CES 2010

I was surprised to see Haier in a huge booth in the middle of the convention center's Central Hall. This Chinese company has been at CES in years past, but until now, they've had a smaller booth somewhere in the back. Based in Qindao (or Tsing Tao, where the beer of that name is brewed), Haier is one of China's largest appliance manufacturers, and it's been selling LCD TVs in the US market since 2006. Where are they sold, you ask? Mainly independent appliance and TV stores such as BrandSmart; they are also big on the QVC shopping network.

Distributed by Koetsu USA, Italian manufacturer Blacknote introduced a high-end solution for playing any type of digital file including Wav, Flac, AAC, OGG, DFF, WMA MP3, MP4, and M4O. The DSS30 (shown in foreground) uses a 24-bit DAC and features four USB ports (two in front, two in back) that accept hard drives as well as flash drives. It also accepts direct input from memory sticks and CD-Rom players. With both balanced and unbalanced outputs it can be integrated with a range of high-end audio gear. The Ethernet port allows it be integrated into a home network as well.

Perhaps the most highlighted section of Hitachi's booth is called Style Unlimited, in which the current Ultra Thin TVs are wrapped in various designer frames, including the gold-leaf pictured here. The gold leaf was applied by a company called Hakuichi, one of the most famous in Japan for this skill. Hitachi had several people in the booth asking attendees which designs they preferred to gather data on the US market. Some of the designs were way cool and very beautiful, but I always prefer a black bezel that calls as little attention to itself as possible, and I said so to the pollster. However, I realize that I'm quite geeky and many Joe the (insert occupation here) types might really like this idea.

Sure enough, Hitachi is demonstrating wireless HDMI using ADI's JPEG2000 codec and UWB wireless transmission. The LCD TV is the current Ultra Thin model with an outboard input/tuner/processor box (on the floor) whose output is connected to a transmitter (on the riser next to the box) that sends the signal to a receiver (mounted on the TV's pedestal), which is connected to the TV's HDMI input. The picture looked fine to me under less-than-ideal conditions.