The high definition TV (HDTV) market is picking up steam and traditional TV manufacturers are facing competition from the technology sector. Since the future of TVs lies with flat-panel displays, which were developed for the IT sector, it stands top reason that leading monitor manufacturers want to get in on the HDTV action. Viewsonic has just introduced three LCD HDTVs aiming to do just that. It has extended its NextVision range with the N3260w (32in), N3760w (37in) and N4060w (40in) range of TVs, with native resolutions of 1366 x 768, making them HD Ready. All three also boast a HDMI interface, which supports both uncompressed high definition video and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. The contrast rating on the 32in and 37in models is 800:1, which increases to 1000:1 on the 40in model. All panels have a response time of 8 milliseconds. So what makes Viewsonic think it can steal some share from the big TV players? Price. Shipping next month, the recommended retail prices for the 32in, 37in and 40in models are £755.00, £1,044.00 and £1,335, respectively.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 31, 2005 in Active Home, Film, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (11)

Skinny, flat panel TVs might be all the rage but there is still a healthy market for the new generation of slimmed down, rear-projection TVs. Unlike the monster rear-projection TVs that took up half of your living room, these Weight Watchers versions are proving to be quite popular with the punters. Sony’s latest KDFE50A12U is a 50in HDTV based around the 3LCD projection technology. A technology in use by a few companies, 3LCD is a small rival to DLP projection technology and uses three projection panels instead of one, each used for reflecting a different colour: red, green and blue. Supporters claim it leads to better and brighter colour reproduction. The TV is HD Ready, has an integrated digital TV tuner and also features a High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) that can transfer digital information without signal interference. And how much will this king size 50in TV cost? Under £1,400, which is around the same price as a decent 32in LCD flat panel HDTV.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 28, 2005 in Active Home, Film, Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

BT wants a slice of the next generation TV market and has recruited Philips to help it get it. The telecoms giant has signed up Philips to build set-top boxes capable of delivering high definition TV (HDTV) through your broadband connections. The personal video recorder (PVR)-styled box will let you store up to 80 hours of TV, deliver HD broadcasts, access to digital terrestrial channels and an “extensive video on demand selection” including TV and music. Other services will include Catch-up TV, letting you see anything you missed over the past week, access to 30 TV channels, communications services that support instant messaging, chat and video telephony on TV. There will also be support for online gaming, and shopping – of course. Due to launch in Autumn 2006. More details here.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 27, 2005 in Active Home, Television, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (12)

Philips has already made a big splash in the DVD recorder market and is hoping to tempt even more punters to ditch their VCRs with some new additions. There are two hard disk drive models - the DVDR3300H and DVDR7300H – and one standalone recorder, the DVDR3305, which records to blank DVDs. First up, the heavy hitters. The DVDR7300H and DVDR3300H boast 250GB and 80GB HDDs respectively, each capable of storing roughly 400 hours and 130 hours of footage – although you may want to check at what resolution. Programmes can also be burned directly to DVD+R/RW discs. Both players have the usual Time-Shift capabilities and also sports an Instant Replay button to replay any scenes just watched. They also support Dual-Layer blank DVD discs, have i.Link (FireWire) interfaces, two Scarts and in the case of the DVDR7300H, a HDMI input for high definition content. The entry-level DVDR3305 can record up to six hours on DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs, and has four preset recording modes. It costs £150. The 80GB DVDR3300H is out now and will cost around £270. The DVDR7300H is due next month but no prices yet.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 26, 2005 in Active Home | Permalink | Comments (2)

Panasonic has expanded its Viera range of flat-panel TVs with two, new high-definition models. The TX-32LXD52 and TX-26LXD52 are 32in and 26in LCD TVs respectively, and come with integrated digital TV tuners for receiving HDTV signals. They also sport the all important HDMI interface for hooking up to high definition sources like DVD players, which will get their first batch of HD movies from Hollywood studios this Christmas. The TVs have a 1386 x 768 pixel resolution as well as 20W of stereo audio. In the case of the TX-32LXD52, the sound is beefed up by the addition of two 3W subwoofers for bass sound reproduction. The TVs also come with Panasonic’s 3D Colour Management System which alters the colour and brightness displayed by each pixel. According to the company the result is more vibrant colours and more realistic rendering of skin tones. On sale now, the 26in and 32in models are priced just under £800 and £1,100. You can track the best prices here.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 25, 2005 in Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digital radio is fast becoming more widespread and affordable. So why pay £200 for the new Evoke 3 digital audio broadcasting (DAB) radio from market leader, Pure Digital? The Evoke 3 sits at the top of the company’s range and comes with every bell and whistle you can cram into a DAB radio. Let’s start with the ReVu dial which lets you pause and rewind live radio. The Evoke 3 also lets you record tracks or complete radio shows directly on to SD storage cards. There’s a Electronic Programming Guide to let you know what’s on different channels, and when, so that you can set the timer to record it automatically. There is a large 6-line LCD display for displaying channel and song details as well as sports results. The remote control will allow you to access 99 preset channels and you can also hook up and control your iPod, MiniDisc or other MP3 player. There are more features - too many to mention here – and you can read about them here. It will ship next month.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 24, 2005 in Active Home | Permalink | Comments (0)

High-definition (HD) is the buzzword sweeping through the home entertainment market and while HDTVs take a lot of the limelight, projectors are changing just as fast. Panasonic is the latest to join the ranks of those offering reasonably priced high-definition projectors with the introduction of the midrange, PT-AE900. As an LCD-based model it is overshadowed by the growing ranks of DLP models, but it has a decent set oif specs for the £1,500 price tag. Resolution is 1,280 x 720 pixels, which means it is HD-ready, and it sports the HDMI interface for accepting digital content. The claimed contrast of 5500:1 is impressive and the brightness is 1100 Lumens. The projector also comes with what Panasonic says is the industry’s first “learning” remote control that can memorise the functions of multiple home cinema components. It will allow you to control up to eight electronics devices from Panasonic and other vendors, which is quite handy. Shipping now.

home entertainment projector Panasonic HDMI

Posted by Martin Lynch on October 21, 2005 in Active Home | Permalink | Comments (0)

PC speakers have a come long way from the tinny sounding freebies bundled with your new PC. These days they can be fully-fledged multimedia centers wrapped up in designer lifestyle packaging. This is exactly what Creative is aiming for with its I-Trigue L3800 speaker system for PCs and MP3 players. This 2.1 system delivers 48 Watts of power and adds plenty of beef to that sound with the subwoofer. You can hook the system up to your PC or notebook or use it as a dock for a number of Creative MP3/media players, including: Zen Vision, Zen Sleek, Zen Sleek Photo, Zen Micro or the Zen MicroPhoto MP3 player. It’s also the first system to come with a wireless remote for controlling the system and your MP3 player from up to 20-feet away. Shipping next month it will cost around £100 but you can pre-order one here for £95.

MP3 Creative Labs multimedia home entertainment

Posted by Martin Lynch on October 20, 2005 in Active Home, Film, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Specialist UK speaker manufacturer, Castle, has extended its Compact range of music and movie speakers with the addition of the Castle Compact Column (CCC) floor-standing loudspeaker. While a lot bigger than the rest of the Compact range, the floor-standers have been designed for cinephiles that want a little bit more in the way of dynamics and control. Traditional in look, these wood-finish speakers have been matched in timbre to the rest of the Compact range to provide seamless surround sound. The cabinets are fully braced to deliver tight bass and heavily damped with bituminous pads to dramatically increase the signal-to-noise ratio. The CCC are shipping now with a price tag of £550 per pair and a welcome 5-year guarantee.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 19, 2005 in Active Home, Film, Music | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft has released a massive upgrade to its home-oriented PC operating system, Media Center Edition 2005. One of the key features will be the ability to stream digital music, videos, photos, and standard and high-definition television (HDTV) and movies from Media Center PCs to any television in your house via the forthcoming Xbox 360 gaming system. Using the built-in Media Center Extender technology in Xbox 360 – due out at the end of November – it can connect wirelessly to a Media Center Edition PC. This will let you access anything on your PC as well as thousands of on-demand movies, music and videos available for download. It’s also the first time you will be able to stream HD content from Media PCs. Sadly, burning HDTV content is not supported. If you want to burn some HD content, it will be converted first to standard DVD format.That said, the new software supports numerous TV cards and the ability to record up four programmes at once. Read more about Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 18, 2005 in Active Home | Permalink | Comments (1)

With prices falling every month, now is a good time to be thinking of upgrading your DVD player to a DVD recorder (DVR). Now that VCR has been consigned to the scrap heap, DVD recorders are becoming amore common appliance in many homes. Toshiba has just announced its latest models, the £160 D-R150 and the £230 D-VR15 DVD Recorder/VCR combi. Both support various blank DVD disc formats, including DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD-R. Whereas the D-R150 has been designed for those ready to leave their VCR days behind them the D-VR15 is for those that have a lot of material of video that they want to transfer and preserve and DVD. Features on both models include timeslip recording, PAL progressive and component video outputs and editing facilities. They can also handle  JPEG photo files and MP3 music files on CDs. For the latest prices go here.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 17, 2005 in Active Home | Permalink | Comments (0)

Talking for free from your PC via the Net is useful but not so good if you want the freedom to do it all over the house. Enter wireless networking company, Linksys, which has teamed up with the market leader in free Internet telephony Skype, to launch the Internet Telephony Kit (CIT200). The CIT200 is the first Skype cordless phone bundled with a Skype starter pack, with support for SkypeOut, SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail. This gives you the freedom to stroll around the house making and receiving free Internet calls - as long as you are online at the time. You can also opt for some other paid-for Skype services that allow you to make calls to traditional phones and mobiles and send and receive message up to ten minutes long. Today, Skype is signing up new users at a rate of 170,000 each day and having used the PC-based version of Skype, we can see why. It's easy to set-up, the quality is excellent and most importantly, it's free. Due out in time for Christmas, the CIT200 is priced at £99.99 but you can find it here for £81.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 14, 2005 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Portable DVD players are being somewhat overshadowed by the rise in portable video players that use hard drives but this has not stopped Panasonic from rolling out three new models. The DVD-LS85, DVD-LS90 and DVD-LX95 all sport big, 9in screens and are targeted for use by travellers, whether it’s for those long train journeys or for keeping the kids in the back of the car quiet for a few hours. All of them are multi-format players which means they can play DVD-RAM, DVD-R/+R, DVD-RW/+RW and DVD-Video discs, CDs, CD-R/RW, VCD and Super VCD, MP3 and WMA music files and JPEG photos. The DVD-LX95 is Panasonic’s flagship portable DVD player and boasts an SD Card slot so you can playback movies and photos in MPEG4 and JPEG formats, respectively. The biggest difference seems to be in battery life with the DVD-LS85, DVD-LS90 and DVD-LX95 having claimed battery life of three, six and ten hours. Prices start at £279 and run to £499.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 13, 2005 in Active Home, Film, Television, Travel | Permalink | Comments (1)

With rumours of Apple entering the portable video market, Mustek has announced a high-end portable media player (PMP) with a whopping 60GB of storage. The PVR-H160 will sit above the current 40GB PVR-H140 which retails for just under £200. It comes with a good-sized 3.6in colour TFT screen and integrated speaker. Not only can it play back video and music but a software converter means it can record TV shows and movies directly from TV, VCRs and DVD players. It supports MP3 and WAV music files as well a wide range of video formats, including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV, DivX, XviD, and M-jpeg. Due out next month, it will cost around £300.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 12, 2005 in Active Home | Permalink | Comments (4)

Wires are so ‘yesterday’ these days, so it’s no surprise to see wireless headphones become fashionable. Sound specialists, Creative Labs, thinks its Bluetooth-enabled CB2530 headphones are what you need to enhance your digital lifestyle. Available in black and the almost unavoidable ‘white’, the CB2530 wireless headphones incorporate version 1.2 of the Bluetooth specification which uses Adaptive Frequency Hopping (AFH) to avoid the kind of interference common with headphones using older Bluetooth versions. They have a range of 8.5 metres but battery life is quite limited at eight hours. The headphones are compatible with a variety of audio devices, such as stereo systems, video players,  digital audio players, TV sets and gaming consoles. Shipping now, they cost £80.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 11, 2005 in Active Home, Film, Music | Permalink | Comments (0)

High-end audio supplier, Naim, is set to launch its first ‘all-in-one’ music and video solution next month. The n-Vi is an integrated DVD player, DVD-Audio player, CD player, AV processor, audio preamplifier and five channel power amplifier. Faroudja scanning technology is used to provide leading-edge image quality while the DVI Digital video output is HCDP-enabled for handling high-definition TV (HDTV) content. It can also be decked out with an optional FM/DAB radio module while a video scaler module [used for improving picture quality] including an external video input will be out by next Spring. Surround sound modes supported by the unit include Dolby Digital, DTS and Dolby Pro Logic II. It will cost £2,995 when it ships and an additional £255 for the FM/DAB tuner. More detail here.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 10, 2005 in Active Home | Permalink | Comments (0)

Portable video players come in all shapes and sizes but very few of them cost £25,000. That’s what you’ll have to pay in order to get your mitts on the world’s most expensive video/MP3 player. The Presidential from Douglas J. Music Group is based on the companies X2 player but that’s where the similarity ends. Right now both players boast a 1Gb drive, video playback via its 65,000 colour screen, support for MP1, MP2, MP3, MPX, JPG, WMA, ASF, WAV, and AV formats. Where the Presidential differs is in the number of diamonds you get. Apart from signing a hefty cheque you get to choose the configuration of all those sparkly little diamonds. Some more detail here.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 7, 2005 in Music | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sharp has been busy this week sorting out more goodies for your digital home. At the Cedia show in the US, Sharp was showing off its 65in Aquos LCD TV, model LC-65D90U, and its upcoming XV-Z12000 MARK II front projector for the home. The TV, which will cost a staggering £12,000 when it ships this month, is high-definition ready (HD-Ready) with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080. It has a response time of less than 12 milliseconds, a contrast ratio of 800:1 and both HDMI and DVI interfaces. The high end XV-Z12000 DLP projector boasts a whopping contrast ratio (7000:1) and a high brightness level of 1,000 ANSI Lumens. It’s a 16:9 projector and is 720p high definition capable. Due to ship this month it will set you back roughly £6,000.

Posted by Martin Lynch on October 6, 2005 in Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cables are the unsung heroes of any home cinema set-up but unfortunately few people give it any thought. A good rule of thumb is to reserve 10 per cent of whatever your home cinema budget is for decent cables. Trust us, the ones that come with your 5.1 speakers, DVD player and AV receivers will actually restrict the performance of your set-up. Cabling specialist Supra has just launched a range of cost-conscious quality cables, designed to suit any home cinema environment. The Supra HD100 DVI cable will cost you £34.99 for a 1m version while a 1m HF100 HDMI cable starts at £39.99. In the world of cabling, this is good value. What’s better is that they also come in 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 15, and even 20m lengths at just £10 per metre. For you money you end up with clearer pictures and very little cross interference of the type experienced by using budget versions. After all, what’s the point of shifting to HDTV if you compromise the image with sub-standard connections?

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 5, 2005 in Active Home | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you are in the market for a high definition TV (HDTV) then you’ll want to make sure that what you are getting is the real deal. There are a lot of disgruntled people out there in UK who are delighted that they bought their big, expensive flat-panel TVs but are furious to discover that most of those already sold in the UK are not capable of displaying HD content. This is because the panel resolutions are too low. To ensure consumers know what they are getting, EICTA, the European Industry Association for Information Systems, Communication Technologies and Consumer Electronics – has announced its minimum requirements for HDTV receivers and a new logo. This is the industry body that came up with the 'HD-Ready' logo – which tells you that a TV can handle high-definition images and all it needs is a digital TV tuner. If you want the technical details, go here, but it’s the logo that counts for the rest of us. Just keep your eyes peeled for the new HDTV logo because it means your new flat panel TV is not just ready for HD signals, it has a digital TV tuner in-built.The new logo applies also to HD receivers and combined devices, like digital video recorders (DVRs) with in-built digital receivers.

TV HDTV HD home entertainment

Posted by Martin Lynch on October 4, 2005 in Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

Epson is determined to push its 3LCD-based projectors into the home market with the introduction of four new, home cinema projectors. The new models are the EMP-TW600, EMP-TW520, EMP-TW20 (pictured) and the EMP-TWD1. The entry level EMP-TW20 comes in at a competitive £699 and boasts a brightness of 1200 ANSI Lumens, using a 135Watt E-TORL lamp, a 1000:1 contrast ratio, native 16:9 aspect ratio and six preset colour modes to suit different rooms. At the top end are the EMP-TW600 and EMP-TW520. The EMP-TW600 features a W-XGA resolution (1280 x 720 pixels) and HDMI input which makes it HD-Ready. It has a brightness of 1600 ANSI and a very high 5000:1 contrast ratio. It costs £1,299. The EMP-TW520 also offers W-XGA resolution and is HD Ready with a contrast ratio of 4000:1 and a brightness of 1,400 ANSI lumens. It costs £1,199. Finally, there’s Epson’s combined DVD/projector /speaker package, the EMP-TWD1. We covered it already here, but now we have the official price: £899. More details here.

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Posted by Martin Lynch on October 3, 2005 in Film | Permalink | Comments (0)