It has become a June tradition for the Consumer Electronics Association to plug the long gap between CES International shows with a “line show” event in New York – think smallish consumer electronics trade show.  Some exhibitors – such as Sony’s advanced camera division and camera accessories maker Tiffen (with its associated brands) – really treat this as a line show and show their entire line of products for the second half of the year.  Others adopt a more limited strategy.   CEA is expanding the line shows and associated events that take up a whole week.  The exhibits were considerably larger than in years past, but still do not constitute a large show.

Most of the products on display at the New York Line Show – such as toys, iPhone add-ons, audio, and power strips – have little to do with displays, but there are always enough display-related exhibits to make hopping on the New Haven Line for the hour train ride into Manhattan worthwhile, even when the train is packed with Yankee fans going in for an afternoon home game, as it was yesterday.

Stream TV Networks was showing its Ultra-D autostereoscopic system, in which a lenticular film is precisely aligned to an otherwise standard LCD.  There are no obvious dead areas between the sweet spots, which is implemented by software, said Finance VP Suby Joseph.  There is no head-tracking.  Stream does technology development and licensing, and expects to see products embodying its technology next year, said Joseph.  They have a formal agreement with contract manufacturer Pegatron to do manufacturing, and Pegatron’s customers include leading branded TV makers, as well as Apple.

Joseph said that licensing agreements will result in TV sets to be labeled with the brand, and something like “powered by Ultra-D.”  Serious conversations with leading brands are in progress now.

Joseph said the system reduces brightness by 10% and resolution by 5% to 7%.  (I find the second part of that system questionable for a lenticular system, but that’s what he said.)  An obvious artifact is strong pixelation.  Joseph said this was due to magnification of the pixels by lenticular lenses.  It is necessary get about 8 feet away from a TV-sized display for the pixelation to become invisible.  However, the 3D display is comfortable to watch, even if the 3D effect is sometimes subtle.  The system needs HD source material to be really effective, said Joseph.

Matrix One was introducing a $149 tablet with 7-inch, 800×480 LCD.  The device has a capacitive touch screen, runs Android 4.0, weighs 11.1 ounces, and will be on sale by July through major retail and on-line, a Matrix One spokesman said.   But also yesterday, on the opposite coast, Google announced its new Nexus 7 tablet at a price of $199, which is likely to make life difficult for other sub-$200 tablet makers.

Westinghouse Digital showed its LED edge-lit, thin, narrow bezel 38.5- and 46-inch TVs, and they have a 36.5-inch in the works, said marketing VP Rey Roque.  The existing narrow-bezel 40-inch remains available.  MSRP for the 46-inch edge-lit is $699; $499 for the 38.5-inch.  The units will shortly be available at Best Buy.

Westinghouse is also introducing a direct-LED (DLED) panel, which is less costly that an edge-lit LED unit thanks to the elimination of the edge-lit unit’s expensive Light Guide Plate.  For 39-inch TVs, the cost of the DLED model is $40 less, said Roque.  Luminance for both the DLED and edge-lit models is about 250 nits.

Westinghouse buys their LCDs as bare cells, so they can optimize the backlights for each product.  Several years ago, modules came with BLUs delivering 500 nits in front of the screen.  This was unnecessarily bright, and consumed too much power to meet current Energy Star standards.  Luminance is suitable for the products without doing anything special in the optical stack.  The DLED model is starting to ship into retail now.

Westinghouse was also showing the ready-for-market version of the 70-inch they showed at CES.  The unit is edge-lit and has 120-Hz frame rate and an aluminum cabinet.  MSRP is $2,695, but will sell for less.

Surprisingly, Westinghouse also showed a prototype of a 4Kx2K, 55-inch TV intended for consumers.  It has a full-array LED backlight.   Roque noted that Sony has release a 4Kx2K scaling Blu-ray Disk player.   My colleague Pete Putman, who was part of the conversation, noted that there is serious interest in 4Kx2K monitors in media production space.  Roque said a 4Kx2K TV will be available by the end of Q1’13.