CES, Las Vegas: Today was a big day of press conferences from the major Consumer Electronics companies. For the most part, each company told the press how they were leading in LCD TV's, and many claimed to have bee the first to make or sell LCD TV's in America. I found myself wondering, "If everyone is leading, then who's following?" then I remembered my 10th grade statistics teacher who said, "Numbers are numbers. What you do with them is something else."

Other than the Blu Ray/HD DVD news, which has been covered elsewhere, there were some interesting comments/themes that emerged.

Philips, who went out of their way to make their press conference into an experience in itself, had a message that said, "The Consumer Electronics industry has focused way too much on Electronics and not enough on Consumers.". Based on our research with consumers, I'd say they nailed that. Time will tell whether Philips' focus on feminine designs aimed at the female buyers and influencers will gain them significant market share, but one thing is for sure -- they know who they're going after and how they're going after them.

Sharp actually went to great lengths to talk about their Aquos Advantage program, aimed at providing support to new buyers in set-up and troubleshooting. Their goal is to take the first-call burden off the retailer, and in the process, build a relationship with their customer. They even take it a step further with Aquos Net, which not only puts PC-like widgets on your LCD, but more interestingly, allows you to call to get support, and the person at Sharp on the other end can run diagnostics and set advanced settings in your TV remotely. Privacy concerns aside this customer-oriented problem-solving is laudable.

Despite Toshiba's HD DVD bad news at the show, they summarized some trends well. 

Some relevant ones:

- "1080 is the new 720."

True enough -- all the talk and production at CES is now about 1080p, even on some sets that are too small to see the benefit.

- "120 hertz is the new 1080p"

Yes, folks, just when you thought it were safe to go back into the water. You finally understood what you wanted in a TV and decided to buy 1080p, along comes 120hz, offering you smoother action sequences, and more headaches in the store!

One smart little thing Toshiba is doing is shipping its 120hz TV's with a side-by-side mode where you can see your video at 120hz and normal. Sure to help you impress all your friends.

Toshiba made these points, and they were right -- everybody's talking about the same things at the show.

I would add:

"Thin is in."

Sharp showed a beautiful (not ready for primetime) 65" TV that is only one inch thick and has 100,000:1 contrast ratio. Toshiba showed their ever-thinning bezels. Most everyone showed their thinning price points -- 91 percent of all TV's sold are now between $500-2500.

A lot of evolutionary improvements. Wish there were more revolution. But we shall see what comes next...