Runco Televisions
This year we decided to indulge ourselves by attending the Runco press conference. Runco is known for its ultra high-end (well, ultra high priced) home theater equipment. In the press conference, Runco detailed its recent acquisition by Planar Systems - another specialty display company known for their ruggedized LCDs and consumer LCD monitors. Although Runco did humor us with $5,000 720P projectors, there were a few interesting announcements.
If you think back to our CES 2006 coverage, you'll no doubt recall the flurry of 100"+ Plasma televisions being announced. Well we're pleased to announce that Runco is bringing the 103" plasma to the masses! For the low price of $99,995, you can own this 500lbs beast. You will also need a dedicated 240V circuit in order to power it.
103" of Plasma
We'd also like to note that Pioneer announced its 103" plasma back in 2006 for an MSRP of $69,995. Lets hope Runco can justify their $30K premium.
Runco's Waterproof LCD TV
Runco showed off one of the first products to come of the Planar acquisition; the WP-42HD. This 42" 1080P LCD set is unique in that it is actually waterproof to a certain degree. It can withstand outdoor weather elements including large temperature variations as well as rain. It is not certified, however, to be completely submerged in water. The set will be available in October for an MSRP of $8995.
Oh no, don't supersoak the TV
Wet buns
Prototype Direct Sunlight LCD TV
The final television that Runco showed off was its prototype LCD television which can be viewed in direct sunlight. This is another result of the Planar acquisition and looks promising:
The TV didn't wash out when a bright spotlight was shined directly at it. No pricing or availability information is available yet but expect this set to be quite pricey.
This is the first I've heard of the anamorphic business. I'm confused: given that there's no more data available to add pixels, why digitally scale up (removing some high frequency information in the process, unless there's something exceptionally clever going on) to fill the 1080 pixels of the image, then stick an additional anamorphic (expensive and complicated, and probably not quite as high quality as a "normal" lens) lens in front of the existing optical elements? What does this gain you that sticking a bog standard wide angle lens on the front of the projector (and putting a couple of bits of cardboard over the borders if your projector has a poor black point) doesn't?
It just sounds like a really complicated and expensive way of making the image worse. Am I missing something?
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