Big screen sales slow down

The flat screen television market is poised for much slower growth in 2009, said LG Electronics, but it maintained high growth targets for its own plasma and liquid crystal products, reports About Electronics.

"We definitely expect a slowdown in the growth of the TV market," said Simon Kang, president of LG's display division, which makes plasma displays and flat screen TVs.

Kang said the recent Euro 2008 soccer tournament and the ongoing Beijing Olympic Games had "no effect whatsoever" on television sales, contrary to the lofty hopes expressed by the industry earlier this year.

Neural Audio Corporation (NAC) has released Neural Audio Analytics, an advanced loudness monitoring software solution designed to visually display perceived loudness in real-time, according to PR Newswire.

"Many video facilities are noisy and chaotic environments, which makes monitoring audio quality very difficult. By providing a simple way for broadcasters to see loudness relative to other programming, problems can be corrected before they occur," said Dave Casey, Neural Audio product line manager.

"Our graphics are designed to quickly communicate to the broadcaster a loudness snapshot that is accurate and visually pleasing to the eye," he added.

The massive displays beaming images of athletes in action to thousands of spectators at the Olympic Games, in China, are on debut. They are a major improvement on the technology showcased at the Torino Winter Games and the Summer Olympics, in Athens, states Australian IT.

The twin LED screens inside the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium measure 16.5 metres wide and 9.2 metres high, or 152sqm.

RGB colours are controlled at 1 024 levels, achieving more than 1 billion colour variations to produce high-quality images, says Panasonic, the worldwide Olympics partner.