Free Internet Radio in Your Pocket

The Internet offers a growing range of free music services, from Napster, which allows you to stream albums at no cost, tailored to your taste, to sites like Pandora, Slacker, Finetune, AOL Radio, and others that let you create your channels that select music based on your preferences, and even adjust their programming on the fly as you tell the service what you like and don't like among the selections they've delivered.

Until now, listening to streamed music away from your computer has often meant paying a subscription, typically $15 a month, to online services like Napster and Rhapsody or the satellite radio services, XM and Sirius. You can then stuff a compatible portable player—sometimes a regular MP3 player but often a proprietary player you need to buy—with the service's music.

But Slacker is now one of the first online music services to offer portability without a subscription. You do need to buy a proprietary player, one of three new Slacker portable players launching later this month for $200 to $300. But you can then store free music from the site's 2-million-song library, either capturing it from their 100 channels or from the customized channels you've created at Slacker.com.

Sony XEL-1: Our first impressions of OLED TV

The first OLED TV to hit the stores is stunning but expensive

[Jan. 18, 2008 UPDATE: We've produced a video report that highlights the features of the Sony XEL-1 OLED TV. If you have Flash software installed, you can view the video here (clicking the link launches a new browser window) or in the video player embedded below. —Ed.]

Remember the first time you saw a plasma TV, the first television without a big caboose behind the screen? You were probably wondering, "Where’s the rest of the set?" You might have the same reaction when you see the new Sony XEL-1. (Click on the image at right for a closer look.)

This 11-inch widescreen television is wafer-thin, just 1/8th of an inch deep, a fraction of the depth of even the slimmest LCD or plasma sets. (Click on the image below, left,for a closer look at the XEL-1's thinness.) The XEL-1 uses a new panel technology called OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode), which offers stunning picture quality. The catch is the steep price: $2,500 for this small screen, which is half the size of some computer displays.

If the slim, stylish display panel, which comes mounted to a sleek-looking stand, isn’t enough to get your attention, its picture quality surely will. This TV gets high marks on all fronts, with picture quality that is simply amazing. It displays the deepest blacks we've seen, better than even the best plasma or CRT sets we've tested. At the same time, images are bright, with high contrast, yielding a picture that looks great in both a bright or darkened room. On dark scenes containing black areas, no light is visible from this panel, even when viewed in a dark room. Colors look accurate and are richly saturated.

While the display's native resolution maxes out at 960x540 (about one-quarter the resolution of 1080p HD, but better than DVD resolution), we saw very impressive detail from typical HD programming. That's because the screen is so small that there are still enough pixels per square inch to render satisfying detail. DVDs also looked terrific. This TV can accept image format resolutions from 480i up to 1080p. The less-than-HD resolution will not leave you wanting for detail in this screen size, and if you have a high-quality HD video source, this little TV will deliver.

In addition, it has a virtually unlimited viewing angle, so there's no problem with off-center viewing, as there is with most LCD sets. Sound is also quite good, better than you might expect given the small size of the set.

It's not perfect, though. The $2,500 price tag is extremely steep, considering the tiny screen size. But prices for OLED screens should drop over time as they did for LCD and plasma TVs, which were far more costly a few years back than they are today.

Also, given its smallish 11-inch screen, this TV is not suitable as a primary set; it's best used for very up-close viewing, say on a kitchen counter while you're preparing dinner or on a desk as you're working (though you need to take care not to scratch the specially coated screen). Models with larger screens are in the works; at CES, Sony showed a prototype of a 27-inch model, and Samsung had a 31-inch prototype, but didn’t have information about when they might be available, or for how much.

The lack of analog inputs could also be an issue. Although this TV has two HDMI inputs and an antenna jack (and NTSC, QAM and ATSC tuners that will allow it to receive free over-the-air analog and digital broadcasts, plus analog and digital cable signals), it has no component-video, S-video or composite-video inputs, which you'll still find on many DVD players and cable and satellite receivers). That could limit the use of the TV with some older components.

We'll be taking a closer look at the XEL-1 over the next few days and we'll report what we find on ConsumerReports.org soon. Bookmark this post or the Electronics section of the ConsumerReports.org website to find the link to our upcoming free online video report on the XEL-1 OLED TV.

But if you're in the market for a top-performing, small widescreen TV, be sure to put this Sony at the top of your list—provided, of course, that money is no object. With its steep price of $2,500, this little 11-incher costs more than many of our top-rated big-screen plasma and LCD sets. All things considered, if Sony's new OLED TV is any example of what this new technology can deliver, we can't wait to see more.

—Claudio Ciacci, Senior Project Leader

[Jan. 14, 2008 UPDATE: We neglected to mention that the Sony XEL-1 also has a QAM (digital cable TV) tuner built-in and that this report was prepared by Claudio Ciacci, one of Consumer Reports' experts in TV technology and testing. —Ed.]

OLED Explained
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Organic Light-Emitting Diode, or OLED, is a very thin display technology that combines some of the best elements of plasma and LCD TVs. Like LCD, OLED is very thin—much thinner than even the slimmest LCDs. And like plasma, OLED is an emissive technology—its organic materials give off light—so no bulky backlight is required. The brightness of the light depends on the amount of current supplied to it. When the light is off, these screens can display absolute black, better than any other current TV technology. They are also extremely bright, with a wider range of colors than current flat-panel sets. And OLED sets have an incredibly fast response time, so motion blur is not a problem, as it can be with LCD sets. They're also more energy efficient than current TV technologies.

However, there are also some disadvantages. One is that OLED's organic materials can have a limited lifetime, shorter than that of other display technologies. Another is that the screens can be vulnerable to damage. But perhaps the biggest drawback is that they're currently very expensive to manufacture, particularly in larger screen sizes. At present, there are no larger-sized screens commercially available, and the price of even an 11-inch model is higher than many 50-inch flat-panel TVs.

CES 2008: Green gains, but only so far…

This year's Consumer Electronics Show proclaimed itself the world's first carbon-neutral trade event, proudly detailing how it required suppliers of everything from displays to disposable plates to choose environmentally benign options. This was also the greenest CES ever in terms of what participants were shown and invited to discuss.

But a greenfest it wasn't. At best, environmental issues rose from the near-invisibility of past shows to a scattered presence on the show floor, with the occasional green or brown sign carrying a corporate pledge or strategy. The conference program featured a day of modestly attended panel discussions on environmental issues, in the farthest reaches of the Las Vegas Convention Center's cavernous South Hall. A few other green-themed sessions dotted the calendar.

I attended as many of those events as I could and chatted afterwards with some of the panelists, who included manufacturers, mostly from big companies such as HP, Sony, and Panasonic, and regulators but not environmentalists (organizers say they tried without success to get environmental groups to participate).

Here are some of the promising developments I heard:

Energy Star designations will improve and expand. As we'll report more fully in a few weeks, when our annual TV feature-content posts to ConsumerReports.org, a flat-panel TV can easily consume $50 or more of power a year, possibly as much or more than your fridge. Many plasmas and LCD sets now bear Energy Star labels, but the current requirements reflect only power consumption in the standby mode—which is many times less than sets consume during the eight or so hours in which they're on in an average home. Energy Star's administrator, Katharine Kaplan, says a new TV standard will be finalized next month that reflects power when the set is on. She also said that standards would be similarly upgraded for printers and some other gear in 2008.

CES 2008: Camcorders Retooled, Not Redefined

At CES this year, camcorder makers brought out their newest lines of digital camcorders. Sony topped the list with 16 new models, with prices ranging from $250 up to $1400. New entries from Canon, Panasonic, JVC, Samsung, and others fell more or less within this range. Some new standard definition miniDV tape models were even cheaper than the lowest priced Sonys. (As always, there were also some lesser-known companies announcing new camcorders—both SD and HD—that fell into my "Too Good to be True" folder.)

Since Sony had the largest introduction, it's instructive to see what types of Handycams they debuted. In short, they left out only the kitchen sink. The new models run the gamut of high-definition and standard-definition formats and storage types, including hard-drive, flash-memory, miniDV tape, miniDVD disc and combination-format models. Zooms and features vary from model to model.

As in years past, manufacturers continued to offer a variety of camcorder types, which generally tends to baffle as much as benefit the average consumer. What's more, I didn't see any radical developments in these new models. But I did notice some interesting new features and trends.

One new trend is that some manufacturers, namely Sony and Panasonic, are including face detection in camcorders for both video and still photos. As with digital cameras, this feature attempts to set the optimum focus, exposure and color for skin tones. And when still shots are taken, it may also set the proper amount of flash.

CES 2008: Puzzling Products

I've been at this longer than most product evaluators—and WAY longer than most bloggers—so when I see a new product, I look past the flashy demos and colorful brochures, and ask some fundamental questions: Does this product improve upon, or at least match, what has gone before? Does it fill a need—real or perceived—in its intended market? Does it have the potential to enhance one's quality of life? Is it good value for the money? Does it fulfill its claims? Is it environmentally friendly?

As we browse the tumult of hundreds of small companies' booths at CES, we have to quickly filter out those of interest, which I do by categorizing the featured products in about a second or two. If the process takes longer, it's often because my eye falls on something puzzling, usually because one of my fundamental questions pops out. Here are a few of the products and ideas I saw here at CES, that I struggle with trying to figure out "what were they thinking?" I don't mention brands, because in most cases, there is more than one manufacturer producing something similar. Go figure…

Mirrored TV screens. I first saw this in a superstore in London, where traditional home décor and electronics clash. Now it's in the U.S. Put your flat-screen TV behind a one-way (half-silvered) mirror, and it disappears when it's shut off. But when the TV is on, that mirror still reflects light-colored objects—walls, clothing, furniture—negating efforts by the TV maker to design a nice, high-contrast image with deep blacks. More, the silvered glass blocks much of the light, making the image dim. (Click on the image at right for a closer look at what I saw on while walking the CES exhibit floors.) You could watch in the dark, but if you're willing to do that, you might as well use a front-projection TV, which would also solve the problem of the screen being visible.

Wide-screen digital photo frames. Nearly all digital cameras take pictures with a "standard" aspect ratio, usually 4:3 or 3:2, nearly matching traditional film and photo shapes, as well as picture frames. So, why are so many of the new digital photo frames we're seeing have screens shaped more like HDTV's 16:9 aspect ratio? Set to use the whole screen, they chop off bit of the top and bottom of each photo. Set to show the whole photo, they have black bars on the sides. (If you have Flash software installed, you can view our recent online video review of new digital picture frames for good examples of this, as well as the "mirror effect" described above.) Vertical photos have even larger black bars and are smaller than they would be on a 4:3 screen of the same area.

Inch-diameter speaker cables made of exotic materials. If your speakers were hundreds of feet away from your sound system, heavy cables (click on image at right for a closer look) would make sense, as the resistance of thin wire causes power loss and can affect the sound. But, for home use, anything short of a 50-foot cable run needs only the thinner 14- to 16-gauge cable that sells for about 50 cents a foot at your local Radio Shack.

Proprietary protocols instead of standards. Standards for wireless connectivity—such as Wi-Fi and WiMax for mobile networking, HomePlug for power-line networks, and Insteon and Z-Wave for home controls—are developed for two main reasons. First, standards ensure that products from different manufacturers can be made to work with each other. Second, they help ensure that a standards-based device doesn't interfere with another standards-based device that may be operating nearby. Some manufacturers violate standards to gain a small edge in performance over competitors, but that edge usually only applies when working with other products from the same manufacturer, and often disappears in real world situations anyway.

10,000-watt subwoofer amplifiers for cars. Sorry, but I just had to include this one. Call me a curmudgeon, but a product that violates every one of my fundamental issues just begs mentioning.

—Dean Gallea, Senior Program Leader

CES 2008: Mitsubishi Unveils LaserTV

During a CES press event that was long on theatrics but short on details, Mitsubishi unveiled its much-awaited—and oft-delayed—rear-projection microdisplay TV that uses a laser light engine, instead of a conventional UHP lamp. Dubbed LaserTV, the DLP-based set can display a much broader range of colors than current high-definition televisions, the company claimed.

Lasers can produce far more accurate light than conventional lamps. While an average TV can display only 40 percent or less of the visible color spectrum, laser TVs can produce twice that, Mitsubishi said. Like LEDs, the use of colored lasers obviates the need for a spinning color wheel, which can cause the rainbow effect. Lasers will also likely last the life of the set and are more energy efficient than high-powered lamps.

Unfortunately, the company didn't offer many details about LaserTV, other than promising availability by year's end—which is what they said last year, too. The set on display was a 65-inch DLP model, but there was no information about what screen sizes will be offered or how much the sets will cost.

Perhaps the biggest issue, however, is that the demand for any rear-projection technology has been in a rapid free-fall, with some TV manufacturers pegging 2008 demand at only 650,000 units. That's a far cry from the more than 23 million flat-panel LCD and plasma TVs that sold this year—and one reason why more manufacturers, most recently Sony, have exited the category.

During the event, Mitsubishi also showed off the set's ability to present 3D images, teaming up with 3D technology company RealD, which provided 3D shutter glasses and custom 3D content.

—James K. Willcox

CES 2008: A third high-def DVD format emerges

Just as the DVD format war seems to be ending, with Blu-ray claiming victory over HD DVD, here comes a new format using red lasers—the technology in audio CD players—instead of the blue lasers used by the other high-def DVD formats.

A company called New Media Enterprises (NME) has started shipping its red-laser high-def players in the U.S. The HD VMD players are currently available only from the NMEStore.com and PCRush.com, at a retail price of $199. The players will ship with the films Mother Ghost and Cutting Room. In addition to playing high-def discs, which they can output at 1080p, the VMD players can upconvert standard DVD content. The red-laser discs can hold up to 30GB of content on a single side, more than either Blu-ray or HD DVD discs.

[Jan. 11, 2007 UPDATE: Both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs hold substantially more digital data than red-laser based discs. We regret the error. —Ed.]

It's not clear what additional movies will be available or whether any of the major studios will back the format. Given the confusion resulting from the Blu-ray/HD DVD competition, it's hard to imagine widespread support for yet another format. But NME said it recently signed a deal with SFM Entertainment for rare and classic film and TV titles to be available in the HD VMD format.

Meanwhile, the Blu-ray Disc Association trumpeted its success in its first public statement since Warner announced it would no longer support HD DVD. Last year, Blu-ray players represented 85 percent of sales, compared to 15 percent for HD DVD models. Blu-ray's sales were largely propelled by the inclusion of Sony's PlayStation 3 game console, which accounted for 3 million of the 3.5 million units sold. Blu-ray has a three-to-one edge over HD DVD in the U.S., 10 to one in Europe, and 100 to 1 in Japan.

Danny Kaye, Executive Vice President, Research and Technology for Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment said Blu-ray unit sales will rise to 6 million—4 million PS3 units and 2 million dedicated players—by the end of 2008. Based on historical sales of VCRs and DVD players, Kaye said, 2010-2011 will be the year when high-def player sales begin to overtake sales of standard DVD players.

Movie sales are similarly weighted toward Blu-ray discs. The association reported that its movie titles outsold HD DVD discs in 2007 by a margin of nearly two to one in the U.S. and by nearly three to one in Europe. Citing sales figures from Home Media Research, an independent marketing firm, the Blu-ray group said that Blu-ray titles outsold HD DVD titles every single week of the year.

—James K. Willcox

CES 2008: Life in the third dimension

Though it's a challenge to identify significant trends in the hardware at this year's CES, there's one that has been creeping up on us for a few years and could break through as the "next big thing"—if the industry gets it right. It's 3-D TV.

Digital TVs have gotten big, bright and sharp enough, by anyone's measure. But, though sales have been anything but flat, the picture on the screen still is. Movie and game producers would like to change that, and bring the enveloping visual experience you might have seen in a 3-D IMAX film into your living room.

Presented well, as in a few of the CES demonstrations we've watched, 3-D can be strikingly effective in drawing you closer to the action, adding realism and depth to scenes, especially ones portraying movement towards or away from the viewer. The degree of 3-D's enhancement to video is much like the move from monophonic sound to stereo was in the 1950's, at least in this viewer's experience.

The "magic" needed for 3-D is simply to have a slightly different view of the content presented to your left and right eyes, just as you see in real life. The technology is actually waiting, in some new TVs from big makers like Samsung and Mitsubishi, labeled "3D-Ready." These DLP or plasma TVs can show successive images fast enough to allow alternating right-eye and left-eye views while keeping the motion smooth. (LCD TVs are currently unable to switch images quickly enough for this kind of 3-D.)

Two more devices need to be added on to a 3D-Ready TV to complete the picture. First, you need special glasses that can rapidly switch each lens from clear to opaque in sync with the TV images. Second, you need a special DVD player—or game console, or PC adapter—that can feed the 3-D content to the TV. We expect to see the home-theater and gaming industries trickle out add-on systems—perhaps later this year—that will enable 3-D viewing.

Of course, you'll need to have the content itself. Some movies already "in the can," both animated ones like Polar Express and live-action ones like Beowulf, were produced in 3-D versions. These movies will probably be released on 3-D-enabled Blu-Ray discs.

And, most games produced today, for either computers or game consoles, are easily adapted for 3-D presentation. In fact, there are already several technologies being applied to computer displays that can present game graphics in 3-D. (Our upcoming tests of displays will include one of these.) Each of these technologies has its limitations, and it remains to be "seen" which ones prove to be practical and effective enough to catch on.

—Dean Gallea, Senior Program Leader

CES 2008: New HD entertainment service coming soon

XStream Looks to the Sky for New HD Service

Look out DirecTV and Dish: A start-up company called XStream HD said yesterday at CES that it will launch a new satellite-based high-def entertainment service by the end of this year. The service, called XStreamHD, will deliver movies, TV, music, games, and other forms of entertainment in high-definition—including some content in Full HD 1080p resolution—and 7.1-channel surround sound.

The system consists of a small outdoor satellite antenna, an in-home media server, and an XStream media receiver. Already-orbiting satellites deliver multiple streams of Full HD content to the antenna. Signals are then routed to a wall-mountable, in-home media server, where they're stored in what the company calls a Virtual Personal Library. The library can gradually learn your preferences and  anticipate and store movies or programs matching your profile. When you want  to view a movie or show, the content is then delivered to the media receiver, which connects to a TV via an HDMI connection. When a title arrives, you have the option of renting or purchasing it.

At the heart of the system is proprietary compression technology that allows massive amounts of data to be delivered to the home. This allows for high-quality picture and sound—full 1080p video and up to 7.1 channels of lossless audio. The media server has three digital ATSC tuners plus DVR functionality, so you can record up to three HDTV broadcasts—in 720p  and 1080i—while watching a fourth program stored on the server. You can watch up to four Full HD streams simultaneously throughout the home using gigabit Ethernet. The base system, with 500MB GB of storage, is expected to be offered at an introductory price of $399.

[JAN. 18, 2007 UPDATE: The XStreamHD media server will have 500-gigabytes of storage, not, 500-megabytes as previously stated. We regret the confusion.—Ed.]

Several questions remain unanswered. It appears that cable programming won't be available via the service, so it won't be a true all-encompassing media hub. Also, pricing for the service itself wasn't  announced, nor were any of the movie studios that will be supporting the service. And at least initially, the system will be sold direct to consumers—no retail stores will carry the system—so installation will have to be handled by third-party installers.

At a press event featuring actor Michael Douglas, an investor in the company, XStream announced that launch partners would include DTS and Seagate Technology. The system will support DTS-HD Master Audio and features Seagate slide-out hard drives with up to 1 terabyte (TB) of storage.

—James K. Willcox

CES 2008: Wireless innovations for portable devices

Most of the buzz about wirelessness at the Consumer Electronics Show has been generated by products and technologies that seek to liberate HDTVs and other components that are usually connected by cables. But there have also been interesting announcements in traditionally unwired product categories. Here are three examples, from cameras, music players, and cellphones respectively:

Eye-Fi SD memory card. Some newer cameras have built-in Wi-Fi connections that enable them to wirelessly upload their photos to PCs, Macs and online photo and social networking sites over a home network. Now, any camera that accepts an SD memory card can have that convenience with the $100 Eye-Fi, a 2gigabyte SD memory card with a built-in Wi-Fi radio. (Click on image at right for a closer look.)

To receive photos in this mode, your computer must be turned on and running the Eye-Fi Manager software, a simple download from www.eye-fi.com. The card and software also allow any Eye-Fi-enabled camera to upload photos directly to 17 online sites, including KODAK Gallery, Shutterfly, Wal-Mart, Snapfish, Photobucket, Facebook, Webshots, Picasa Web Albums, SmugMug, Flickr, Fotki, TypePad, VOX, dotPhoto, Phanfare and Sharpcast. Eye-Fi is available now at Amazon.com, Buy.com, Walmart.com and other retailers.

Sennheiser MX W1 wireless stereo headphones. Even wireless stereo Bluetooth headphones have wires—the ones that connect the left and right speakers. Not the MX W1. (Click on image at left for a closer look.) The two-piece MX W1 uses a new wireless technology called Kleer, which, unlike Bluetooth, permits left and right speakers to link wirelessly. The headphones' twist-to-fit design keeps them securely and comfortably in the ear. Another advantage Kleer has over Bluetooth is that it transmits lossless 16-bit, 44KHz-sampled digital audio, the same quality that is recorded on a CD. Bluetooth, on the other hand, compresses audio prior to transmission, which degrades sound quality.

The MX W1 includes a small Kleer transmitter, about the size of a matchbox, which plugs into the headphone jack of your music source. The transmitter also allows you to link a second set of MXW1 headphones to share your tunes with a friend. The MX W1 also comes with a carrying case that doubles as a charger for the earphones and transmitter, allowing you to recharge the headphones up to three times without plugging it into a wall outlet. Sennheiser says playback time on a single charge is about three to four hours. The MX W1 will be available in May 2008 for a whopping $599.

Iqua Sun bluetooth headset. In what may be a first in mobile electronics, there's now a portable device that draws on the sun for power. The Iqua Sun BHS-603 (Click on image at right for a closer look) is a solar-powered Bluetooth wireless headset that will be available later in January for $100. About two inches in length and weighing under an ounce, the headset incorporates a photovoltaic cell that Iqua claims will use any available light, indoors or out, to charge its battery. The company claims the Sun delivers up to 12 hours of talk time, depending on available light; standby time, it says, can be infinite. In case your life isn't sunny enough, the device does come with a wall charger and the option to recharge via your computer's USB port.

—Mike Gikas and Paul Reynolds