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VOLUME 34-10 February 2018 LCACE.ORG
Smart TVs Hulu, etc.) sources and non-traditional
‘channels’ (specialty channels like those
available through Roku). Many TVs can be
priced a little cheaper by not including an
From Dan’s Dan Douglas, antenna tuner, recognizing the fact that the
President, Space Coast PCUG, Florida typical user uses an external box(es) for
November 2017 issue, Space Coast PC watching the programs of choice. Those are
Journal referred to as ‘Displays’ rather that a ‘TV’
www.spcug.com which implies a tuner with network channel
datadan (at) msn.com selection capability. Watch out if you want to
install an antenna later and find there is no
If you haven’t shopped for a new TV in the place to plug it into.
last few years, you are in for an education.
There are now as many acronyms that you When we dive down deeper to the specifica-
come across when selecting a TV as there tions, we find the harder parts to under-
is in buying a PC. The last TV I bought was stand: High Dynamic Range or HDR is real-
a ‘SMART’ High Definition TV (HDTV) with ly where UHD sets shine on those that offer
3D in the middle of 2012. At that time, you this feature – delivering a picture that is
had a choice of a HDTV set with or without much closer to real life than was ever possi-
the 3D option and the choice of many sets ble with a HDTV. HDR greatly increases the
that weren’t ‘SMART’ or many that were
‘SMART’. The ‘SMART’ that I’m referring to
is the ability to stream content from sources
such as Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, Vudu,
etc. directly from the TV without the use of
an external streaming device such as a Blu-
Ray player, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, or
Roku to name just a few of the most com-
monly found. 1080P was the best resolution
available and sets bigger than 55” usually
had a big price jump.
Now the easy part: when we jump ahead 5
years to 2017, we now find a mixture of both
HDTV/2K 1920x1080 TVs and Ultra High contrast range between white and black so
Definition (UHD)/4K 3840x2160 TVs. There that the image is more natural in its bright-
was a large price difference between the ness and highlights. Coupled with HDR is a
two types until this summer when the num- larger palette of colors that can be displayed
ber of UHD sets has taken over from the – a HDTV can display about 17 million col-
number of HDTVs. Almost every set made ors, whereas an UHD set, with an enhanced
is a ‘SMART’ one featuring an extensive col- wide color gamut (WCG) can display over a
lection of a mixture of both traditional
(Netflix, (Continued on page 4)
LCACE February 10, 2018 demo Home Automation Part 2, presented by J.J.
Johnson Meeting at the Grayslake Public Library at 12:30PM. See you there.
