Problem Solver
Here we invite you to get all interactive and submit any quizzical notions or technical conundrums you may have been pondering. We shall absorb your queries and emit responses wherever possible.
We're more interested in explaining scary areas of technology than solving specific 'What amplifier should I buy?' queries, and particularly thrilling web interactions may find their way into the printed pages of the relevant magazine.
Hi guys, i've bought a Panasonic Plasma TV, TH-50PX80A and i've read in your Sep/Oct 2007 issue that it doesn't support 24fps from Blu-Ray players and retains the jerkiness create by the uneven frame rate necessary to fit 24 frames in 60 cycles.I have a Sony Blu-Ray Player BDP-S350 and i would like to know for the best video settings for my TV to play Blu-Ray.thanks. K Cooper
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What are Blu-ray “Profiles”, and what do BD Bonus View and BD-Live mean? Does the same apply to HD DVD player?
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To Jez Ford, Editor of Sound & Image
I have read your statement
http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/plasma-tv-off-limits-watch-this-space/2007/10/09/1191695909983.html
"As a consumer I should be able to choose a superior product and not have it removed from the market just because it pulls an extra light bulb's worth of power, and so it's a consumer choice issue as well as just an unrealistic deadline issue," he said. [This refers to the story on plasma bans and subsequent comments reported in the media.]
Effectively you are advising that we should be able to choose and ignore "an extra bulbs worth of power" and the
"deadline" that concerns you is the Government's Equipment Energy Efficiency Committee report.
Lets get an idea of how ignoring an extra bulbs (60-75 watts) of power adds up, multiplied by the number of households with Plasma and LCDs equals?? Well here is an estimate......
Say 60watts*125,000 plasma screens=7.5 million watts, (where 125,000 plasma screens were sold in 2006) this is NOT including 2005, 2007 etc. or 75 watts*125,000=9.37 million watts .
Australian figures only.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/home-theatre/plasma-price-plunge/2006/07/20/1153166494759.html
The trouble is also that once the TV is in use it will continue to eat power for years.
Do we need yet another power station just to run the plasma and lcds?
The deadline you should be looking at is C02 levels that cause catastrophic events and we have gone past that mid 2005!!
Are you aware that the IPCC report on global warming reports
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22558145-29277,00.html
carbon equivalent CO2 levels were at 455 parts per million a "critical level"?
That report which comes out in Nov 2007 was based on figures done in 2005 !!!
the reason for the delay is that they are extremely careful and verify results and information.
Whats worse is that we now don't have 50 years, nor 10 years to put off doing something about climate change.
I hope you are aware that entire planet is warming up considerably and this rate of acceleration is also Not under control.
As a result there are real water shortages happening everywhere, eg Australia, China, Italy, Africa, USA, just for example, do a google search.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_crisis
This in turn affects supply of food, migration, living things, disease and so on.
And there is a REAL risk of the West Antarctic Ice Shelf sliding into the ocean which can raise sea levels by 15 feet at the 'best' estimate. And scientists warning that Greenland is cracking up too.
Note Greenland's and WAIS ice shelves are 2 kilometres thick of ice above sea level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet
These ice shelfs can catastrophically fail without warning.
http://nsidc.org/iceshelves/larsenb2002/
Jim Hansen, a senior NASA scientist who is a leading climate adviser to the US government,
said "the results were deeply worrying."
"Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid," he said.
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/melting-ice-and-sea-levels.html
It is clear that attitudes and behaviours that don't prevent global warming will have
dire consequences for every living thing on the planet.
Is that the choice you are referring to?
Can you spend some time on google and research these issues?
You should be trying to make positive changes in the attitudes of consumers,
eg lets wait for the newer screens that save energy and CO2.
Tell importers and distributers to make energy saving devices, and make it an issue.
Tell them that even the standby energy these devices use is way too high,
A TRIAC, an electronic switch which can do this job, takes very little standy power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIAC
Please be part of the solution not the problem. A little by a little by a lot.
Name withheld
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