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iRiver’s U10 to hit 8GB
MP3 giant iRiver shook up the portable media player (PMP)
arena recently when details of its dapper little u10 emerged. Now we hear that
the company is so pleased by initial reaction that it plans a whole series of
them including an 8GB model later this year. 
The u10, apart from the retro
styling is very small and boasts a 2.2in touch-screen that will let you operate all
of the functions with your fingertip. More details and marketing blurb here. Even better, iRiver is expected to unveil a 20GB or 40GB
version early next year at CES 2006. Models due out in August include a
512MB and 1GB version priced at £159 and £179, respectively. An optional dock
with stereo speakers is due a few weeks later and will cost at £49.
Revenge of the Sith ships Nov 1
Start shining your projector lens now. Love it or hate it,
the galaxy's longest lightsaber duel – a.k.a. Revenge of the Sith - is hitting
worldwide shelves on November 1. 
And, like it’s very patchy predecessors,
it will be a two disc DVD set boasting a commentary by LucasFilm and
featurettes, including one on the prophecy of Anakin The Plank as The Chosen
One. The other will be devoted to the movie’s stunts. There will
also be an Internet documentary series boasting 15 special made-for-the Web
segments. And if you have not yet exceeded your Force threshold, the game Star
Wars: Battlefront II will be unleashed on the same day. Can’t wait, then try a
Sith quiz to pass the time.
KEF iQ speakers hit town
KEF’s latest midrange speaker line-up will hit the stores in
two weeks. The iQ series will
replace the award-winning Q series. 
Eight speakers are due, starting with the
iQ1 book-shelf and ranging up to the iQ9 floor-stander. They will not look all
that different to the traditional, wood-look of the Q series but will boast
features from the company’s flagship Reference series and the latest version of
KEF’s Uni-Q technology. KEF claims all this tweaking results in better power handling and sensitivity, tighter bass
response and a greater clarity to vocals. Wood finishing now includes American
walnut, to go along with the existing black ash, dark apple and maple enclosures. Prices will
start at £85 each for the iQ1s and work their up to £340 each for the iQ9s.
MP3s without the PC
Having to
use the PC as the only way to convert CDs to MP3 files is a real pain. That’s why being able to pop your CD into a bookshelf hi-fi
system that also converts them to MP3s, sounds very appealing. Thomson has just
announced the RCA 'Rip & Go' Digital Music Studio with a bundled (albeit
tiny) 128MB MP3 player. 
The system rips your CD tracks into MP3 format and transfers
them by an in-built USB dock to the MP3 player. Why aren't there lots more of these? It has a 5-CD changer
which means you can create your own compilations by ripping tracks from five
different CDs. It’s not clear if you can connect any USB-based MP3 player to
the hi-fi but if you can, the £100 price tag makes it definitely worth a look.
Details here.
Mainstream LCD TVs from Sony
Sony has launched two new LCD TVs aimed at the mainstream
market. The 26in KLV-S26A10 and the
32in KLV-S32A10 are high-definition TVs (HDTVs) with resolutions of 1366
x 768, making them ready for the long-awaited HDTV broadcasts (2006) and HD DVDs
(Christmas). 
There’s no integrated tuners but they come with a host of
connectivity options including HDMI, component, S-Video, PC and composite. One
clever stroke is the inclusion of a light sensor that measures the ambient
light in a room before automatically adjusting the brightness of the TV. There
are only US prices so far but they are quite reasonable - especially
considering it’s Sony. By the time they reach here in the coming month the 26in
and 32in models will cost around £750 and £1,100. More details on the KLV-S26A10
and KLV-S32A10.
Digital home ‘too expensive’
The digital home dream remains just that for many as they
find it too expensive and too complex. A survey of 2,500 people in the UK, US,
France, Germany and Japan has found that 'significant barriers' are preventing consumers splashing out on converged solutions. 
Over 80 per cent said it was
too expensive while more than 70 per cent said - optimistically - that they wanted to deal with a
single provider when it came to the content, services and digital devices needed to create a digital home. Four digital home segments
were addressed by the survey: home entertainment, home healthcare, home
management and virtual office offerings. Not surprisingly, home entertainment
was the most popular and here you can see why. In the gender breakdown, women
respondents focused on the lifestyle benefits while men focused on the
technical and control capabilities. Now there’s a surprise. For a more detailed
breakdown, go here.
Millennium Falcon takes to the sky
First the Death Star is spotted in Reading and now we have the Millennium Falcon. When it comes to favourite movie space craft, the
Falcon is widely considered to be the ‘coolest’. 
Which is why seeing one flying
around in your local park would be really something special. Model aircraft enthusiasts have taken the idea of flying mini-Cessnas and choppers to the next level with this
prototype Millennium Falcon. This is so much cooler than the silly Millennium Falcon Dreamcast. In fact, if you check out the thread you will discover a whole host of budding Stars Wars engineers building flying versions of
Rebel and Empire craft. 
Check out parts 1 and 2 of this great thread. Even better, they are willing to share their plans. Where's our soldering kit?
Sharp's big HDTV push
The LCD TV summer madness continues with Sharp gearing up to
add five, high definition TV (HDTV)-ready models to its Aquos line-up in
September. The Aquos GD7 are idTV additions to the Titanium series and will comprise of
a 32in and 37in model. 
iDTV just means that the digital terrestrial TV tuner
is in-built so it's all ready to hook up to your aerial. They will also come with HDMI interfaces supporting the controversial,
anti-recording HDCP technology. The analogue Aquos GA6 are essentially the same as the GD7s
just without the in-built digital TV tuner. They will come in 26in, 32in and
37in flavours. The oddest feature though is the inclusion a built-in
stereo FM radio. We have to ask, how often do you plan on just listening to your painfully expensive, 36in LCD TV? No prices yet. Still confused over HDTV - then you are not alone.
'Wearable' movie screen for £140
These are not the first multimedia glasses to offer the big picture
from a few inches but at £140 they are not the most expensive either. For
expensive, go here. 
The Rimax Virtual Vision 3.0 is the latest contender in
a sector populated by very cool eyewear but which
rarely deliver the kind of performance the high price tags should guarantee.
These ones promise the image equivalent of a 36in TV seen from two metres away.
They weigh in at 200g and can hook up to DVD players, TVs and games consoles.
The Lithium-ion battery promises a healthy 6-8 hours of life. Get them online here.
Screen drags projectors into the light
Projectors are the ultimate in creating the big screen
thrill at home. Many people also use them for watching TV, although who needs
an eight-foot wide Johnny Vegas? The only hitch with projectors is that, like
vampires, they prefer operating in the dark. 
If you can’t control the light
spilling into your room you can forget daytime viewing. Screen Innovations may
have the answer with the announcement that it has created a screen that offers
10 times the contrast of a normal matte white, front-projection screen. The Mirage uses
a high-contrast filter that covers 60 per cent of the screen surface. This
allows your projected image to be projected back off the screen while also
absorbing ambient light from windows and doors. If the photo here is to
be believed, then this really is something to look forward too. It will be on show
at the US home cinema bash of the year, Cedia Expo 2005, in September and on
sale soon after that.
Meet the Human Washing Machine
After over 13 straight hours of back-to-back Lord of the Rings (Special Edition) movies, there’s every chance you’ll be
smelling like an Orc. 
You may want to freshen up a little but forget the
shower. What your future home really needs is the human washing machine. The
Avant Santelubain 999 automatic personal washing machine, to be precise. Never
mind your basic scrub down, this alien-looking pod offers body shampoo and
shower, infrared heat and steam clean, sound therapy and aromatherapy. 
It will
even apply seaweed packs and body lotion. If you liked Lost in Translation then
go here to see the hilarious Japanese hands-on review, as translated – or
merely guessed at - by Google. “The sweat is not scratched usually, excessively,
however it is is, it is what, don't you think? And the sweat come coming out.”
Classic.
Shinco's 40GB portable media player
The Shinco PMP 1700 is a nice twist on the portable media
player (PMP) in that it sports a very handy 40GB hard disk drive. Add in the USB
port and you have a fast and simple method of transferring your movies, video
and audio files onto it. 
It sits on the ‘big’ end of the PMP scale but who’s
going to complain about that 7in screen? It plays an impressive
array of material including MPEG2, MP3, MPEG 4, DivX, DivX Pro, WMA and JPEG
files. It also comes with a memory card reader that supports CompactFlash,
SD, MMC, MemoryStick – everything really. It has a battery life of 2.5 hours
and costs around £300 but you can probably find better prices here.
‘Hearwear’ – the future of portable sound
To glimpse what you may be sporting on your head in the
coming years, swing by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
A new exhibition
kicks off tomorrow looking at how so-called hearwear can become as fashionable
– and profitable – as eyewear. Designs and prototypes from top UK designers,
design houses and others including Ross Lovegrove, Priestman Goode and Hulger
(formerly Pokia) will be on show from July 26 until March 2006. Ideas and
devices proposed will include those that promise a clear phone conversation in a busy
pub. 
There will even be devices that shut out the sound of crying babies and building sites.
We feel, however, that these last few already have a solution: it’s
called Motorhead’s Ace of Spades.
Movies on-the-go from Philips
Portable DVD players continue to sell well despite the
growing interest in portable media players (PMPs). Philips has just announced three
new models ranging in price from £149 to £349. The PET710, PET810 and PET1000
sport 7in, 8in and 10.2in TFT LCD screens. 
Apart from playing DVDs, all support
MPEG 4 playback, alongside support for JPEG and MP3 files. The 810 and 1000
also support DiVX video files. All come with rechargeable batteries and a
battery life of roughly 2.5 hours which means that unless you are near an in-car cigarette lighter, you will not be taking Frodo and Sam on your next journey. On sale now, you can compare some prices here.
Xbox 360 will arrive for Christmas
Microsoft has promised that Xbox 360 will hit Europe in time for Christmas. Prior to this, potential Xboxers were at looking at January 2006 but Microsoft is determined to make the most of its three month launch advantage over the PS3.
Making it in time for the silly season could mean a huge boost in early sales. Microsft will be desperately hoping so since Sony’s PlayStation controls two thirds of the console market. It also knows that if it can’t close the yawning gap with a three month lead it never will. Sony also confirmed at a briefing that the long-awaited PS3 will most likely arrive in March 2006.
See details of that briefing (including slides) here. To see just what each device is packing under the hood and which one is the bigger beast, check out the experts opinion here.
Xbox 360 gets child locks
With the furore over the hidden porn segments in the GTA: San Andreas game causing a stink, news is leaking out that the forthcoming Xbox 360 console from Microsoft will allow parents to control their kids gaming.
Parents can enter their little darlings’ ages into the console and if they try to play games beyond their tender years, they get fried by a 200,000 volt electric charge. 
OK, not really, but when you consider all the kids out there playing games well beyond what is suitable, it’s a noble idea. Until they bribe the babysitter to change the settings that is...
LCD TV with in-built PVR
Why shell out for a separate personal video recorder (PVR) when you can get it built into your LCD TV? That’s the thinking behind the LGB26T-PVR from Humax, a 26in widescreen LCD iDTV that boasts a fairly average 40GB hard disk drive, capable of recording 44 hours of TV. 
It’s ready for analog and digital terrestrial TV signals as well as being high-definition TV (HDTV)-ready with a resolution of 1280 x 768. It boasts three Scart sockets, a DVI-D input and a handy USB 2.0 slot for hooking up PCs and other devices. Considering there’s no difference in size, and only a small cost increase, why didn’t Humax just throw in an 80GB or 120GB hard disk drive to make this virtually irresistible? Price on the street is £999.
Home cinema in bed
Say goodbye to the couch potato and say hello to the bed potato. This is the play bay 24/7 from Purely Plasma, designed to guarantee that getting up for work in the morning will be even more difficult. This top of the line double bed comes with a high-resolution WXGA 30in widescreen LCD TV built into the foot of the bed. 
In best Bond style, it rises out of the housing when you need it and disappears when you’re snoring. It boasts features like picture-in-picture and comes with Scart and PC connections for hooking up a range of home entertainment devices. To boost that sound, it features an in-built Mission subwoofer and there’s room to hook up the cute little Mission M-Cube surround speakers (pictured), if you like. 
Each bed is designed from the ground up to suit your tastes - which means it's expensive - and will come with whatever extra technology you need. Throw in a PS2, iPod dock, Media Centre PC, toaster, George Foreman Lean Mean grill and a coffee machine and we could be talking early retirement.
Wooden TVs join wooden technology craze
What’s the deal with wooden technology? All of sudden it’s as popular as white for consumer MP3 players. 
So far we’ve had the wooden iPod, the wooden mobile phone and more recently JVC's wooden headphones. Taking the wood theme to the extreme is Swedx, a company specialising in ‘woodifying’ TVs, LCDs, keyboards and mice. Unsurprisingly, this company is Swedish where all things wood are good. Still, top marks for innovation and giving us something different to all
that clinical plastic and brushed aluminium. It's also good to know that there's at least one wooden product that you will not have to whip out the Ronseal for.
Thin speakers target flat TV customers
For those that need their home cinema set-up to be less intrusive, check out the latest thin speakers
from hifi specialist, Canton. The CD 310 satellite joins the existing CD 300 series (pictured) of home cinema speakers. It is a two-way flat speaker, 10cm deep – about the same as many flat-screen TVs. The idea is that these small, 60-120Watt speakers can lie flush against the walls, like your skinny LCD/plasma panel, without looking out of place. UK prices to be finalised but you can expect them to cost around £500 a pair. For really, really thin speakers, check out NXT.
Is TiVo selling out?
One of the key reasons for getting a TiVo personal video recorder (PVR) for recording TV was the ability to avoid, or skip past, ads. 
It even used the slogan: ‘TV your way’ but now it looks like TiVo is offering ‘TV mostly your way’. The company has announced plans to boost the visibility of the interactive ads on it service. TiVo said the new service is: “Ensuring advertisers' traditional TV spots will be more visible in TiVo homes, whether viewed in normal play or fast forward mode”. Is this the beginning of the end for ad-free, or at least ad-reduced, TV? While this might not constitute ‘selling-out’ to advertisers, it certainly constitutes a step in the wrong direction as far as TiVo users are concerned.
Death Star spotted in Reading
Star Wars is guilty of spawning many annoying franchises but sadly, this is a one-off. As you can plainly see it’s a Death Star subwoofer, built by a Reading-based fanatic and some friends in around the same amount of time it would have taken to construct the real thing. 
Housed inside all the that plywood, foam and fibreglass is an Alpine 12in SWS-1242D subwoofer, normally found in souped-up Nissan Micras. Still, we like it for no other reason than it displays an innovative use of the power of the Force.
Also, since the subwoofer only cost £50 and he just managed to flog it for £310 on Ebay, we think he must be some kind of Jedi Master. However, if you want to see what happens when a Star Wars nut combines his obsession with building a home cinema, then you really have to see this.
Slingbox coming to the UK
TiVo introduced the world to ‘time-shifting’ – the practice of being able to record all your fave TV shows and watch them when it was convenient. The Slingbox, from Sling Media, is now doing the same for ‘place-shifting’ and it’s coming to the UK before the end of the year. Blake Krikorian, at Engadget here and check out a US review of Slingbox here. 
It works by redirecting your living room TV signal to wherever you are in the world via broadband Internet. That’s right, no more foreign soaps or badly dubbed 70’s shows when abroad. All you need is the Slingbox at home connected to your TV source and broadband connection. You can tap into it using your laptop or PC abroad via any broadband connection. It supports Windows XP only at the moment but versions for Windows Mobile and Palm are due next. Read an excellent interview with Sling Media CEO,
DOOM movie sticks to the game
For those of you who started your digital home with a humble
PC some time ago, there’s every chance that you broke it in with a game called
DOOM from iD Software. Now there’s a movie due in a couple of months of the
famous first-person shooter. 
Next year, you’ll likely be testing it in your own
home cinema. Gamers are more than a little apprehensive though, fearing that
their beloved DOOM will be transformed into some celluloid mockery. After all,
we have had Resident Evil, Super Mario Bros and Tomb Raider. That said, some
games critics had a chance to see some footage at the San Diego Comic-Con event
this week and they claim it could actually be 'OK'. Based around DOOM
3, the movie – featuring The Rock and Karl Urban – oozes the look and feel of the
game. The claustrophobic Mars sets are modelled on those from the game
and the legendary Stan Winston is charge of the effects. This means many of the
key demons (The Baron - pictured) will be built using animatronics, not CGI, to boost
realism. 
There’s even a whole scene from the first-person perspective, including the gun being reloaded by the hero before tackling a dank, demon-infested corridor.
Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it? See the gamers report here and some very
early movie stills here.
iTunes rules the world – apparently
There were many that said people would not pay to download
songs from the Net. This was especially the case when you could find them for
free in rogue file-sharing sites like the legally-crushed Napster. Apple just announced that iTunes downloads sped past the
half a billion marker yesterday. Country singer Faith Hill had the dubious honour of being clicked at the 500 million mark. 
That’s over half a billion songs in just two
years which makes this industry a goldmine, which is still largely untapped. To celebrate, we feel Apple should reduce the cost of
iTunes downloads in the UK which currently stands at a steep 79p per song. That’s
more than they cost in France, Germany and the US, not to mention the lucky
Canadians which pay just over half that. Even the European Commission is looking into it while also trying to get Europe's tiny online music business off the ground.
No more fighting over the TV
How would you like to put an end to living room spats over who controls the TV? Sounds impossible we know but, Sharp thinks it has the answer with the world’s first dual-view LCD. 
This very clever piece of LCD wizardry means two programmes can be displayed at the same time with people seeing the one they want according to where they sit. For instance, the kids sitting to the left of the LCD TV can get their Bob the Builder fix while Dad sits to the right and watches the All Blacks crush the Lions - again. It will also allow joint TV and Web surfing, which makes it an ideal candidate for use with Media Center PCs. Mass production starts this month and dual-view LCD TVs are promised by the end of the year.
User-friendly AV receiver from Onkyo
Sound specialist Onkyo has unveiled its latest budget AV receiver, the £400 TX-SR603E. This is a 7.1 powerhouse with more bells and whistles than Santa’s sleigh. Even better, it’s £50 cheaper than the existing and highly rated TX-SR602E. It boasts 7 x 125Watt per channel sound, dual 32-bit processors, composite/S-Video-to-Component Video Up-conversion, and decodes all major DTS and Dolby sound formats. 
Even better, it offers a handy two-minute automatic set-up process using the included microphone. Just push one-button and the system sends test signals to the speakers in the room, calculating responses and distances between them before adjusting the sound for the best playback. Perfect for those new to AV.
Here kitty, nice kitty…
The future home is one where we will tell it what we want and it will do it. Lights, TV, cooker, temperature, bath – everything, will be voice activated. We know this because it’s been promised in every sci-fi flick and book for a lifetime. Just so that we don’t feel as if we are talking to ourselves though, Philips has created iCat to personalise the experience. 
Shaped like a lamp with a bobbing head, the iCat boasts an in-built camera and uses ‘ambient intelligence’ to make faces at you while you tell it what to do. Along with this mimicry of human facial expressions, you can get it to send emails, choose music and videos, and even guard your home. Just look at that face and tell us what is more terrifying: the prospect of a burglar or a modern-day Chucky waiting to greet you every evening? More robotics stuff here.
Compact PVR from Sagem
Sagem has introduced a tiny personal video recorder (PVR)
with a price to match. The PVR6240T is part of the company’s Micro set-top box
series and is shipping now through Argos for just £130. Weighing in at just
1.7Kg it houses a 40Gb hard disk drive and claims 20 hours of recording
at
3.8Mbps. One of the devices smarter features is the inclusion of two TV tuners
allowing you to watch one programme – live or recorded – while recording
another simultaneously. It comes with the now standard seven-day EPG
(Electronic Programme Guide), full Freeview support and the ability to program
the remote control with your favourite channels. Read user reviews here.
Revel in the big sound
Speaker specialist Revel has announced its Concerto line of
performance, entry-level speakers for audiophiles and home cinema enthusiasts.
Unlike the company’s signature Ultima series, with its striking contemporary
design, these are more traditional-looking fare. 
The line-up comprises the
F-12 floor stander, M12 monitor front speaker, C12 centre speaker, S12 surround
speaker and the beefy, 650Watt B12 subwoofer. There are lots of wood finishes to
choose from and prices start at around £900 for a pair of F12s and £400 for the
M12s. Details here.
Sky premieres HDTV web site
HDTV promises image quality four times better than today’s analogue signals but it
is most likely that your TV - even a
new one - is not capable of displaying HD content. A lot of confusion exists in
the HDTV market and Sky deserves some marks for attempting to answer some
key questions. That said, the photo/graphics used on the site to illustrate HDTV quality are misleading and just add to the confusion for UK
consumers. Even Sky has a disclaimer on the bottom of them which begs the
question why use them at all? Surely Sky can rustle up some real analogue versus HDTV
images. After all, everyone else can.
MovieTime for the masses
It happened to TVs and now it’s the turn of projectors.
Optoma has introduced the family-friendly MovieTime projector which sports an integrated DVD player and speakers. 
It has been wheeled out at various shows and its cool design has had many
admirers, but now it’s here for around £850. It has a brightness of 1,000
Lumens, resolution of 854 x 480 and can project images ranging from 36in to
335in. 
MovieTime is all about making
home cinema simple which is what a lot of people want. Just plug it in, pop in
a copy of Gladiator, point it at a wall and it’s off to the Coliseum for some friendly
slaughter. You can see full details here.
Blu-Ray claims consumer support
Surveys are dime a dozen, so for your own safety take this
pro-Blu-Ray Association survey with a healthy pinch of salt. Just to update you
the next generation of high-capacity disc technology is a bitter battle between
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technology. In a US survey, 80 per cent of consumers
preferred Blu-Ray discs to their HD-DVD counterpart. This is strange since no
one outside of Japan has had a chance to use either technology.
The
survey claimed that consumers gave the thumbs up to Blu-Ray on technology company support, gaming, storage,
and disc versatility. In reality, the respondents were shown a list of specs and technology supporters for each technology as asked to pick their favourite. It was not mentioned, that HD-DVD –
from the people that gave us DVDs - will be out first this Christmas with
massive Hollywood studio support (Universal, Warner, Paramount etc.). The window for
a compromise between the two technologies is closing fast. Be careful which
camp you listen to or, invest your money in, until a clear winner emerges. For an insight into this modern VHS vs. Betamax debacle, go here.
Earth's smallest MP3 player
How long before MP3 players get so small you’ll never be able
to find them? With the arrival of the MobiBLU DAH-1500, we’re guessing not long
now. 
There is little doubt that this device is the tiniest MP3 player on the
planet. Measuring just 2.4 x 2.4 x 2.4cm, this 512MB square weighs in at a featherweight 18g, features an OLED display 
and a Lithium-ion
battery that allows for 15 hours of playback per charge. Songs are transferred
– slowly – via a unique USB 1.1 cable that hooks up to your PC/laptop USB port at
one end and into the headphone jack on the player. Cleverly, this also recharges the battery. You can get one for £99 here and read a good review of it
here.
Zen Vision: keep your eyes peeled
Portable Media Players (PMPs) are becoming more common as
prices fall and quality improves. Creative Labs has been trying hard to conceal details of it’s next PMP but, here it is. 
The sleek Zen Vision will replace the
existing PMC-120, a bulky and expensive model that failed to catch on in the
same way as the company’s MP3 players. The Zen Vision might change all of that. Like the kangaroo, this beauty has only been spotted Down Under, but it
is coming here. It will come in 20GB and 30GB flavours, has a 3.7in TFT-LCD
display with a 640 x 480 resolution and will playback MPEG4, WMV, Dvix and XviD
videos, as well as MP3, WMA, and WAV music files. 
Almost everything really. It’s also a lot smaller,
lighter and better looking than its tank-like predecessor. If Creative can price it reasonably,
it could have a real winner on its hands. More unnoffical details and an early preview
here.
Happy Birthday MP3!
On this day, 10 years ago, the name MP3 was offically coined. No one knew then that it would become one of the most recognisable acronyms on the
planet or that MP3 would revolutionise the way that we all listen to music. 
The name was the result of an internal poll at Fraunhofer Institute for
Integrated Circuits which wanted a catchier name for its new audio coding technology.
After all, ISO MPEG Audio Layer 3 hardly rolls of the tongue, does it? So happy 10th birthday MP3. See the
1995 email announcing the poll winner here.
Value AV receivers from Pioneer
Pioneer has taken the wraps off it’s summer line-up of
VSX entry-level and midrange AV receivers. There are four models in all: VSX-415,
VSX-515, VSX-915, and the VSX-1015. 
The VSX-1015 claims to be the first to
support the brand new THX Select2 sound format. All models sport Pioneer’s
MCACC technology, previously only included in its high-end AV products. It's designed to let humble folk like us calibrate the acoustics of our rooms for the best
possible sound output. Prices are competitive and range from £149 for the 5.1
VSX-415 to £389 for the VSX-1015. More prices here.
Microsoft launches world’s biggest remote control
Joining the wireless offensive to banish all wires from our
homes, Microsoft has launched a trendy new wireless keyboard for those of you
with Media Center PCs in your living rooms. 
The snappily named Microsoft Remote
Keyboard for Windows XP Media Center Edition, combines a remote control,
keyboard and mouse. The buttons are conveniently backlit for use in the dark and,
considering its size, this could be the only remote control in the world you
won’t be able to lose. Due in September it will cost around £60.
JVC launches four iDTVs
Ranging in size from 26in to 40in, the four new LCD, iDTVs from
JVC are the LT-26X776, LT-32X776, LT-37X776 and the LT-40X776. All boast a
high-definition resolution of 1366 x 768 and come with integrated TV tuners.
In addition to their good looks, they sport a HDMI input for connection to PCs and high-end AV equipment
and two IEEE 1394 (FireWire) inputs for connection to a video camera or other
device. The 40in LT-40X776 also features a memory card slot to view images
captured on a digital camera. Prices are US-only at the moment and range from
$2,499 to $4,999. More details.
BBC premieres shows on broadband first
If humble terrestrial TV viewers were already feeling left out in the cold thanks to digital TV and broadband then the Beeb’s latest announcement should guarantee a permanent dose of frostbite. 
In an effort to drive it’s broadband take-up, the BBC is planning to air new TV series via broadband first. Off-the-wall comedy series, The Mighty Boosh, is first up and will be aired a week or more before hitting regular TVs. The Beeb plans to follow this up with other broadband exclusives. Rival, Telewest, announced its own broadband TV trials a few weeks ago.
Optoma drives down projector prices
Optoma continues to push the envelope for price/performance in the home cinema projector space with the launch of its mid-to-high end H78DC3, which sits under the flagship H79 (pictured).
Boasting the latest in DLP technology – the DarkChip 3 chipset – it has a five speed, eight-segment Dark Video Enhancement colour wheel for more subtle and realistic delivery of colours. It is high-definition (HD)-capable with a 16:9 widescreen resolution of 1280 x 720 and a contrast ratio of 4000:1. Lamp life is quoted at around 2,000 hours and it costs roughly £2,300. Read a detailed review here.
Wooden headphones: the latest fad
Wood is the new brushed aluminium or white, apparently. 
The retro-look that bedecks Rollers and Bentleys is now the latest craze for gadgets and nothing is safe. Most recently we’ve had the wooden iPod, followed by the wooden mobile phone. Now, we have wooden headphones. JVC argues that it’s HP-DX1000 head gear uses wood, because like most speakers, it’s the best material for resonating sound. OK, but can someone explain the £580 price tag? At that price they should be hand-carved from gold.
World’s smallest ghetto blaster?
It’s definitely small but we’re not sure about blasting your local ghetto. The dinky little PodGear PocketParty Shuffle is designed to let lucky bystanders hear your fabulous taste in music, whether they like it or not. 
It’s a micro-speaker system for the iPod Shuffle, which is so small that it can even be worn around your neck. It boasts a battery life of 10 hours, does not drain your Shuffle battery and you can control the volume through your iPod. It’s two tiny speakers thump out a wee 1 Watt of stereo sound so, while ghetto blasting is out, you might actually make a bedsit tingle – a little. It’s cheap though, at around £22.
Cut-price 20Gb MP3 player enters fray
We just covered the launch of Creative’s Zen Sleek and now here
comes Archos with its Gmini XS 202 player, a successor and almost identical looking
update, to the XS 200, reviewed here. 
So what’s it got going for it? It’s
smaller and lighter than the Sleek or iPod Colour and has a claimed battery
life of 17 hours which puts it in the same ball park. It certainly looks good
and it can playback MP3, WMA, WAV and
protected WMA music files – the latter means it supports Microsoft PlaysForSure
downloads. The screen is 2in and blue, but not capable of viewing photos. The
price tag however will be in the very attractive £150 ballpark – roughly
£50-£60 cheaper than the Creative and Apple devices.
World’s first wall-mounted projector to hit UK
We first reported on LG’s
flat-projector last month when it cropped up at a US show. But now it’s coming
here, in September, at an undisclosed price. 
It’s very stylish, as you can see,
and it’s also the first DLP (or LCD) projector designed to for wall-mounting.
So, while the rest of the world is happy bolting theirs to the ceiling or
plonking them on the coffee table, LG is offering a brand new option. The claimed specs
are decent: 1,110 Lumens brightness, contrast ratio of 3000:1 and a resolution
of 1280 x 768 which makes it ready for high-definition (HD) video. It’s capable
of a 100in image from a short-throw distance of 3.8m. We guess at a price tag
hovering between £1,200 and £1,700 – optimistically. Details here.
Toshiba joins summer LCD TV rush
'Tis the season for big screens. Toshiba has joined the
summer LCD TV launch madness with three new models. 
The 27in, 32in and 37in
additions to the WL56 family are all high definition (HD)-ready and sport HDMI
connections – the latest in top quality, digital connectivity for DVD players
and PCs. With resolutions of 1366 x 768, all models feature Toshiba’s Active
Vision LCD video processing technology which claims to improve image quality,
detail colour, movement and contrast – that’s everything isn’t it? You can see
details on the 32WL56 here. Prices vary greatly so shop around. For instance, for the 26in model Comet wants
over £1,200 but you can get it for £875 from lots of other
players here.
Pioneer tackles high-end speaker sector
Prepare to stretch those speaker
budgets. Pioneer is weighing in at the high-end with its EX series. 
Combining
audio experts from Pioneer worldwide and speaker units from leading
manufacturer TAD (Technical Audio Devices), Pioneer is hoping to elevate itself
into the premiership of audio and home cinema sound. They certainly look the part and with
price tags of £4,500 for the S-1EX floor standers, £2,000 for the S-7EX centre
speaker and £3,500 for the S-2EX bookshelf speakers, they are not for the
faint-hearted. Details here.
Intel courts Hollyweird
Details,
barr the big media and photo-opportunity splash, are sketchy but Intel will
pump an unspecified amount into the new ClickStar venture, created by Freeman’s
company Revelations Entertainment. Intel was in cahoots with the group earlier
this year to create a digital home. Movies over the Net have yet to catch fire
with the public though, usually due to poor choice on the consumer front and
piracy fears from movie studios. For almost no extra relevant information, go
here for the official release.
Cheap PVR from Plextor
Peripherals
specialist Plextor has announced an external personal video recorder (PVR) for your PC or
laptop. This external unit houses a TV
tuner and free electronic programming guide. 
Hook it up to your PC via USB
2.0 and then connect your video source – TV, DVD, camcorder or VCR.
Video is captured using high quality real-time compression software and stored
on your hard disk. No UK release date yet but expect it this summer for around
£60. View it as a cheaper – if limited - alternative to forking out for a more expensive, dedicated PVR. Full details here.
Denon’s iPod-ready home entertainment beauties
After teasing us with a flash ad for a few weeks, Denon has
finally launched its ‘easy-to-use’ S Series of home entertainment systems. 
The
S-101 and S-301 are most notable for their dedicated iPod slot at the front,
while the S-301 also sports a very handy USB slot too which can take most USB-stick
MP3 players and Flash-memory storage devices. 
The systems come with two-speakers and a
compact subwoofer, support various Dolby sound formats and look very good - more pics here. It’s
disappointing though that there’s no five speaker option. The S-301 though sports a universal DVD player capable of
replaying SACD and DVD-Audio as well as being able to upscale your DVDs to
high-definition resolution video. Prices are expected to be £485 and £850, respectively. Details.
Freeview for free with Philips
The summer is definitely hotting up on the telly front with
Philips weighing in with no less than eight new models – five LCD and three plasma.
All will come with Freeview tuners on board for those that have not yet made
the leap to digital TV and a one-week electronic program guide. Seven of the
eight are compliant with EICTA standards for receiving high definition TV
(HDTV) broadcasts and all have DVI-I connectors for hooking them up to PCs. LCD
sizes will range from 26in to 42in and 42in to 50in on the plasmas. Lots more
detail here. Prices start at a recommended - and pricey - £999 for the 26in LCD TV but you can get it here for £744.
UK-friendly LCD TVs
Sharp is set to make a lot of TV addicts very happy. It will
launch the first series of LCD TVs optimised for use with Europe’s PAL picture
format next week. To date, most LCD TVs have been built with high definition TV
(HDTV) in mind, which means lower resolution PAL TV signals have to be scaled to
fit across all the pixels. This usually means a somewhat blurry picture. 
The
AQUOS P50 series will address the needs of the millions of UK consumers out
there that are more interested in decent TV than the often promised – and
much-delayed – arrival of mainstream HDTV programmes. Sharp previewed its
good intentions here, earlier this year, but the TVs are almost ready to roll. Stay
tuned for more details and prices from the launch next week.
Invisible speakers from KEF
OK, not quite invisible but close enough. Like most
in-wall/in-ceiling speakers, this latest addition from KEF is designed for
those who want the big sound but can’t, don’t want to, or are not allowed to
mess up that Changing Rooms-inspired living room. 
KEF’s Ci 3-80QT follows on from the existing Ci 200-QT (pictured) and is a
motorised speaker than can angle down towards the listener via a remote
control. It uses KEF’s Uni-Q driver technology for creating a wider sound
dispersion field. In real terms, this means that it’s not just the lucky sod
sitting in the middle of the home cinema set-up that gets the best sound.
Suggested retail price is $499 each and, be warned, you will need expert help in
order to avoid destroying your home during installation. Full details here.
Fujitsu’s big screen push
Plasma TVs, the more affordable alternative to LCD TVs, are
still the way to go if you want the big skinny TV on a tight budget.
Fujitsu
has just announced its summer line-up of three new models: the entry level 42in
P42VHA40, the 42in P42HTS40 and the 50in P50XTS40GS. All but the entry-level
model boast a separate media box equipped with a tuner and increased connectivity
options, including HDMI (HDCP) and RGB Scart. They all feature Fujitsu’s
next-generation video processor - Advanced Video Movement II (AVM II) - which
results in more natural colours and reduces picture noise, ghosting and
jagged edges. It also adapts screen brightness based on the ambient light of
your room. Prices start at £1,995. More details here.
NEC extends projector warranties
NEC is offering customers the chance to buy extended
warranties across most of its projector ranges including, most importantly, the
HT consumer line of DLP projectors. However, you have to buy it within a week
of your original purchase so most existing NEC customers are out of luck. 
The
company already offers three years as standard, which is very good, so don’t
get suckered into paying over the odds for a warranty extension you will never
need. For instance, NEC’s entry-level HT410 only costs around £700 and a
three-year warranty is more than enough, especially since most people will
upgrade after that. If you plan on spending £2,500 on the HT1100 though, it
might be worth the small investment up front. No word on how much the
extensions costs but more details here.
Creative’s iPod killer?
20Gb MP3 players are dime a dozen these days so has Creative
come up the goods for its Zen Sleek to carve a niche in this increasingly
crowded space? A monochrome display and a £200 price tag – just £9 cheaper than
the new iPod Colour – is hardly a groundbreaking start.
So while it can’t
display your favourite snaps it is marginally lighter than the
iPod and has in-built FM radio from which you can record broadcasts
as well as your voice. Battery life is a claimed 16-hours, one more than the iPod, but
there’s really not much between the two except for style. When you consider
that the new Sony NW-HD5 20Gb player has a claimed battery life of 40 hours,
and costs £20 less, has Creative actually been well, creative? Full details here.
DVD/DivX player for £40
You don’t get too much for £40 these days. While you can get
a bargain, no-name brand DVD player for £40 and less, you tend to sacrifice in
the performance stakes and you rarely get any useful extra features.
Packard
Bell, a company more at home in PC circles, thinks it has a wee bit extra to
offer in its DivX DVD 350 player. You get a DVD/MP3/WMA/JPEG player with the added ability of being able to play back DivX movies from CDs. The DivX format is the video equivalent of MP3, especially for movies downloaded from the Internet. Despite
the tiny price tag, early reviews suggest it’s a diamond in the rough.
Ad-free DVD recorders on the way
If you love adverts as much as us then
you’ll delighted to hear that Hitachi is set to launch the first DVD recorder
that skips them. Hitachi did the same thing for VCRs in 2000 but it has
taken some time to transfer the Commercial Advance feature into its existing
hard disk/DVD recorders (pictured). 
It detects the start and finish of adverts
during recording and skips them automatically during playback. Another bonus is that the new recorders will have a range of 80GB to 250GB
hard-disk drives inside and the ability to record to all DVD formats. The first models
out will be the 80GB DV-DS81E, 160GB DV-S161E and the 250GB DV-S251E in
August/September. No prices yet but let’s recap: a fat hard disk drive, support
for all DVD formats and never having to see - or hear - another ringtone ad, ever. Think about that for a moment.
Play Misto for me
It is being developed with
the family in mind and is like the 21st century equivalent of getting the family around the dinner table. In this case though it’s for
playing games, sharing summer snaps and using it as a learning tool. 
For
instance, it will let you access Google’s satellite maps and use them as an interactive atlas. It can even
become a virtual fish tank. That said HP still hasn't worked out whether or not
it can be safely used to hold a coffee mug. As tables go, sounds a bit de-caf to us. Lots more pics here.
MediaReady 5000 challenges Media Center PCs
We have new entrant into the digital entertainment device
market. You might hear a lot about Microsoft-based Media Center PCs but Video Without
Boundaries (VWB) has announced it’s MediaReady 5000 device based – not on Windows –
but on Linux. 
The US company, which has recently opened a UK subsidiary,
says the device offers a Tivo-like
Personal Video Recorder (PVR), DVD/MPEG 1, 2 and 4 playback, storage/retrieval
via its 120GB hard drive, electronic program guide, Freeview support, Internet
browsing, email, MP3, WAV and CD playback, DVD burner, streaming video and
audio, karaoke, games, and media jukebox. It hooks up to your TV and Internet and can also
be connected to your existing PC and stereo for playback of stored video and
audio. It looks useful and the price or roughly £500 may just prove
attractive enough to lure some away from the £1,000 Media Center PC camp.
Sony launches consumer HD camcorder
Budding Quentin Tarantinos will soon have the chance to get
creative in true independent filmmaker style with the arrival of Sony’s HDR-HC1 - the first high definition (HD)
camcorder for consumers.
To put it in perspective, it is a third of the
weight, less than half the size and, at £1,229, less than half the price of
it’s big brother, the HDR-FX1. Due in three weeks, it measures 2.8in x 3.7in x7.4in and weighs
1.5lbs (without the battery). It has a screen that works in both 4:3 and 16:9
modes and an incredible resolution of 1,920 x 1080 pixels.
Now you can create your
own HD content to display on your new, HD-capable plasma/LCD display. There's a very detailed review here. All you need now is some
mean-looking friends, some snappy suits, an empty warehouse, catchy 70s
tunes, a chair, a rope, a razor....
Podcasting for the masses
After a lot of rumours, Apple finally confirmed what
everybody already suspected and finally made Podcasting part of its iTunes 4.9
software. Podcasting is essentially radio on-demand, allowing you download your
favourite radio shows from the Net to your PC/laptop and onto your iPod. When online, iTunes
downloads the latest from your chosen Podcasts and transfers them to your iPod. 
The best thing about it is that there are over 3,000 free radio Podcasts to
choose from, including the BBC, among others. Podcasts are arranged into 20
categories, ranging from arts and entertainment to politics and comedy. Did I
mention it’s something free? From Apple? The fashionable fruit also merged the iPod and iPod
Photo so that now all new iPods will have colour screens – see more here.
Mustek's affordable HDD DVD recorder
Cheaper rarely means better but some people aren’t looking
for the best – just something that does a decent job without breaking the bank.
At a shade over £200, the Mustek R580 is one of the cheapest hard disk
drive (HDD)/DVD disc recorders out there. 
It boasts an 80Gb hard disk drive as well
as letting you record to blank DVD+R and DVD+RW disks. It features progressive
scan DVD playback and sports a handy, high speed i.Link connector for recording
video directly off newer digital camcorders. To see a brief review of it go
here. Ignore the £245 price tag though because you can get it here for
£209.
