Home Cinema

Not content with showing-off this year's new range of TVs and home cinema systems, JVC also used the Prague conference to show off some exciting future tech.

Most exciting (or worrying, depending on how you feel about these things) was more news on 4K2K. You see, according to JVC's Masanori Kitami, we are now "at the limit of this [Full HD] technology", and the future lies in higher resolution viewing.

Sony is today launching the final model in its range of Bravia home cinema projectors. The VPL-VW40 has Full HD 1080p resolution and uses Sony's own SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display) technology to recreate as closely as possible the experience of a big-screen cinema at home.

JVC's new Super Slim TVs might grab the main headlines, but Prague was also the venue for the launch of its rather snazzy-looking Sophisti home cinema solutions.

JVC is going down the route of providing surround sound from a minimalist, 2.1 package. To that end the new Sophisti range has two compact speakers that produce stereo and surround sound. The bottom driver produces the front, stereo channels, while the top driver produces the surround effects. The top driver does this by utilising an anisotropic speaker diaphragm, which produces a wider sound field than a conventional driver.

Looking very unlike existing NAD products, this is the company's new Viso Five, an all-in-one DVD/CD receiver.

Due to launch in February and sell for £900, it can deliver video images upscaled to 720p or 1080i via HDMI, and accepts optional modules for DAB digital radio or, in the States, XM digital satellite radio.

OmniMount has another rack to add to its roster, the smartly styled Moda Linear. Using real wood, chrome-finished steel and glass, it's certainly not a piece of AV furniture you need to hide in the corner when the neighbours come round.

But OmniMount assures us – and with the American company's reputation we have no reason to doubt it – that this rack majors on function as well as form...

Dixons.co.uk is urging manufacturers and film studios to bring a swift end to the battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD.

deVere Forster, director of e-commerce at Dixons.co.uk, says: "Customers are confused about the benefits of one format over another and which films they will be able to view as the different studios decide to go exclusively with one format or another.

"They want to know which way the market is going to go so that they do not waste their money by investing in the wrong market. For the sake of our customers, we hope the decision will come soon."

Unspoken derision just about sums it up, writes Andrew Everard. All I did was mention that I'd requested a set of the Illuminaire LED TV backlights to try at home.

The glance from the usually urbane Mr Clough suggested I'd just declared I was not only going to have a 6ft illuminated snowman on the roof of my house, I was going to leave it up there all year.

Following US price cuts earlier this week, Toshiba has confirmed price drops for its UK line-up of HD DVD players.

Effective as of today, the entry-level Toshiba HD-EP30 will cost "below £150" and the higher-end HD-EP35 will be "below £250" .

Retailers have responded swiftly: we've already seen the players on sale for £149 and £219 respectively.

So Q Acoustics has become the latest speaker company to go down the flatscreen soundbar route, right?

Not quite – what we have here is the front trio of speakers in its new Q-AV system, due in the shops from the end of next month.

There are three separate speakers, handling left, centre and right channels, and they mount on a bracket which is adjustable for width to suit different TV sizes.

"The future for the consumer is nothing but Blu", claims Philips, the latest of the Blu-ray-backing manufacturers to celebrate HD DVD's severely dwindling studio support.

Despite its confidence, Philips only launched one new HD player at the show, sticking to DVD as the basis of its two new home cinema systems.

 

Polaroid, the instant camera and sunglasses company that's reinvented itself for the digital age, used CES to launch a system designed to bring all your digital content - video, audio and pictures - together and distribute it around the home.

Freescape is based around the Digital Media Exchange unit above, which is able to record HD TV as well as storing all those various media files, and manage them for streaming to remote Digital Media Extenders and other devices.

Sony announced yesterday that it's dropping its original Japanese-market PlayStation3 models, which were the standard 60GB and a stripped-down 20GB version, to concentrate on a single 40GB console for domestic sales.

That means the company now has a single-model policy in just about every market apart from the US, where it continues to sell both 40GB and 80GB versions.

This is the Liberty system from Bowers & Wilkins, previewed at CES 2008 and due for launch this Autumn. Cute little 'style' package, right?

Think again – the system is entirely wireless, using active speakers with built-in class-D speakers, and can be configured as anything from a two-channel music system to a complete six-channel surround set-up, with two spare channels left over to feed music into a second room. There's even going to be a wireless version of the amazing, Award-winning PV-1 subwoofer.

Are we really about to see the end of the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray, asks Andy Clough?

Following the decision by Warner Bros to drop HD DVD in favour of Blu-ray, there is growing speculation that Paramount may be the next major Hollywood studio to switch to Blu-ray.

Currently Paramount and Universal are the last two major studios still supporting HD DVD, but reports in today's UK media are fuelling speculation that Paramount may be considering switching its support from HD DVD to Blu-ray.

Logitech is undoubtedly the reigning king of the universal remote control world, thanks to its superb Harmony range, and it hopes to continue this trend with the launch of the all-new Harmony One, which combines touchscreen operation and a highly attractive price-tag.

Previously a fan of much larger numbers - the 555, 895 and 1000 are three of our favourites from the existing range - the company has seemingly decided to start afresh with this model.

It seems just a matter of months since the WHAT HI-FI? SOUND AND VISION Show at Novotel London Hammersmith – well, it was – and yet it's event-time all over again, this time courtesy of the annual Bristol Sound and Vision Show.

From Friday 22nd until Sunday 24th February, the Marriot City Centre Hotel in Bristol will become the mecca for hi-fi and home cinema manufacturers and enthusiasts alike.

Samsung's hybrid HD players - able to fully support both Blu-ray and HD discs and interactive functionality - are still some months away, despite being launched back at IFA last August.

The first BD-UP500 Duo Player - already available in the US - may reach the UK in March, but Samsung says it may hold off to release a newer model worldwide in June/July - the BD-UP550 priced £499 and pictured above. The higher-spec player will include support for 7.1 audio, as well as Ethernet connectivity.

Reports are emerging from CES that Sony is demonstrating technology that allows PS3 owners to make portable copies of their Blu-ray discs. These would then be transferrable to a PSP or other portable device using a Memory Stick.

DTS has become the latest company to launch a surround system needing only two speakers, extending its appeal to those with just a micro system or even headphones.

DTS Surround Sensation - no lights under bushels there, then! - is the research of years of research into what the company sees as the failings of other 'simulated surround' systems, and it's expected it will soon be available in a range of products.

 

Panasonic's latest Blu-ray players, the DMP-B D30 (left) and DMP-B D50, are designed to put the company at the head of the emerging HD disc market.

"Panasonic is determined to lead in Blu-ray”, said president of consumer electronics Shiro Kitajima, launching the two new machines to CES showgoers. The players, which conform to Final Standard Profile 1.1, have features including SD Card slots for the playback of HD content.

Toshiba is “surprised and disappointed” by Warner’s decision to back Blu-ray in the HD format war, but insists HD DVD has a future.

However,with Jodi Sally, Toshiba's VP of marketing for digital AV, kicking off her presentation by saying, “this is a tough day for me”, and no new HD DVD players on the release schedule, the company's protestations seem rather hollow.

 

After a period of releasing movies on both Blu-ray and HD DVD, Warner Bros has announced it will only release high-definition movies on Blu-ray from May this year.

The announcement, made today, cites 'consumer demand' as the reason for the move.

We've seen single 'surround bar' speaker systems before from the likes of Yamaha, Denon and Boston Acoustics, but now Polk Audio has a new twist on the concept.

Its 5.1 SurroundBar multichannel speaker comes with a separate, compact DVD player with FM/AM tuner and a front USB port for connecting an MP3 player, making it a complete home cinema in a box system.

A new standard launched by a consortium of leading electronics manufacturers could open the way to all our home entertainment streaming around the house without cables.

Wireless HD, which operates in the 60GHz band, is designed to be a worldwide standard enabling devices including televisions, HD disc players, set-top boxes, camcorders, gaming consoles and adapter to communicate high-definition content, and the initial standard offers data throughput of 4Gbps with secure content protection.

Danish company Lyngdorf Audio is launching a new digital home cinema processor, complete with eight-channel RoomPerfect correction, at next week's Consumer Electronics Show.

The D-1 uses no analogue-to-digital or digital-to-analogue conversion anywhere in the signal path, and this can be carried all the way through to the speaker outputs by using the company's TDA-2300 power amps, also due to debut at the show, and Lyngdorf Link connection.

 

Marantz is promising to whip the wraps off a whole bunch of goodies at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show next week, including its first Blu-ray player and a high-end preamp and power amp solution designed to get the very best from the new HD audio formats.

But for now it's teasing us with the arrival of the ES7001 'soundbar speaker', otherwise known as the Cinemarium. Available later this month, it includes all the amplification it needs, is designed for single-HDMI connection to keep things tidy, and claims to create credible surround sound regardless of room shape and size.

US company Definitive Technology has become the latest speaker manufacturer to launch a 'sound bar' speaker design, able to deliver surround sound from a single speaker unit designed to be mounted under a plasma or LCD screen.

The new Mythos Solo Surround Array speakers, the SSA-42 and SSA-50, use a new patented technology designed to optimise spatial presentation, and feature axially-aligned tweeter/mid-bass arrays, with a new design intended to minimise interference between the two drivers.