CES Tech Gibberish Roundup

By now, the sizzle of headlines from last week's International Consumer Electronics Show is a mental clump of cross-platform, high-def, downloadable, interconnectable you-name-it.

But the gibberish and tech nomenclature fueling the annual gadget carnival lingers on.

Let's start with the buzz around high-definition screens. A reliable visual backdrop, every year, is the passionate competition amongst TV set manufacturers to be the guy with the biggest … screen. This year it was Sharp's 108-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) doozy.

This year's chapter, though, offered a new twist: An emphasis on 1080p technology, in addition to the more widely known 1080i. Piling on top of the “p” was a number: 1080p60. Signage all over the floors called it “Full HD” and “True HD.”

The secret decoder ring on 1080p/60 says this: The “p” stands for “progressive,” as in “progressive scan.” The 60 stands for the number of frames per second it can display.

This “i vs. p” thing (not to be confused with this “IP” thing) has everything to do with picture quality, and which produces better resolution.

Quick refresher: The “I” in “1080i” stands for “interlace.” It describes how an HD set paints the picture onto the screen: First, 540 odd-numbered, horizontal lines, then 540 even-numbered, horizontal lines, which are then vertically “interlaced” — integrated, by your eyes — into an image.

By contrast, “progressive” displays draw each line one by one, beginning to end. It's generally acknowledged as superior for things like advanced computer graphics and its offspring, games.

The rub: The original HDTV specifications, maintained by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, don't include a “profile” for a 60-frame-per-second, 1080p picture. They only went as high as 30 frames.

Reason: The bit load of a 1080p/60 profile wouldn't fit into broadcast bandwidth using the modulation method they picked to send HD signals over the air.

From a signal-distribution point of view, it means you probably need to go one question deeper when asking your set-top suppliers whether their HD boxes can do 1080p. The short, happy answer is yes — they go as far as the ATSC spec. The fuller and blurrier answer is “it depends” — on whether 60p is part of the question.

And another thing: Outside of PC multimedia and game titles, there isn't really any video you can play on a 1080p display. That'll change as high-definition DVD players scuffle through their own, separate debate format (HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray) into the consumer mainstream.

If the suppliers peppering the Las Vegas Convention Center have their way, all gadgets in your house with a chip are on a hookup path. Inside the wired path to hook things up, and prominent in Vegas, were two techniques. Neither is new, but both are progressing as expected.

One is “MoCA,” which stands for the Multimedia over Coax Alliance. As its name indicates, MoCA hooks things up over the coaxial wires that already line the insides of your walls. Comcast is a big MoCA supporter, as are Cox and suppliers Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta, among others.

The other is HomePlug, which lets you connect your connectable stuff over the power lines that already string through your house. The HomePlug news out of CES: Watch for usable data rates of around 40 Megabits per second — enough for a decent handful of HD channels, in other words — out of products tagged “HomePlug AV.”

Both MoCA and HomePlug move bits using IP, which positions them well for today's ceaseless momentum around anything Internet Protocol.

Which brings us full-circle to the “downloadable” and “cross-platform.”