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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 tout