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JVC’s next-generation AV receivers
JVC has announced two new AV receivers boasting HDMI
connectivity and the ability to up-scale non-high definition images to HDMI.
The snappily-named RX-D401S/D402B and
RX-D702B are 7.1 surround receivers and handle the HDMI up-scaling with a
Genesis de-interlacer that incorporates DCDi (Directional Correlational
Deinterlacing) technology from Faroudja. They also boast a wireless USB connection
for streaming music from PCs to your sound set-up. 
The RX-D401S/402B is rated
at 110 watts per channel with the RX-D702B boosting this to 150 watts per
channel. Prices are US at the moment but they are certainly keen at around £300
and £450. Check details here.
AV JVC movies home entertainment
Pioneer’s home cinema in a box
With people flocking to pick up all-in-one home cinema
set-ups starting at £150, you can see why players like Pioneer are keen for a
slice of the pie. That’s why it has launched not one, but five new all-in-one
set ups, starting with the entry-level DCS-232 and DCS-240 sound systems,
coming in at around £150 for the DCS-232. What you get is a DVD
player/amplifier, five speakers and a sub-woofer. Next up are the DCS-333 and
DCS 340 (pictured) boasting double the power and the handy set-up facility, Automatic
Optimal Surround Set-up, using a supplied microphone. 
They also sport an
unusually slim sub-woofer, which hopefully means that bass performance has not
been sacrificed for style. The only difference between the four models mentioned is that two come with bookshelf speakers and two come with floor-standers. Finally there’s the DCS-535 which uses three front
speakers and a digital, wireless rear speaker for creating surround effects.
Prices start at around £290. More details here.
movies pioneer home cinema home entertainment DVD
PSP hits UK tomorrow
Grab your sleeping bags, it’s time to camp out for what will
surely be one of the biggest-selling portable media devices out there. The
PlayStation Portable (PSP) from Sony finally arrives in the UK tomorrow and the company expects to shift about one million of the little fellas here by
Christmas. The UK, as usual, has been last on the list for this launch since
it’s been out for nine months in Japan and six months in the US. Over 5 million
have been flogged worldwide so far making it somewhat of a phenomenon. 
Even the
£179 price tag hasn’t put off drooling UK users with many stores selling out their
stock in advance. At launch there will be 30 or so games and around 30 movies
available on the controversial UMD disc format. Nintendo, current king of the
portable gaming device market with GameBoy and DS, is not taking it lying down.
A sleek Micro version of the GameBoy is due in November.
Games sony psp Nintendo gameboy gadgets technology
Robot child for sale
We think it looks like a Dyson with a head. The price
tag of around £8,000 means they will not be making everyone happy/nervous,
only those with more cash than sense. So what can it do? It can learn lots of
words, say hello, talk back, guide you around your own home, surf the Net, take messages, act as an alarm clock, messaging service and home security bot. It can not
hoover, wash, polish, cut the grass, set the DVD recorder, call work and make
excuses, bake bread, get you a beer or make a bacon sandwich. As such, we think £8,000 is a lot for an answering machine that follows you around.
robot mitsubishi technology Science News
Hitachi unveils new 3LCD projector
DLP projectors may be taking the limelight away from LCD
rivals in the mainstream but Hitachi is sticking to its LCD guns with the
launch of the Cine Master PJ-TX200 3LCD projector. It follows on from the
entry-level PJ-TX100 (pictured) and uses the same LCD technology being promoted by the
3LCD Group, comprising Sony, Panasonic, Epson, Fujitsu and others. It will also look pretty much like the existing model, except on the inside. The PJ-TX200
is high definition – HD-ready – boasts a 5000:1 contrast ratio and comes with Hitachi’s
dual digital iris, a Super ED Lens and 10-bit digital image processing. 
3LCD
technology claims to result in true colour accuracy, no colour break up and
perfect moving pictures. Of course, our motto is simple: don't believe the hype and try before you buy. The PJ-TX200 is out next month but there are no prices
yet.
Star Trek holodeck for real
Gaming is about to take a quantum leap forward with the
arrival of cinema-like gaming facilities and a gaming holodeck. US
company, HoloDek - named after the the world's greatest fictional entertainment device from Star Trek - is in the process of building
a gaming holodeck. It's a 20ft wide sphere that will give give gamers a 360 degree, wraparound environment to blast
away in. The gamer sits inside on a robotic chair that rumbles, pitches and
yaws like a real flight simulator. 
The company has also developed what it calls the 'half-pipe', a gaming environment with a screen 20ft wide and 12ft high. The idea is the latest move from HoloDek to
get gamers out of their bedrooms and into state-of-the art gaming facilities.
Unlike Pac-Man in the dingy old video arcades, this is an attempt to take
gaming up-market, by hosting LAN parties, corporate events and weekend
competitions on top-end machines and high-definition screens. The
company is hoping to roll out 160 facilities in the next five years and is in
talks with cinemas to place holodecks inside. For a more far-reaching holodeck
project, check this out.
Games star trek TV Computers and Internet Game technology
PC games used to teach kids
Hooking up the laptop to a projector and firing it onto
a whiteboard, Myst is being used to teach creative skills, from problem solving
to writing about the game and what it might mean. He’s been using the Myst
series for six years and classes them as mind-enhancing games as opposed to
mind-numbing. So, no chance of Doom 3: "Undead Stopping Power - Chainsaw versus Shotgun: Discuss." Didn't think so.
Games myst education School technology
Rio bites the dust
Rio, one of the long-time players in the digital audio player (DAP)
market, is no more. The company’s owners D&M Holdings, which also owns home cinema specialists Denon and
Marantz, has decided things are too hot in the MP3 player arena and pulled the
plug on the popular brand. After September 30, no more Rio products will be
produced, including the Rio Carbon and Karma.
D&M said the 'mass-market' nature of the digital audio market did not fit with its company strategy. Everyone else put it down to an inability to compete effectively against iPod and other digital audio products. Rio was one of the key
brands going head-to-head with the iPod and its demise only reinforces the
dominance of the Apple product. Even Creative Labs has cited iPod’s massive marketshare and increased competition in the arena for its recent, dismal results. So, if a big brand like Rio can’t take the heat, which
non-iPod player manufacturer will be next to fall? Take a look at what Rio was planning next.
Panasonic beefs up plasma line
We told you last week that Panasonic was planning to launch
the world’s first 65-inch plasma, high-definition TV (HDTV) at roughly half-price, and
now here are the details. The flagship in the new Viera line-up will arrive on
November 1 and be called the TH-65PX500. It will support 1080p high definition
images, have a contrast of 4000:1, four TV tuners (two digital and two
analogue), a HDMI socket and the ability to record TV straight to SD Cards. 
And
best of all, it will come in at around £5,000 – that’s £3,000 cheaper than the
current 65-inch plasma, the TH-65PHWD7. The new model will be joined by three
others, the 50-inch TH-50PX50, 42-inch TH-42PX50 and 37-inch TH-37PX50. More details here.
TV television HDTV plasma Panasonic
Square TVs are dead
That’s right people, if it ain’t wide, it’s on the slide.
Mirroring the demise of square CRT TVs, widescreen LCD TVs have outsold full-screen LCDs for the
first time. The 16:9 widescreen format is now dominant over the traditional 4:3
panel for the first time, according to the latest global research from Quixel Research.
Sales of 16:9 LCD TVs accounted for 57% of all panels sold in Q2 2005 and
the trend is that 4:3 panels will continue to dwindle fast over the coming
year. This is great news of course since most movies, and a growing number of
TV programmes, are broadcast in widescreen. No more will your favourite movies
have to be horribly squashed and trimmed to fit on a square TV.
Of course, LCDs
mania is taking off all over but they still have a way to go to unseat
widescreen CRT TVs. So, beware of any sales rep flogging really big, 4:3 TV
sets and LCD panels on the cheap because we've just warned you that square TVs have no future. Not RIP,
just good riddance.
TV LCD CRT industry technology
Podcasters save Sin City
that
Dimension pulled that cheap, money-grabbing stunt of releasing a vanilla DVD (plain with no
extras) - before launching a 2-disc special edition early next year - that they
recorded their own two hour commentary. It’s been recorded to sync with everything
that happens in the movie and from the text layout seen, it’s crammed with some
excellent background, production and tidbit detail. See the pathetic Dimension
DVD disc features here or, don’t bother and just hook your ‘i’-whatever up to
the site and download.
Movie DVD podcast sin city comics
KEF announces Instant Theatre KIT200
KEF created quite a stir when it launched its Instant
Theatre KIT100 last year, which offered virtual 5.1 surround from two wacky-looking speakers. It even won a few awards. This October will see the arrival
of KEF's second all-in-one offering, the Instant Theatre KIT200 which, unlike its little brother, is an actual 5.1 system sporting a
DVD player with FM tuner, five speakers and a subwoofer. With its glossy black
finish and mid-sized speakers, it also looks nothing like the funky KIT100. 
Still,
they do have one thing in common: heart-stopping prices. When the KIT100
arrived in 2004 – remember this is a two-speaker ‘virtual’ surround system – it
cost a whopping £1,200. The big brother will be asking you for the best part of £1,600 but,
you can console yourself that at least this time you get all five speakers. A few more details here.
Chinese gamers crippled again
Apparently 1.5 million gamers alone are hooked on World of
Warcraft and Lineage II, with a total of 20 million playing online games in
Internet cafes. Rather than clap you in irons though, the government has a far
more terrifying and cruel punishment in store: play more than three hours and
your character’s abilities will be reduced. Go mad and play more than five
hours and your character’s abilities will be decimated. Just because one Chinese gamer
went postal and killed another for stealing a virtual sword doesn't mean we are
looking at Net café massacres. Right?
First DVD recorder with 1TB of storage
Hitachi
has decided to throw down the gauntlet to its rivals by unveiling the world’s
first hard disk drive (HDD) and DVD recorder with one terabyte (1TB) of
storage. The new top of the line recorder will boast two 500GB hard disk drives
and allow you to record up to 128 hours of high-definition TV (HDTV) content at
full resolution. Hitachi claims the new player will also be the first to let
you record two HDTV broadcasts simultaneously. Other models in the range will
include a 160GB, 250GB and 500GB model. 
The company, which has been heavily
linked with the War of the Worlds movie campaign, is desperate to build up its
recorder marketshare which currently stands at just 3%. The new, as yet
unnamed, machines will launch in Japan first but we may have to wait here since
Hitachi maintains that we are not yet as “keen” on high-definition recorders.
We are, we swear we are, really. OK, so we won’t actually have any HDTV
broadcasts until next year, but we still want that monster recorder - NOW. Hand it over. More details here.
DVD movies DVR home entertainment hitachi
Apocalypse Now action figures
There are many ways to personalise your home cinema from
posters on the wall to mood lighting and overpriced props from movie sets. For
those unable to purchase a full-sized Huey chopper for the living room ceiling in
order to boost the realism of watching Apocalypse Now, we bring you Colonel
Kilgore, all 12 inches of him. 
The surf-crazed, air cavalry commander who put
napalm on the breakfast menu, is back as an action figure. Some enterprising
war movie junkies have taken it upon themselves to recreate leading war movie
characters as action figures, (not the real Action Man though, which is here). There are plenty of companies, like Sota Toys and Sideshow Collectibles, churning
out action figures but these show an unsettlingly level of realism. Just check
out the Robert De Niro figure
from the Russian Roulette sequence in The Deer
Hunter. There was talk of a Marlon
Brando as Colonel Kurtz figure but they couldn’t find enough plastic.
BBC launches mobile phone TV
Episodes of the Doctor Who and Red Dwarf TV shows will be
beaming into a mobile phone near you by next month, following a deal between
the BBC and Rok Player. This will mark the Beeb’s first tentative step into
mobile phone TV services, something everyone is over-hyping but few are
offering. Here’s how it works: you buy a Digital Video Chip (DVC) for around
£17 which slots into any phone with a multimedia-card reader. 
It looks as if
Nokia has first dibs though as the chip will start selling first from Rok,
Nokia stores and Choices Video. Doctor Who’s ‘The Five Doctors’ episode will be first up
along with four episodes of Red Dwarf. More details here.
TV BBC mobile phone doctor who sci-fi
The world’s first waterproof DAB radio
Finally, a radio you can take into the shower without
getting fried. PURE Digital is set to launch the world’s first rechargeable DAB
radio that’s built for abuse. The aptly named Oasis is a small, solid- looking
cube of cast aluminium that has been designed for use in foul weather
conditions. 
The company promises that it's 'weatherproof and splashproof' and, we hope, beer proof. Oasis promises over 15 hours of mains-free use from the built-in ChargePAK
battery system. DAB radios may be have revolutionised radio quality and programme choice but you tend to have to pay for the privilege. Just as well then that the Oasis lets you hook up your iPod or any other digital
audio player to it for those parties in the park, the shower, or backyard barbies.
Due out next month it will cost around £120.
Nintendo Revolution prices leaked?
The
successor to the GameCube, the Nintendo Revolution, will arrive in Europe on
June 16, 2006 and will cost around £199. At least this is the news from the
Amazon.com site in France which seems to know more than the rest of us.
Whatever about the launch date (which we believe will be dragged forward by at
least a few months) the price is steep since Nintendo has pretty much admitted
that the Revolution will not be as powerful as either the Xbox 360 or the PS3.
See official Xbox 360 prices here. However we really do like the monolith styling
from 2001: A Space Odyssey. 
Nintendo plays third fiddle in the worldwide
console stakes and looks destined to stay there unless it launches early, pulls
something special out of the bag and slashes that alleged price tag. The
company has been quoted as saying that the Revolution will be a “small,
quiet, affordable console”. Not at £200 it won’t. For a truckload of Revolution details go here.
Nintendo games xbox PS3 technology
Panasonic to halve price of 65in plasma TV
The cut is being attributed to massive savings in production costs and low priced 30in and 40in plasma models are also expected. Even for the cut-throat LCD/plasma market,
that’s a huge price cut. Even better, the company claims that the new model will be high-definition (HD)-ready
with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Christmas can’t come fast enough.
Robot attacks Japanese Prime Minister
Japan’s first mall-patrolling security robot, the T63
Artemis, took an instant dislike to Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
yesterday. A simple meet-and-greet experience was obviously too much for the
batty bot, which launched a smokescreen on contact. 
The robot has been
patrolling the mall for a year now, disturbing the doughnut dunking of real
rent-a-cops, with high-pitched alarms whenever it spots ‘suspicious
behaviour’. So, either the strain of meeting a Japanese icon was too much or
Koizumi was spotted with his hand in the Pick n’ Mix. 
Either way, it’s really just as
well the PM didn’t meet the 30ft tall fire-breathing Tokyo destroyer (pictured)
or the king of them all, Robosaurus.
Consumers lose war over DVD format
For Joe Public, it means you will not be able watch fantastic, high-definition versions of at least half
of your fave flicks unless you own two different players. There’s a lot of media
speculation about which technology will win in the end but as far as we’re
concerned, the battle is over and the consumer has lost. End of story.
Iomega pushes portable movie machine
Portable media players (PMPs) are all the rage but is there a
market for a big one without a screen? Iomega is optimisitc and is set to release
the oddly-named, screen-free ‘ScreenPlay’ which it claims will let you carry
around up to 60 movies on its 60Gb hard disk drive. Measuring roughly 27 x
20cm, it’s not exactly small and is portable in about the same way a video
cassette is, just heavier. It hooks up to your TV or projector via Scart and transferring
content from your PC is handled by USB 2.0. 
Compression software is included
while content can be accessed by a on-screen menu. There will also be a 250GB desktop
version called the ScreenPlay Pro. With no in-built screen, the prices are
suitably attractive with the Screenplay and the Pro version expected to retail
for around £150 and £200 next month. Some more detail here.
pmp portable media player iomega movies
Plasma killing off rear-projection TVs
The nails being
hammered into the coffin of CRT rear-projection TVs (RPTVs) are coming faster
than ever as sales of big-screen plasma displays overtook those of RPTVs for
the first time. More importantly, this is not a blip but the beginning of the
end for rear-projection TVs. According to market watcher, DisplaySearch, plasma
TVs accounted for almost 3% of global TV sales in Q2, up from 2% in Q1. RPTV
sales fell from 2.9% to 2.5% in the same period. Plasma’s rise has been put
down to cut-throat price competition and a general move away from RPTVs. Could
this be because they are big, heavy, space-gobbling monster TVs that weigh in
at 100-150lbs and don’t so much sit in your living as take it over? 
In defence
of RPTVs though, they are not all fatties, with new skinny and lighter models
arriving based on DLP and LCD technology. But can they stop the slide? Leading
the plasma charge is Panasonic which saw its share rocket from 17% in Q1 to 27% in Q2. LG, Samsung and Philips galloped in for second, third and
fourth.
plasma TV Panasonic LG Samsung Philips
PCs get DTS surround in-built
As sleek-looking Media PCs break into the living room,
Creative Labs has decided that the platform needs a surround sound boost. And
what better way than to ink a deal with surround sound leaders, DTS. Creative
has announced that it will build DTS technology directly into its Sound Blaster
Live 24-bit motherboard solution. 
It will appear first in Gigabyte and Shuttle
Computer motherboards and will boast the highest quality, in-built surround sound
solution on the market. Expect a wide take-up though by other motherboard
makers as the year progresses. DTS is often considered a better surround format
than Dolby Digital due to the use of higher-bit rates and less compression of
the original audio source. For us normal folk, it means the coming generation
of PCs move one step closer to being a good, home cinema all-rounders at no
extra cost.
Creative Labs surround sound PC home cinema
JVC puts DVD recorders at heart of home cinema
The DVD recorder allows for
recording and playback of DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD-R discs, as well as playback
of DVDs, MP3, and JPEG on blank CDs. Sound formats supported include Dolby
Digital, DTS, DTS 96/24, and Dolby Pro Logic II. They even sport a novel set-up
feature whereby hand-clapping is used to let speakers work out levels and delay
times for optimised performance. Online prices for the TH-R1 and TH-R3 are a very competitive £280
and £370.
Streaming will take years to catch on
Despite the hype, the streaming of movies and music content around
the home could take years to really take off with consumers. The latest figures
from market-watcher In-Stat show that home-networking sales are set to rocket
from $9bn last year to over $20bn in 2009. However, while it seems the world
has gone streaming mad, In-Stat is quick to point out that the storage and
streaming of music and video files between devices in the home is not actually
a big driver. 
Hang-on, but every streaming vendor is telling us that streaming
(in our case) Hellboy from the PC to the streaming device hooked to the projector is what
everyone is doing, right now, this second, as we type? Could someone be lying? Top of the list of things driving sales now are lower prices and a desire for higher speeds. Some of the key findings are that home networks have jumped
from 24 million in 2003 to 37 million last year and poor old Ethernet has
finally been toppled by WLAN as the home network of choice, with 802.11g
devices being the products of choice. The moral of this story is that streaming
technologies are being served up with a healthy dose of hype and that not
having one makes you neither a luddite nor a technophobe.
streaming WLAN multimedia movies
Smart subwoofers from Velodyne
The subwoofer is often the most undervalued component of a
home cinema set-up but in reality it’s one of the most important. Shoved in a
corner, little attention is paid to the device that brings all
those action sequences to life, providing that deep bass rumble that shakes the
room. Velodyne Acoustics, which has built its business on making top
subwoofers, has now added brains to the mix. The SPL-R (Small,
Precise, Loud – Remote) Series of compact subwoofers comprises the SPL-800R,
SPL-1000R and SPL-1200R and all sport a 6-band auto EQ feature and remote
control. 
Unusually, they also come with a microphone and thankfully, not for karaoke. Like
many better AV receivers, the subwoofer generates a test tone in your room, the
sound is fed back to the microphone and the subwoofer configures itself
correctly. According to Velodyne, this does away with the age-old dilemma of
where’s the best spot to place a subwoofer. Even more helpful is the inclusion
of one-button presets, so whether it’s Star Wars or Pride & Prejudice
there’s a setting to cover it. All boast 1,000 Watts of RMS and 2,000 Watts of
dynamic power and prices will range from £700 to £1,000. More details here.
subwoofer velodyne home cinema movies
Sony goes big with 60in Grand WEGA
In
real money, and adding in the now traditional UK price hike on consumer
electronics, those prices will be closer to £3,000 and £2,400. There are too
many features to mention so read about them here. To give you a taste, here are
some of the connectivity options: dual HDMI inputs, three i.LINK (IEEE 1394)
FireWire inputs, a PC input, optical audio output, and a Memory Stick Flash
media viewer.
High-def H79 projector hits UK
Optoma, the
makers of the award-winning entry level ThemeScene H30 and H30A home cinema projectors, can't seem to put a foot wrong at the moment. It's now upping the ante in the midrange space with the UK launch of the ThemeScene H79 DLP projector. This is one of the first models to boast the
new DarkChip 3 chip from Texas Instruments and a sub-£3,000 price tag. That’s
cheap, trust us. The DarkChip 3 improves on the excellent DarkChip 2 by
virtually eliminating all visible pixelation, which means you can sit closer to
the screen without seeing the “chicken-wire effect”. 
What you get for your
money is a high-defintion-ready projector, with 4000:1 contrast, eight-segment
colour wheel, 1,000 Lumens brightness and a very quiet fan running at 23 decibels. It also
sports HDMI connectivity and a three-year hot-swap, on-site warranty. See a US review
here.
projector home cinema movies HDMI DLP
Laser trip wires for the whole family
The Lazer Tripwire is a
movie-inspired piece of “personal space” security involving infra-red beams.
For under $30 you get three Lazer units. Just place them around what you want to protect and align the infra-red beams
with the sensors on each unit. When aligned a voice will say “System Armed” and
when the beams are broken a loud alarm blares. 
And, just in case, you’ve had
one too many and forgotten where the hell you put them, you even get a Mist
bottle for spraying as you creep. From party games to freaking out the family
pet, the $30 Lazer Tripwire is top of our list of Christmas stocking fillers. Get it here.
MP3 docking madness from Logitech
MP3 docks for the iPod and general MP3 players make up the latest offerings from Logitech which has gone into product-launch frenzy over the past week. There have been Web cams, gaming mice and gaming keyboards. Now we have the mm50 portable speakers for iPod and mm28 portable speakers for generic MP3/CD players. Thankfully, there’s not a ‘i’ in sight in either product name.
Interestingly, the mm50 has an internal lithium-ion battery which allows for 10 hours of wireless use, while plugging the unit in will recharge the internal battery and your iPod. It comes with a remote control and will cost around £90-£100. The slim mm28 is for all other MP3 and CD players with a 3.5mm jack and boasts flat-speaker technology from NXT which which make the whole unit just 1.25ins thick. 
Four AA batteries will give you a claimed 45 hours of playing time. No remote on this one but then it will only cost around £50. Both will ship next month.
Xbox prices confirmed – UK stung
UK users will pay significantly more for the much anticipated Xbox than US users and marginally more than gamers in other European countries according to the official Xbox prices from Microsoft. The standard and premium versions will be priced at £210 and £280. 
This compares to US prices of approximately £166 and £221 and European prices of £207 and £272. The standard version will come with a wired controller, AV cable and swappable faceplate. The premium version will boast a customisable faceplate, 20GB removable hard disk drive, headset, high-definition AV cable, Ethernet cable, wireless controller and a remote control - this last bit is limited so get your tent ready now. The price shouldn’t really come as a surprise since UK gamers have always had to stump up more for all previous consoles. The only real shock is that the Xbox is still on schedule for a pre-Christmas launch, well before Sony's PS3.
xbox playstation console sony microsoft games
Teac's sub-£200 universal DVD player
Both formats offer a massive leap in
sound quality over today’s music CDs and the audio soundtracks on DVD movies.
In addition to DVD Audio/SACD support, the DV-20D offers progressive scan,
onboard DTS and Dolby Digital processing and will playback all rewriteable CD
and DVD discs filled with JPEGs, CD and MP3 tracks. Did we mention the price?
‘Affordable’ £11,000 cinema projector
Sim2 doesn’t do entry level projectors which is why the
high-end company is happy to announce it’s affordable C3X, which comes in at a
measly £11,000. Still, it should be noted that the good-looking C3X is touted as the world’s first compact, 3-chip DLP projector designed to replace
bigger, louder and more expensive rivals. It's also part of Sim2's top-end Grand Cinema range. 
To understand the term 'compact' in the
high-end projector arena, the C3X measures 17.1 x 7.5 x 16.9 inches and weighs in at 11Kg – that’s pretty light. It
boasts not one, but three HD2+ DarkChip processors, Sim2’s DLP Light Engine
technology for enhancing image quality, a very high 6500:1 contrast ratio, high-definition
resolution, and a 250Watt lamp that beams out a claimed brightness of 2500
Lumens. It also comes with a boatload of customisable features, software and
lenses. What you should be asking yourself right now is whether or not you
really need that second family car?
projector Sim2 DLP home cinema
Philips’ streaming flagship hits UK
The Philips Wireless Music Centre has finally sneaked into the UK and is set to cause a
stir. Philips has already pinned its hopes on the whole streaming concept with its
Streamium line and the new Wireless Music Center (WACS700) will certainly turn
a few heads and, empty a few pockets. Sporting a 40GB hard disk drive, this is a
digital music server that rips CDs into MP3s and let’s you stream up to five
different (or the same) audio streams around the house to other Wi-Fi devices.
You can also connect it to your PC for transferring files. It uses the fast 802.11g wireless networking standard for transport speeds of up to 54MBps. A ‘music
broadcast’ feature lets you get into house party mode and stream the same song around the house in perfect synchronisation. It’s a beautifully
designed piece of kit that uses Philips Super Sound Panel Speaker technology to
produce decent sound without impacting its good looks. You can get it now at Dixons if you have a hefty £600 to spare. Does anyone else feel that for £600 we
deserve a bigger hard disk drive?
BenQ scoops top projector gong
BenQ,
which seems to gobbling up share in every IT and consumer electronics sector,
has just won the European Home Theatre Projector of the Year award. The award from the
prestigious EISA (European Imaging and Sound Association) went to BenQ’s
midrange PE7700 DLP projector. 
Awards like this are good for business and a
good sign to consumers that just because BenQ is new to the European projector
scene, doesn't mean it’s winning business on price alone. EISA said that the
PE7700 pipped the rest thanks to its great performance from high-definition sources and a
feature list as long as your arm. 
This included five sets of colour temperature
settings, a six-segment colour wheel and a very quiet lamp fan. See a review here. Even so, the fact
that it costs just £1,400 probably didn’t hurt either. In the high-end projector category, Sony's £14,000 Qualia 004 took top honours.
Denon tweaks award-winning AV kit
Leading home cinema and sound house Denon, has taken the
duster to its award-winning entry-level and midrange AV receivers and released
new versions. The £329 AVR-1906 and £449 AVR-2106 will replace the AVR-1905 and
AVR-2105 (pictured) and, if Denon has any sense, it will have changed very little of what
helped them garner more leading AV awards than is really fair. 
Both have new
digital sound/signal processors (DSPs), three HDTV inputs, two Coax digital
inputs and the Audio Delay feature to improve lip-synching with progressive
scan DVD players. They also a very useful automatic set-up feature, with bundled
microphone, to ensure the system is perfectly calibrated for your room. More details here and check prices here.
VW record player in your pocket
Who says you have to pay through the nose for a decent
turntable? The VW camper van (nothing to do with the official VW) is a toy and a
record player in one. 
It’s also one of the weirdest gadgets to grace this blog and we take no responsibility whatsoever if this thing scratches the hell
out of your precious first print of Are you Experienced? Powered by a 9 Volt
battery and housing an in-built speaker, the VW camper van plays your favourite vinyl by driving around it. Apart from raising the bar for novelty gadgets
to a new high, the makers insist that it's an invaluable testing tool when buying second hand records.
We think as silly party gadgets that don’t involve alcohol go, this one will be
hard to beat. It may be no £2,000 Wilson Benesch Full Circle but at £69 this is one
toy car you will want to keep out of little Timmy’s reach.
Two-speaker surround sound back again
The HTS8000S
uses numerous drivers within each speaker, all firing in different directions
to create a 'virtual' surround sound feel. For those in the know, virtual is another way of saying not real, substitute, fake and possibly, not as good as the real deal. It features an integrated DVD/SACD player,
FM radio, and an amplifier to deliver a claimed total RMS of 550Watts. They
say, give us a whopping great £400 for a stereo that offers somewhat-real surround sound. We say, why not pay around the same for the real thing with the
award-winning Denon DHT-500SD.
Minimalist home cinema from LG
Home cinema sound is awash with big, small, fat and curvy
speaker sets but you really don’t see too many like these. LG Electronics has announced
that it’s taking up with the king of wafer-thin speaker technology NXT, to
market some truly stunning looking 5.1 speakers with its contemporary-looking Xcanvas digital
entertainment system. 
It will use five of NXT’s Tallboy Type loudspeakers incorporating the trademark SurfaceSound technology. The rest of the XCanvas system comprises a subwoofer, 50in plasma screen,
integrated master unit with DVD player,
VCR, surround sound processor and amplifier. The super slim speakers can be
used as floor standers but we think
you’d be mad not to mount them flush on the wall next to the monster plasma
screen. No UK date set yet but it's nice to know they're on the horizon.
Frag-tastic goodies from Logitech
Peripherals
giant Logitech has finally decided to jazz up its ‘one-size fits all’
offerings by zeroing in on the more exciting gaming segment. The company has
just taken the warps off the suitably different looking G15 gamers keyboard and
launched two high-performance gaming mice, the G5 and G7. 
The G15 boasts a
distinctive LCD display for showing handy in-game info or data from other
applications (email alerts etc.) without interrupting intense,
kill-or-be-killed fragging. There are 18-programmable keys and a software
developers kit if you feel like writing your own LCD programs. Both the G5 and
cordless G7 boast laser-based tracking systems with a 2,000dpi
resolution. They are Logitech’s first mice to use full-speed USB delivering 500
reports per second for extra precision. Most vanilla mice deliver just 60-125
per second. And the cost of these gaming beauties? Due in September, the G15
keyboard will cost you £45, while the G5 and G7 will come in at £40 and £55. Head over
here for more on the keyboard and mice.
Designer TVs bursting with features
Pixel
Plus 2 is a video processing technology that increases picture sharpness,
detail levels and colours while AmbiLight 2 is a background lighting system that
produces lighting to match the incoming signal for a more ‘immersive picture
that doesn’t strain the eye’. How considerate. The pricing, however, is a
little less so with 32PF9830,
37PF9830 and 42PF9830 costing £2,299, £2,799 and £3,799. Check some current prices
here.
Hi-fi killer from Monitor Audio
These days you’re no one if you can’t dock your iPod with
your existing home entertainment kit - at least that’s what company marketing
hype would have you believe. UK sound specialist, Monitor Audio is the latest
to step into the world of hi-fi killers with the unsurprisingly named, i-Deck.
It looks good with those sloping speakers and unlike some tiny, weak sounding
docking stations, this one packs a little more muscle. 
It's not the style statement that the iCarrier is but it will do for those looking for something less conspicuous. The speakers are 18W
which won’t blow your socks off but won’t sound like The Borrowers either. It comes with a remote control and you can hook it up to a PC or
Mac via USB or Firewire for transferring tracks. It’s compatible with
3G and 4G iPods and, like most iPod related products, reassuringly expensive at
£249.
Exploding home cinema seats
The time has come to trade in that tatty, overstuffed
armchair for some real home cinema seating - with a difference. 
How about an
armchair with in-built motion sensors that synchronise with the motion of
the movie you are watching? This is what the Quest series of chairs from D-Box promise. Unlike separate butt rumblers that you can bolt to your existing
chair/couch, this thing has been built from the ground up to interact with what you
are watching – within limits. The chairs boast a pair of direct-drive actuators
that lift and move the seat, doling out up to 2Gs of acceleration and
500lbs of lift. The seat is connected to your DVD player and D-Box software
interprets the movie you are watching. It has to be a movie it’s been coded for
though and the list, including action stalwarts The Animatrix and Die Hard -
stands at around 200 with new movies added regularly. 
These chairs have been around
for little while in the US and Canada but now there’s a UK dealer. The Quest
armchair is certainly different and you'll never actually be able to doze off during a movie again. But, it’s up to you whether or not you want to fork out around £2,700 to sit in something that will spill your drinks and curry all over you
every time Bruce spots a bad guy? Read a review here.
Shoot movies with your phone
You may raise your eyebrows and guffaw, but making movies
using camera phones is the latest craze. Shane Meadows, the maverick director
of one of the truly great revenge flicks – Dead Man’s Shoes – has made a
15-second short called ‘The Stairwell’ using an Nokia N90. 
Nokia is obviously
chuffed with the concept and has been pushing the idea through its new
competition for - you guessed it - 15-second films. This may be a fad but then pundits sniggered at
the idea of digital cameras built into mobiles phones and now look where we
are. If your inner Coppola/Tarantino/Farrelly Brothers is screaming for release then maybe you
should think about using all that extra phone functionality you paid through
the nose for last Christmas.
Tiny PMPs are getting ridiculous
We thought we had pegged one of the world’s smallest portable media
players (PMP) this week with the arrival of Samsung’s YP-T8. We were wrong. MPIO
is now laying claim to that title, although what good is a 1in screen unless
you have binoculars strapped to your face? 
Whereas the YP-T8 is small and has a
1.8in screen, the MPIO One is tiny with a 1in screen and weighs in at a little over
1oz. It comes in 256MB, 512MB and 1GB varieties, looks very cool, supports MP3/WMA/WMA DRM files, plays video
in MPEG-4 format and will be really easy to lose. MPIO wants you to believe
that, with the 1in 65,000 OLED display, “you can enjoy movies, pictures, and
games.” From where? We figure any further than about 7-8ins away and you'll need a visual aid. And finally, if you thought Apple was expensive (which it is), check out the heart-stopping price
tags of £119 for the scrawny 256MB model and £179 for the 1GB version.
Superman Returns footage gets thumbs up
The first glimpse of footage from the eagerly awaited
Superman Returns movie had a hard-core comic audience on its feet at the recent Comic Con
event. And, despite the odds, they were clapping not throwing chairs. 
Helmed
by X-Men director Bryan Singer, Superman Returns has attracted a zealot-like
level of scrutiny from millions of comic book fans and lovers of the
Christopher Reeve originals. After all, the unveiling of the new costume a few
months back sparked more Internet debate than the last general election.
Admittedly, it was far more interesting. To find out what the clip entailed –
albeit in words - go here, while you
can sate your movie queries about the new movie with this Q&A with Singer.
For everything else related to the Man of Steel, fly here.
Making fire out of water
It might look like some leftover Elven harp from Lord of the
Rings but this is the world’s cleanest fire because it’s fuelled by water. What better accessory for all that brushed aluminium AV and streaming wizardry in your living room? The
Aqueon from Heat & Glo uses tap water (although it prefers distilled),
through which a 220Volt charge is passed. 
This separates the hydrogen and oxygen
molecules, the former which is then ignited by the Aqueon. The leftover O2
gives the flame its colour. The only emissions are water vapour. Being
hydrogen, it pumps out fair bit of energy and needs four pints an hour which
means you should have it hooked up to water barrel or the mains. It may sound
fantastical but this actually exists. There is even a UK dealer here. But,
since we can’t find a price it’s either due to launch soon or is really, really
expensive. Be warned, people from Kent caught purchasing another water-guzzling
device during the summer months will be deported.
Sony launches LCD TV assault
Not one, two, but three new ranges of LCD TVs are on the
horizon from Sony. Due later this month, you can expect to see the S, V, and W
series of high definition TVs (HDTVs) winking at you from shop windows all over the UK. All models will come with
HDMI interfaces and some will sport integrated tuners for receiving free
digital broadcasts like Freeview. 
The S series is targeted at those making
their first hop from CRT to LCD and will feature 19in, 23in, 26in and 32in
models, with a 40in version due in October. Next up the monetary ladder is the
style-conscious V series with models ranging from 26in-40in, with a 42in plasma variant thrown in. Finally,
the W series is aimed at true movie buffs with no respect for money and
comprises a 40in LCD and 50in plasma screen. There are no prices yet but it’s
Sony so sell your kid's PlayStation 2 and start saving yesterday. More
details here.
Cinema in your pocket
Just a few days ago we revealed that Archos was planning a
mouth-watering 100GB version of its new 30GB AV500 portable media player. And, just
like that, here it is in all of its glory. The Archos AV 700 boasts a massive
7in screen which is almost double that of most PMPs and can playback video in a
solid 720 x 576 resolution at 25 frames per second. 
That said, it's also bigger and weighs in at about 20ozs. The 100GB drive is capable of
storing up to 250, 90-minute MPEG-4 movies, 55,000 songs, 1 million JPEG photos
and can record directly from the TV, VCR, PC or DVD player. Phew! DiVX is also
supported. Many of the features are similar to its AV 500 sibling, just on a
much grander scale. For those of you for whom the 3.7in screen and 30GB drive of the
very attractive and newly launched Zen Vision are just not enough, then this
could be the PMP for you. Amazon and others claim to have it now but you can expect the UK price to be around £420.
Killer mouse for gaming
The mouse and keyboard are the happily married couple for
playing first-person shooter (FPS) games but a new device is making adultery
very tempting. Part claw, part bear’s foot, the Mystify Claw from Terratec is
the oddest gaming device we’ve come across in a long time, But, it's one which could
make six straight hours of Half Life 2 a breeze. 
Toss aside the keyboard and dock your
hand in the Claw. It has up to 100-programmable commands per button and is
designed to let you support your mouse trigger finger with a more intuitive –
and let’s face it – comfortable movement/action controller. There are four Shift buttons for
accessing up to 30 commands and it even comes pre-configured for the most
popular FPS games. At $40, this is worth checking out just to have a plaster
cast of the Yeti’s foot on your desk. Read an in-depth review here.
Samsung's ultra-light portable media player
Mini portable media players (PMPs) are a half-way house in
terms of functionality and performance but that’s not stopping Samsung. Most
PMPs sport screens ranging from 2.5ins to 4ins, sport mini-hard disk drives of 20-40GB and weigh in at around 6-8 ounces. Samsung has just released
its YP-T8 PMP, a tiny Flash-based device in 512MB, 1GB and 2GB flavours.
Looking like a phone, it sports a tiny 1.8in screen with a 160 x 128 resolution,
which means it’s not winning any video quality awards. The weedy resolution, teeny weeny screen and storage
capacity of the drive make it unsuitable for watching movies but, isn’t that the
whole point of PMPs? Obviously, we are wrong. 
Samsung is hoping you will use it
for viewing some favourite (yet small) home movie clips, Net downloads, music videos
and JPEGs. The upside is that it looks cool, weighs a feather-like 2ozs, has 20
hours battery life (for audio), an FM tuner and recorder and it supports MP3,
WMA, WMA-DRM and ASF tunes. Finally, a handy USB slot will let you transfer
material directly onto it from another USB-based device without needing a PC.
This is less a PMP and more an MP3 player with some basic video functionality and a 1.8in display that will be more than adequate for choosing your next song. The prices won't hurt either with the three models coming in at $199, $249
and $299.
Dixons targets digital home
Whenever a retail behemoth like Dixons sets it sights on a
market it’s because it can smell a profit. This time it has teamed up with
Hitachi to exclusively sell the AXM140 – a do-it-all home cinema and music server system. Unlike
the more professional Cambridge Azur 640H music server, the AXM140 is a more
general purpose music and DVD system but with enough snappy features to make it
interesting - if the price is right. 
It
comprises two bookshelf speakers and four separates. It has a 40GB hard disk
drive, DVD drive, DAB radio, iPod hook-up and USB for hooking it up to MP3
players and your PC for transferring audio files. Tracks a can also be ripped directly
from CDs and DVDs. It’s not out until next month so there are no prices yet but
the entry level Hitachi AXM68D DAB hi-fi system, comprising two separates, is
around £100. A guess of £150-£200 can’t be too far off the mark.
Panasonic breaks new HDD/DVD recorder ground
Panasonic is continuing to drive forward in the DVD
recording market by launching the first combo DVD and hard disk drive recorder
with an in-built digital TV tuner. 
The DMR-EH60 boasts a massive 200GB hard disk
drive, which translates into 44 hours of DVD-quality recordings or 355 hours
(over 2 weeks) of VHS-quality recordings. The digital TV tuner will allow users
to pick up the 30 Freeview channels. The DMR-EH60 also records to blank DVDs,
plays DVDs back in progressive scan, supports DVD-Audio and MP3 playback. It
may be more expensive than the Sky+ 160 but you are getting a progressive scan
DVD player/recorder, an extra 40GB and extra connectivity options thrown in. It costs £480 here.
World’s biggest iPod accessory?
You really don’t expect iPod accessories to be three feet tall and weigh in at 20lbs but that’s because you haven’t yet met the iCarrier. Holding the crown as the biggest iPod add-on, this three-way speaker from Ignitek ups the sound stakes. 
The system is tall and thin and made up of an iPod dock on top, a pair of 20Watt speakers and a 25Watt subwoofer at the base. Aesthetically, this is a design classic but its $249 price tag might put off less fanatical iPod owners. Also, how much of market can there be for this when a growing number of truly great hi-fi systems are arriving with iPod and MP3 docks as standard? Still, it's very easy on the eye and if you want to see how it performs check out a good review here.
Sky’s HDTV box revealed
Here’s your first look at what will be sitting under, on or
beside many of your TVs sometime next year. For anyone interested in broadcast high
definition TV (HDTV), this is what Sky’s combined receiver and PVR (personal
video recorder) will look like. 
Built by Thomson, the sleek, curvy design and contemporary
styling looks very good indeed, and is streets ahead of Sky’s existing boxes.
All the main controls are unobtrusively placed on the front and there’s a
dial-control on top of the unit. Details on what exactly will be under the hood
are largely non-existent but it will boast a big hard disk drive (80GB-200GB) and a network
connection to enable iPTV. Sky’s HD content will use the MPEG-4 format and
will broadcast in two resolutions: 720p/50 and 1080i/25. Functionality will be similar, Sky claims, to Sky+ which according
to the latest financial report has racked up 888,000 subscribers – up from
397,000 a year ago. We’ll have the latest HDTV box details as soon as some
disgruntled Thomson/Sky employee posts them on the Web, so keep checking back. Here's a Sky HDTV FAQ for those planning on signing up next year.
Cut-price music downloads from Panasonic
There’s a lot of justified grumbling about the cost of
certain music download services which is why Panasonic thinks it can steal a
share of this crowded space. It has just unveiled its Panasonic Music Stream service which, for
the next few days, is offering tracks at 49p each – that’s around 30p cheaper
than rivals iTunes Music Sharing and Napster. 
That said, after August 7, the
price snaps back up to the regular wallet-crushing 79p per track. The site has
750,000 songs on offer right now and Panasonic has launched some new MP3
players to coincide with the launch, including the SVMP120 and the SVMP110 (pictured). Next
month, Virgin will re-launch itself in the download space with a new service and 1 million
tracks.
Gnomes invade UK digital homes
Not all gnomes are ugly and useless, apparently. Sky has
just announced the Sky Gnome, a wireless device that connects to any Sky box
and lets you stream TV and radio channels around the home. The Gnome has a range of
30 meters, boasts stereo sound and an LCD display that shows channel and programme
information. 
Parents might be happy (or concerned) to know that it can also be
used to spy on your kids, by listening into whatever they might be watching on the
TV from another room. There’s no subscription needed for this but, as of now, there’s
no pricing details for the little fellow either. Still, it will be here in October. See
some more info and pics here.
InFocus slashes projector prices
The 7210 is down
£500 to £3,999. Even better news is the that the price of the flagship ScreenPlay
777 (pictured), voted European High-End Projector of the Year 2004-2005, has plummeted
£6,000 to £13,999. Do these cuts herald the arrival of new models? We hope so.
Zen Vision finally ships
Creative’s Zen Vision 30GB portable media player (PMP) which has been playing hide and seek for some months now has finally been launched in the US which means UK arrival is imminent. Measuring 4.6in x2.9in x 0.8 in, the Zen Vision (previously blogged here) weighs in at just over 8ozs which makes it quite portable indeed. 
It sports an impressive 3.7in SharpPix display with a 640x480 resolution capable of showing 262,144 colours for video and photo playback. With a price tag of $399.99 (£225) at the moment, it’s priced very favourably against the recently launched Archos AV500 which is also a 30GB device with a 4in screen but costs £350. Be warned though that good US prices do not always translate into good UK ones. Full Zen Vision details here.
Star Wars TV series on the way
Not one, but two, Star Wars TV spin-offs are on the way under
the watchful eye of George Lucas: one animated and one live action. At the
recent Siggraph event, Lucas confirmed that the current three-minute Clone Wars
mini-series will be extended into a series of 30 minute adventures.
Details are quite
sketchy on the live-action one though which will feature mainly new characters and
some existing Stars Wars characters. Filming is due to start next year. One word of caution though, Lucas
said it will be something like the Young Indiana Jones TV series which means
you might not want to hold your breath after all.
Archos plans 100GB personal media player
Personal Media Players (PMPs)
or Personal Video Players (PVPs) are finally coming on strong in the features
department. We've just spotted the new Archos AV500 on the Argos Web site
which is just as well since Archos have largely failed to announce its existence
yet. 
With a £349 price tag, it’s more expensive than your average PMP device
but then you are getting more bang for your buck. For starters, it comes with a
30GB hard disk drive and a 4in widescreen display - almost double that of most other devices. You can record video
material directly to the device from your TV, VCR, PC or DVD player and there’s
even a timer device for scheduling recording times. Even better,
it will playback MPEG-4 content at 720 x 576 pixels at 25 frames-per-second. The
removable Lithium-ion battery promises 5 hours of video playback and 15 hours
of audio playback. If this device takes your fancy then you may want to hold
out just a little longer as the grapevine is awash with tales that Archos will
announce an 80GB-100GB version in the coming months.
DiVA hits home cinema high notes
UK sound specialist Arcam has spruced up its DiVA home cinema offerings with
the introduction of the AVP700 pre-amplifier and AVP1000 power amplifier. The AVP700 uses
Arcam’s high-end sound processor, the FMJ AV8, and offers features including
video format up-conversion and HDMI digital video switching.
Like Arcam’s Solo
range it also sports a front-panel jack for connecting MP3 players. The
AVP1000 is a 7.1 power amp boasting 135Watts RMS per channel and has a lot to live
up to thanks to its little brother, the AVR300, winning awards like ‘world’s
best AV amp’. The AVP700 and AVP1000 cost around £1,200 and £1,300 respectively.
Zen Micro Photo sneaks into UK
The long-awaited Zen Micro Photo from Creative Labs has
finally hit the UK, although you’d almost think that Creative didn’t want you
to know. 
There’s been no official announcement or Web-based material on any of its Web sites. Yet, Argos
are flogging it for £220. Maybe Creative thinks a stealth approach to marketing and
promotion is the way to defeat the new colour iPod. Previewed in January at the CES
2005 show, the Zen Micro Photo garnered much in the way of ‘oohs’ and
‘ahhs’, as well as an award. The 6GB device is essentially a Zen Micro with
a 2.5in OLED display for viewing your snaps. 
It can hold 3,000 MP3s or 7,500 JPEG
files and comes with an in-built FM radio. See some specs information at a
non-Creative site here.
Digital cinemas get one step closer
Hands up anyone who’s ever been to a movie where the image
was out of focus, scratched or had lots of visible ‘pops’? That’s everyone
then. The days of movies arriving on film reels and played on dodgy old
projectors could be coming to an end in the coming years as Hollywood agrees to
go digital. For the first time the major studios have agreed on something
through the industry consortium, Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), and will start
distributing movies digitally. Movies will be encrypted and sent via the Net to each
cinema where it would be decrypted onsite. The reason for the shift is money,
of course. Studios are hoping to save almost $1bn – the cost of sending out
film reels across the world. After three years, version 1.0 of the requirements
and specifications for digital cinema have arrived in a mammoth 176-page document. 
Directors including James Cameron, George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez are
already jumping for joy at the news and singing the praises of digital movies.
Cameron’s Battle Angel Alita (pictured) will be a live/CGI digital version of the
popular Manga comic and anime series. We should be jumping for joy too since it
means no more movies in ‘FuzzyVision’. However, cinemas will need to upgrade to
servers and digital projectors which will cost from £30,000-£70,000 per screen. As you can
imagine, neither the studios nor the cinema owners have agreed on who should foot
the bill. Good articles in Wired and the LA Times about what it will all mean.
Movies
Monster 30GB camcorder from JVC
From September, JVC will start rolling out the new
compact (14oz) Everio range. The Everio GZ-MG20,
GZ-MG30 and GZ-MG50 models will sport 20GB and 30GB hard disk drives. The
top-end GZ-MG50 will let you record over 7 hours of video at the best
resolution in MPEG-2 format. The USB 2.0 port means content can be transferred
quickly to PC or external storage drive while all models will come with both
Windows and Apple Mac software. The flagship GZ-MG50, due in October, will cost
around £750. More details on the range here.
10,000 radio stations for £199
There are radios and then there are Wi-Fi Internet radios.
Acoustic Energy (AE) is planning to introduce it’s AE Wi-Fi radio in time for Christmas and claims it can access more than
99 per cent of all Internet-based radio stations in the world. 
And, there are
no subscription costs to pay. This is all down to a deal AE has inked with
Internet radio gateway company, Reciva. The radio connects wirelessly to your
broadband connection and the Reciva gateway downloads links to over 2,500 radio
stations listed by country and music genre. Even better, the radio acts as
media streaming device and will let you access your-PC-based Real Audio, MP3s
and WMA files around the home via the in-built 802.11b wireless technology. For under £200, this could be a worthy stocking filler.
Fujitsu's heavyweight projector weighs in
After you’ve won the Lottery or flogged your car, you may be
able to afford the new super high-resolution projector from Fujitsu.
Stretching chequebooks to the extreme is the £17,000 LPF-D711 LCD projector. DLP projectors have just started to dominate
LCD models in sales terms for the first time, but at the high end it’s all
about performance and the pricey LPF-D711 is not exactly aimed at your average home
cinema buff. 
It comes with three of Epson’s super high resolution and high
contrast LCD panels - one each for red,
green and blue. It has a stunning high-definition resolution of 1920 x 1080, a
brightness of 1,200 Lumens and a quoted contrast of 3300:1 It also features a
separate connector box that offers more connectivity options than you will ever
need, including HDCP-compliant HDMI input, four component video, four S-video,
five composite video, two RGB VGA and one DVI-D, as well as an RS-232 control
port. To see how DLP and
LCD projector technologies square up, cast your eyes over this excellent overview.
Big boom subs from Meridian
For that big movie rumble you need a decent subwoofer to
make the most of low-frequency sounds. Just take a listen to the beach landing
from Saving Private Ryan with, and without, 
a subwoofer and you’ll know exactly
what we mean. High-end audio specialist Meridian Audio has taken the wraps off
two big additions to its range with the SW1600 and the SW5500 subwoofers,
featuring single and dual 12in, long throw bass drivers, respectively. The new
models will replace the existing D1500 and D2500. 
They come with
separate digital and analogue inputs, which are powered separately to
reduce distortion. Meridian claims that both models have been optimised to work
just as well with music and movies. The
SW1600 and the SW5500 are priced at £1,995 and £2,560.
