Don't be waiting Because I was speaking to another longtime industry buddy of mine and he said I was working at retail when 2.0 was announced and sales dropped for 18 months Of a major not one of the brands that I work for, but another major brand and he said why did they do this? Why did they do this now?
14:13 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right, I do want to mention two things, two feature things in HDMI 2.2. One is called latency indication protocol, or LIP.
14:25 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
As in sync.
14:26 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
As in lips sync.
14:27 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yeah, that's the graphics. The best way to describe this is for those who know what EDID is.
14:35 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Which stands for Extended Display Identification. It indicates its metadata that reveals what the capabilities of a display are.
14:46 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
The device at the source, the device at the start, and the sync, the device at the end, talk to each other Yo, mr Source, what can you do me? Well, mr TV or Ms TV, I can do this, what can you do, tv or Ms TV, I can do this, what can you do? And they kind of talk to each other and figure out what the best way to communicate and what's the best quality they can deliver. So picture that for audio, and not just for the type of audio, but this is also meant to reduce latency.
15:21 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right, the dreaded lip sync issue, where you know you see somebody say something and then you hear what they're saying. You know, milliseconds later, 200 milliseconds later. This will reduce that, and that's a good thing, I'd say.
15:36 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yes, and I mean, and the funny thing, because I can't help myself is I asked Rob Tobias, did they come up with a name and then realize, hey, this has a cool acronym, lip. Or did they come up with the acronym and find the words to make it fit and he's a?
15:54 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
little bit too serious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now the other thing you mentioned to me that I didn't realize the 2.2 will not have what's called alt mode.
16:04 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yes. Well, let me just one thing on a WIP. Oh sorry, is that WIP is metadata, right? Which is data about the data? For those who aren't that deep into that stuff, I asked them a couple of key questions Will you be able to upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2? And the answer is no way. The only time that was done was when 1.4 came out. The circuits that were in the PlayStation 3 were designed to have 1.4 blown in. That was a one-time only. That will never, ever, ever, ever happen again. However, since whip is metadata as long as the system can pass it.
16:48
That is an thing that is being introduced with 2.2, but if the source and the sync both talk lip, I guess you're giving me lip giving me lip that if they both talk lip, the fact that your avr processor or soundbar in the middle are not 2.2, that's okay, as long as the device is out at the other ends can can listen and and sense the metadata. So that's, that's good. So can be carried through lip. No updates. Alt mode uh, now I've got my little uh, uh, dell xps, the second one that I've been using it, and I use it when I do presentations or work on the road and it has um, a usbc on either either side and to make the computers thinner, they take away the you and some of the ultras, they take away the hdmi port. So how do I get hdmi? I'm going to barcelona, oh, I'm going to barcelona to do isc oh, that'll be cool With Home.
17:57
Theater Geek, and they're going to be beaucoup. They big displays. Because if Avixa, which is like the Cedia of the institutional and commercial world, if Avixa and Cedia had a love child, it would be this show, isc, and in fact both of those two groups own it, so I'm going to do my mikey shows there, and that is famous for much more emphasis on large displays. So we'll see if there's anything to report, right, uh, but I digress. I totally forgot what the heck I was talking about alt mode, alt mode. So when I take my computer on the road and I want to hook it up to a projector, A TV or a projector or a projector.
18:43
sure, you plug your USB-C in and you've got a little widget or your phone, I can you know, as a backup. I store my presentations on the cloud and I've got a Pixel with a USB and the Pixel 8s and 9s now support alt mode, which it didn't at first. So I hook up the little thing, connect it to the projector and, bingo, I'm done.
19:05 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Basically what alt mode does, is it lets you send HDMI data out USB-C directly to a projector?
19:13 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Or a TV or a display or whatever, and I asked Rob about that and he said no, or certainly they got other stuff to get to first. Other extramint to deal with first. So no old mode. But again it's a question of use case. People get caught up in the technology as much as you and I both kind of live by that.
19:39 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Hey man, we're home theater geeks.
19:41 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
But I'm not gonna buy. Well, but there are people with home HTC HD PCs, which is something different. But you can hook up your HD HT PC to the display of your choice if the video card's got an HDMI adapter or a jack or via alt mode. But when I take my XPS and throw it in my briefcase and I get to where Barcelona, I'm going to hook it up what do you call it Using alt mode. Good enough, I don't need 96 to do the Mikey show.
20:22 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right, right, okay. Well, so HDMI 2.2, big story at the show, not important for consumers of TV content At this time, at this time.
20:37 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
It'll come to monitors. Clearly it will come to monitors first, but then there's the crossover between as somebody in the chat room asked about smaller size TVs before we started. There are people using 32-inch or 42-inch or 48-inch standard TVs as monitors, right, and so it'll be necessary there, particularly and then you know, here's a tease particularly when the TV sets are going to 144, 160, and the sky's the limit, right.
21:12 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right. Well, we're going to get into that next to the end, part two but for this part, the second area that I want to cover with you is sort of a bigger picture. Look at the TV industry, as you saw at CBS, yep, and in particular you mentioned to me before we were on the air that manufacturers don't make any money selling TVs.
21:39 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
And, as many of them, never did.
21:42 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
The margins are razor thin.
21:45 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yes, and to some extent for the retailers as well. That's true. Great for the consumers, unless they have tariffs. Great for the consumer Another subject, but it's something to watch out for. I don't want to get into the politics. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but, but, but. But I simply want to say that be aware of that, because it will have an impact if they increase the tariff on the price of tvs from china or wherever?
22:13
yeah even for mexico. A lot of tvs are made in mexico yeah, that's, that's true, that's true or assembled in Mexico.
22:18 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right, Okay, so, as you said I think before we started maybe not if you hear the word AI one more time in regards to TV you're going to puke. It was the huge buzz at CES all over the TV market.
22:37 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
And it was, and I've been sort of saying for the past year or so I am clearly old and I'm old enough to remember digital ready speakers. Did the speaker know that the content that was being fed was digital? And the answer is no. Has anybody seen if you're shopping for an antenna, an HDTV or next-gen ready antenna? Antenna is kind of stupid. It doesn't know. It knows that there's RF and you want to hope that there's enough, but it doesn't care what's in it, and that is sort of a similar thing. Ai can do a lot of things. It can do a lot of things. It can do a lot of good things, but I think it's being overused. Perhaps after this ces, maybe people will come to their senses and perhaps describe what it is that ai is doing in a particular product. So we don't have ai ready tvs product so we don't have AI-ready TVs?
23:40 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Well, but we sort of do. I mean, ai is being applied in two primary areas, I would say, content recommendation and user interface being one of them, right and picture and sound quality optimization being the other.
23:56 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Correct being the other Correct With sort of a sidebar, if you will, of the increased use of the TV. Once again, and they've been saying this for the last three or four years, but this year it's really going to happen with home control and telehealth, and pet health and exercise, and and pet health and exercise and, and, and, and, and.
24:21 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, to the point where the TV manufacturers are now adopting these AI large language model algorithms. Lg and Samsung are going with Microsoft Copilot, yep and Hisense and TCL are going with Google Gemini. Yep, yep and Hisense and TCL are going with Google Gemini.
24:40 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yep. And they're adding more far-field mics, Yep. And they're adding sensors, and not just sensors like a webcam, but sensors that are IR cameras, where it's not so much to see a webcam, of course, to say oh yeah, hi, grandma, but a sensor to determine if there's anybody in the room or, in the case of telehealth, is the person who's in the room moving.
25:11 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right, right, and this is just going to keep getting more and more, and this is just going to keep getting more and more, and the implication is clearly that apps and content are what are important to TV makers, not the hardware itself.
25:30 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Right, but you're tying that in, particularly in the content recommendation. If we want to watch some streaming show, right, severance.
25:39 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Weird. I haven't watched it yet.
25:43 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
it's really weird and it's on um, which, by the way, there's something in one of the uh groups. I'm uh, you know uh involved in where they hired some guy that is fitting new tvs or new um uh lcd panels into old CRT monitors, because, first of all, it's hard to get the old CRT monitors to work but it's set pieces.
26:12 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
In the production of these TVs.
26:15 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
You can't get an old NEC multi-sync monitor anymore, or even an old MacBook or Mac-a-schmacker.
26:24 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right or a Sony Vega TV.
26:26 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Well, or an old, you know 27 inches, the old Zenith.
26:31 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Yeah.
26:32 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Right, and there are people that restore those. But you know, so there's a lot of that going on. But you know, so there's a lot of that going on. The content recommendation is Michael, you know all about this stuff. We want to watch Severance, okay. What device do I use? Is it on Apple TV?
26:53 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
What platform is it on? Is it?
26:54 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
on Netflix? Is it on one of so many of these things? Is it on Netflix? Is it online? One of so many of these things? And that's where the combination of voice control, ai and contact recognition and recommendation is really really where this will come into play.
27:13 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Mm-hmm. Now, one interesting thing you told me was that some of the manufacturers, their operating system, their OS, is now being adopted on other manufacturers. This is new. I had never heard of this. Normally, manufacturers take their software and they guard it closely, and we're the only ones that have this.
27:38 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
And this is an eye chart to see how old the people in the chat room are proscan, formerly a sub high brand of rca in the days when rca was rca right, and now it's just a licensed brand that the people who are doing rca tv sets are using. So pro scan makes you want a roku. I got a roku. You want to google it? Not all, by the way, not all in the same set.
28:07
There's only one but there are people that prefer like a lot of people prefer roku, because although it's getting uh, more so now they're kind of they've got the most stuff and they're kind of the Swiss army knife but and they're somewhat into home control, but only for their own devices. If you like that, you'll like Roku. I've got a Roku TV here. If you like more of the Google infrastructure, you've got Google.
28:33 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
but what was important in that graphic, though, was Is os. Yes, web os they have. They offer. You can see there on the left it says powered by web os, which is an lg operating system and used to be exclusive to lg whoops.
28:52 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
So yes and and lg is licensing, just as samsung licensing Tizen, which is their system. So you're going to need, not that you're going to need. Part of this is what also makes the case if you were to say and somebody like you or like the audience here would say I want an LG or a Samsung set because I like the display technology, and boy, is that picture really good. So you buy the set because you like the video quality and some of the other features, but you will bore the OS and that's the reason why people will still buy Roku streamers, apple TV 4Ks.
29:38 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
The external streamer boxes.
29:40 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Or Google, if you like the LG or Samsung sets, but you want the Google interface, you buy a Google TV with Chromecast, the little white occupant things. So there still is a need for those devices, things. So there still is a need for those devices, but it's all being driven by the, you know, by the people. They're not selling TVs, they're selling eyeballs.
30:09 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right, right, exactly.
30:11 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
They're all in the ad sales business and that's the reason. That's the reason why they're doing it. Why, ask me, did you see the new Vizio sets at CES?
30:22 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Hey, mike, did you see the new Vizio sets at CES? Gee Scott.
30:25 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
I'm glad you asked no and they haven't exhibited at CES on the floor actually ever, ever. But they used to have a huge and in past years I think you may have they used to have them at the win. They'd have a big display yeah, all the sets a big ballroom full of stuff because they were selling them to lots of dealers yeah they now have one dealer, walmart, because walmart owns vizio.
30:49
Now, I know that they had a suite in a different area, in the c space uh, which was over at, uh, the aria where they had all the ad sales people. But they're interested in selling TV sets because they're interested in selling eyeballs and that's you know. That's why they weren't there.
31:09 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Yeah, yeah. I wanted to point out an interesting article I found on Ars Technica which is titled why I'm Disappointed with the TVs at CES 2025.
31:23 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Did you know that there's a pirate version of Ars Technica no?
31:29 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Ars Technica. All right, all right. This article is by Sharon Harding and we're going to put the link in the show notes. She makes the argument that TV makers' focus is on software and AI. Their business model is collecting user data and providing content, which is what we've been talking about here this whole time. Yep, yep, yep. She particularly rails. One thing she rails against is the LG that has a new remote. It used to be called the Magic Remote, it's now called the AI Magic Remote, and it has no input select button, which I would rail against too. That would make me nuts Nuts Absolutely. And she points out, as you pointed out earlier, that more TVs are adding far-field microphones to hear voice commands from across the room, which raises concerns about privacy.
32:23 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yep, oh wait, did you say AI?
32:27 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Yes.
32:32 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
I'm sorry, keith, sorry, sorry.
32:35 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Oh man, I said it and you had to puke. I apologize.
32:38 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
That was what the rustling was about. Okay, all right. Okay, so yeah, the privacy is a concern and some of the large language model stuff, just as you clearly will have the same concerns about phones and what they brought up. Samsung promoted Knox, k-n-o-x, which is not a radio station or it may be. That's their security system, and, as LG said the same, and a lot of the LLM stuff. The large language model is on device. So that's not all of it, but that's one of the ways that they're trying to assuage the concerns about, uh, privacy. But you know, or the answer is, you can, you know, put a piece of tape over the webcam and you can or you cannot connect the tv to the, to the internet. I mean, that's the.
33:37 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
You know but then that defeats the purpose of a lot of what they're trying to sell.
33:43 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Then get the Zenith out of the closet. I mean, but get a next-gen TV adapter, but we'll talk about that later, Right, but I mean no, there's no perfect solution to this.
33:55 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
There isn't. There isn't.
33:57 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
The manufacturers. I will say in fairness, the manufacturers are aware of it and in fact, can I answer a chat room question? Sure, keith's 512 says the UI can be important. The UI can be important. That is why I picked Panasonic for my TVs here in the UK, as the new LG TV is sometimes a bit slow on its UI. The Panasonics, which looked spectacular that they showed at CES, had fire TV at the OS. Are you kidding me? What, oh? What Are you kidding? Oh? Good, because I love to see new things about what Amazon is doing. Give me a break, but that's why you still might want to have an Apple TV or a Roku or whatever. But I think that that's something that got overlooked in a lot of the coverage. But that's why the people who watch this are smart.
34:56 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Right. So the author of this article thinks that AI used to improve picture and sound quality is a good thing and I do too, and it is, and in fact, you saw she also mentioned she'd prefer manufacturers work on improving picture and sound quality, and you saw some examples of exactly that.
35:16 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yes, and Panasonic if that's where you're trying to go here was one of the examples In terms of TV panel technology for the last year or two. Lg Display, which is a separate division of the larger corporation that makes the panels that are used by many TV brands, including Sony and LG, and for the OLEDs, samsung. That's LG Display as opposed to LG E. Lg Electronics that's the brand. Lg Display has a new type of OLED that is beautiful. The sets are beautiful, but each company uses different improvements, their own secret sauce, you know. Do you want your burgers flame broiled or do you want the Big Mac sauce? That's why you might buy a Burger King or a.
36:17 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
McDonald's so the Panasonic.
36:20 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Excuse me, the Panasonic not only uses this new technology, which is replaced for the time being the MLA, the micro lens array, but they have another thermal cooling and some other processing advancements, and that's why they think that their sets look better and they really did look good. Then the LGs, which, by the way, also look very good. But the one disadvantage of CES is you can't see them side by side. So ask me which one look better? Show me both of them side by side, both calibrated and both playing the same material.
36:57 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
Which we'll see at the flat panel shootout later this year.
37:00 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
One presumes yeah.
37:01 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
One presumes, one presumes. Now, you did mention to me that you know you did see improvements in picture quality, which you've been mentioning Dramatic, dramatic even, which is surprising to me. I mean, usually it's incremental, but you're talking about dramatic improvements. And you said that a number of booths had their last year's model side by side with this year's model, and maybe even a few years ago.
37:26 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
Yes, well, lg in the secret room showed this year's versus last year's and there was a very significant difference in the picture quality. It was pretty good what um tcl showed in their booth where they were talking about the backlighting technology. They didn't show the tvs, they showed the backlights. So lots of you know few zones, bigger leds, more zones, smaller led LEDs, more zones, smaller LEDs, way more zones, way smaller LEDs and it is those technologies that deliver the better picture quality, like TCL was claiming smaller mini LEDs, closer to the screen, yes, and that makes them brighter because, and they said, you and I would always, in these discussions, talk about how many dimming zones. Right, people weren't talking about dimming zones. Well, I've got 8,342 dimming zones. You didn't hear that this year, but they were talking about the overall brightness and quality, or what TCL was saying less haloing, which is important. So that's the technology behind it that each of the brands is trying to promote, to say that ours is better. At the end of the day, it's these guys to say that ours is better.
39:06 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
At the end of the day, it's these guys, right, right, um. Well, we're going to take a deeper look at those new technologies next time, uh, and so I think now is the time to say goodbye. Now's the time to say goodbye until Until next time, when we get into part two, when we will discuss more specific the TV models and technologies that were introduced, and I hope you will stay tuned for that, mike. Where can folks find your stuff?
39:38 - Mike Heiss (Guest)
You can find my stuff for residential tech today, rest tech todaycom or hidden wires, which is mostly European based publication. But if you want to see some houses that you wish you could afford and they do cover the technology scene as well, because I write for them and that's a hidden wirescouk. Oh, thank you for the plug there.
40:06 - Scott Wilkinson (Host)
There we go. We have the homepage on the screen there now and that's a lot of great stuff in those publications contributed to by my guest, mike Heiss. Thanks so much for being here, mike. Thanks a lot, scott. All right, we will see you in part two. Now if you have a question for me, you can send it right along to htg at twittv. I love answering the questions on the air here, so I look forward to getting your questions and, as always, we thank you for your support of the TWIT Network with your membership in Club TWIT, which gives you access to all the TWiT shows in their video format, so you can see all the great graphics and stuff that we show you. And thanks so much for considering that. Until next time, geek out. Bye.
