Olevia! O-le-via! Hard-hearted harbinger of TVs!

Apparently it’s bad when a company’s stock loses more than 90% of its value within a single year. That’s what happened to Tempe, Arizona-based TV brand Olevia, who you might remember from such stores as “Sam’s Club” and “Costco,” among others.

The Olevia brand was the property of Syntax-Brillian. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday and will close down everything except for its digital camera brand, Vivitar, which it’ll sell. There are only eight remaining employees.

via Reuters

At the Olevia booth, they had this TV with a big line down the middle. On the right was a regular HD feed, and once it crossed the line it entered the enhancement zone. The normal signal actually looked fine, but the image processor really made it pop, as they say. Motion blur was reduced, sharpness of edges was increased, and the contrast seemed better because of the enhanced edges.

Unfortunately, the nature of the technology seems to be such that the left side of the screen actually looks worse when photographed, so you’re going to have to take my word for it. We’ll get more concrete info later.

No bones about it. I’m not looking forward to CES. My schedule makes me want to vomit. I’m liable to snap at some PR rep from exhaustion or from them showing me the 100th iPod case that no one cares about. But if you show me something like a 1080p LCD then I may just perk up and take notice. Syntax-Brillian’s Olevia LCD line is getting a shake up at CES and will now be outfitted with 120Hz technology and 1080p resolution. Not 720p interlaced up to 1080. The real deal. The LCDs will come in five sizes starting at 42-inches on up to 65-inches. Let the drooling begin.

Press Release

I featured this buyer-made combo below in the Black Friday round-up, but it was so good I figured it deserved its own post so it wasn’t overlooked. Target is selling two items that, when put together, make one hell of a great home theater set-up. If you’re in the market for your first HDTV, and want to really do it right, this is your one awesome chance.

It’s a TV and a home theater combo, both heavily discounted. The TV is a 37-inch Olevia. It supports up to 1080i or 720p, and as someone who owns this very TV I can say the picture is oustanding. The HDTV has one HDMI input, one DVI input, one component input, as well as VGA, composite, and S-Video. It’s going for $549, which is a steal.

It should work perfectly with the Magnavox 5-disc home theater system Target is offering for $79. The system is a fantastic deal: Dolby Surround in 5.1 with speakers, as well as DTS and a USB port for playing supported media off thumb drives and other USB devices.

Together, they’ll change how you watch movies and even TV at home. You’ll want to upgrade your cable to HD, which should only cost $10 a month. And the Magnavox system has digital inputs, so your TV will now be in surround sound as well. That alone is worth the $79 upgrade.

If anyone takes them up on it, let us know here. We like to help.

Olevia 37″ HDTV

Magnavox 5-Disc Home Theater [Black Friday 2007]